W. Bradford Wilcox

Wilcox was born on August 21, 1970.[5] As an undergraduate, Wilcox was a Jefferson Scholar at the University of Virginia. He graduated with a bachelor's degree with high honors in 1992. He earned an MA with distinction in 1997, and a PhD in 2001, both from Princeton University. He held research fellowships at Princeton University, Yale University, and the Brookings Institution before joining the faculty of the University of Virginia, where he is a Professor of Sociology and director of graduate studies.[1] His sociological research centers on marriage, fatherhood, and cohabitation, particularly on how family structure, civil society, and culture affect the quality and stability of family life, and the ways families shape the economic outcomes of individuals and societies. He teaches undergraduate- and graduate-level courses on statistics, family, and religion.[6][2]

Wilcox has authored and edited several books, and published numerous articles on marriage, fatherhood, parenting, and religion. His work has appeared in the American Sociological Review, Social Forces,[7] and The Journal of Marriage and Family.[8][2]

He has published articles in more popular venues as well, such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Review, and The Weekly Standard. As director of the National Marriage Project, Wilcox also oversees the publication of an annual report on marriage in America, entitled The State of Our Unions.[9][2]

Wilcox's research on marriage, religion, and family life has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, Slate, The Huffington Post,[10] National Review Online, National Journal,[11] National Public Radio, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, NBC's The Today Show, and numerous other media outlets. His work is also regularly cited in academic publications.[12][2]

Wilcox contributed a piece to The Atlantic in June 2023 that describes the growing political polarization of the sexes and what it means for the future of marriage.[13] In August 2023, Wilcox wrote a piece for UnHerd based off research from the University of Chicago finding a 30-percentage-point happiness divide between married and unmarried Americans.[14] In November 2021, Wilcox contributed a piece to the Wall Street Journal describing how Glenn Youngkin's victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race edged the Republican Party further toward becoming "the parents' party."[15]

In May 2014, Wilcox spoke along with several other experts at a meeting convened by the United Nations as part of the 20th Anniversary of the International Year of the Family. His topic was "The Family in Transition: Should We Be Concerned About Declines in Fertility and Marriage?"[16]

Additionally, in February 2015, Wilcox testified before the House Ways and Means Committee's Subcommittee on Human Resources about the challenges low-income families face in today's economy.[17]

Bradford Wilcox has been a strong proponent of the success sequence.[18] His research surrounding the family, especially in America, has culminated in the position that strengthening families requires, among other things, encouraging young Americans to graduate high school, get a full-time job, and have children after marriage. Wilcox and other scholars claim these three checkboxes are a sort of safeguard against poverty.[19] His view on this has caused some controversy, however. Critics allege that scholars like Wilcox do not pay adequate attention to social structures that stymie individual efforts to escape poverty.[20] The data supporting the success sequence reflect selection effects, in their view: it demonstrates that advantaged young adults are more likely to graduate, get a job, and have children in wedlock—but it does not necessarily prove that people who graduate, get a job, and have children in wedlock will become successful.[21]

• Soft Patriarchs and New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands, The University of Chicago Press, 2004
• Gender and Parenthood: Biological and Social Scientific Perspectives, Columbia University Press, 2013
• Whither the Child? Causes and Consequences of Low Fertility ed. with Eric Kaufmann, Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2013.
• Soul Mates: Religion, Sex, Love, & Marriage among African Americans and Latinos, Oxford University Press, 2016
• Unequal Family Lives: Causes and Consequences in Europe and the Americas ed. with Naomi Cahn, June Carbone, and Laurie DeRose, Cambridge University Press, 2018

• Official website
• University of Virginia biography of Wilcox
• The National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia