Thank you for posting this. I spent the past hour reading this site. Very interesting read.
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Yes, itâs a very good one.
This is more statistical than individual advice, but it shows that marriage as an institution leads to much better outcomes for raising children (even compared to divorced and remarried families, cohabiting but unmarried families, etc). With kids not in the picture, marriage probably matters a lot less.
Educated, middle-class mothers tend to be dedicated to what I have called The Mission, the careful nurturing of their childrenâs cognitive, emotional, and social development, which, if all goes according to plan, will lead to the honor roll and a spot on the high school debate team, which will in turn lead to a good college, then perhaps a graduate or professional degree, which will all lead eventually to a fulfilling career, a big house in a posh suburb, and a sense of meaningful accomplishment. Itâs common sense, backed up by plenty of research, that youâll have a better chance of fully âdevelopingâ your childrenâthat is, of fulfilling The Missionâif you have a husband around. Children of single mothers have lower grades and educational attainment than kids who grow up with married parents, even after controlling for race, family background, and IQâŚ
This all points to a deeply worrying conclusion: the Marriage Gapâand the inequality to which it is tiedâis self-perpetuating. A low-income single mother, unprepared to carry out The Mission, is more likely to raise children who will become low-income single parents, who will pass that legacy on to their children, and so on down the line. Married parents are more likely to be visiting their married children and their grandchildren in their comfortable suburban homes, and those married children will in turn be sending their offspring off to good colleges, superior jobs, and wedding parties. Instead of an opportunity-rich country for all, the Marriage Gap threatens us with a rigid caste society.
So what is it about the nuclear family that makes it work so well for children decades after Americans have declared it optional?
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Kelly Raley, Megan Sweeney, and Danielle Wondra begin by reviewing common explanations for these differences, which first gained momentum in the 1960s (though patterns of marital instability diverged earlier than patterns of marriage formation). Structural factorsâfor example, declining employment prospects and rising incarceration rates for unskilled black menâclearly play a role, the authors write, but such factors donât fully explain the divergence in marriage patterns. In particular, they donât tell us why we see racial and ethnic differences in marriage across all levels of education, and not just among the unskilled.
Which of course begs the question of why they are unskilled. I have not read the paper but an interesting issue that should be covered is differences between black immigrants from, for example, Nigeria and Jamaica and black US citizens.
Did they study long term committed couples that were unmarried too? Or is that too rare to count? I suspect itâs the two active parent component that gets the better outcomes, and not due to the fact that they were legally married.
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