Wilcox has a bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. He held research fellowships at Princeton University, Yale University, and the Bookings Institution before joining the faculty of the University of Virginia. 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.