Strengthening couple functioning to enhance child outcomes in low-income families: A randomized controlled trial

Large-scale efforts have disseminated couple and relationship programs to strengthen couple relationships among low-income families, with the hope that doing so would yield benefits for partners and their children. The present study provided a rigorous test of this hypothesis by examining indirect effects of a couple-focused preventive intervention on child outcomes in a large sample of low-income families.

Data were drawn from the Supporting Healthy Marriage evaluation, in which 6,298 low-income married couples with children were randomized to a relationship education intervention with supplemental activities and family support services or to a control condition. Couple relationship functioning was assessed 12 months postrandomization, and five child outcomes (self-regulation, internalizing behavior problems, externalizing behavior problems, cognitive and academic performance, and social competence) were assessed 30 months postrandomization.

Structural equation models revealed that the intervention had significant indirect effects on children's self-regulation, internalizing behavior problems (children younger than 14 years), externalizing behavior problems (children younger than 14 years), cognitive and academic performance (children older than 5 years), and social competence, through enhanced couple functioning.

Participation in a couple-focused intervention had significant indirect effects on low-income couples' children 30 months later through intervention-derived improvements in the couple relationship. These results suggest that strengthening couple relationships may be a viable option to indirectly promote child well-being in low-income families. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).