America is deeply engaged in a debate about marriage.
But it's not the most urgent dialogue worth having about an institution that has served to order society for millennia.
What the current discussion about expanding matrimony obscures is the bigger picture about traditional marriage, namely, that it's in decline -- and that this decline has dramatic and devastating consequences for society, children in particular.
The connection between marriage and improved economic outcomes is not novel.
In 1965, as President Lyndon B. Johnson was declaring "war on poverty," a highly controversial report by Labor Secretary Daniel Patrick Moynihan identified the deterioration of the family in the African-American community as one of several major catalysts for growing economic and social inequality.
At the time, more than half of all black women and about two-thirds of Hispanic and Anglo women were married; and just over 20 percent of black infants and between 2 and 3 percent of Anglo infants were born to single mothers.
Half a century later, those numbers have not declined -- they have exploded.
According to government statistics, 40.7 percent of all 2012 births were out of wedlock, including 72.2 percent in the African-American community; 53.5 percent of Hispanic children; and 29.4 percent of Anglo children.
Revisiting the Moynihan report last year, the Urban Institute found that "the social trends that concerned Moynihan have worsened for blacks and nonblacks alike," suggesting that the "factors driving the decline [of marriage] do not lie solely within the black community but in the larger social and economic context."
The numbers themselves are alarming and they raise serious questions about why marriage is disintegrating.
But it is the bounty of research correlating family structure to the economic mobility of children -- or lack thereof -- that makes concerns about the declining marriage culture a public policy crisis.
A report by the Pew Charitable Trusts' Economic Mobility Project looked at the impact of single parenthood on a child's economic opportunities. It found that both "children of divorced mothers or [those] who were born to unmarried mothers are less likely to be upwardly mobile in relative terms than are children of continuously married mothers."
It seems obvious that two-parent households advantage children, as they tend to have greater resources both financial and social (time, energy, attention) that make kids more likely to graduate and get well-paying jobs and less likely to be incarcerated or become single parents.
But the impact of family structure has ripple effects that extend well beyond individual households, according to new comprehensive data by Harvard economist Raj Chetty. Chetty and his co-authors found that "family structure correlates with upward mobility not just at the individual level but also at the community level, perhaps because the stability of the social environment affects children's outcomes more broadly."
The Brookings Institution warns that marriage has become "a mechanism through which advantage is protected and passed on," as wealthier, committed parents tend to get and stay married and raise their children together, while less affluent women are more likely to have children outside of marriage and raise them on their own, often in communities of similar structure, where they enter vicious cycles of downward mobility for themselves and their progeny.
Marriage is not a silver bullet. Encouraging more single mothers to wed the fathers of their children will not magically reduce poverty. Nor is the decimated marriage culture the only factor limiting economic mobility, which is also affected by racial and economic segregation, school quality and low levels of social capital.
But attempts to redistribute income and expand the welfare state, including those called for in Moynihan's report 50 years ago, have not had the success that lawmakers expected.
As Ron Haskins, director of Brookings' Center on Children and Families, told The Washington Post, "We are not going to have an effective solution to the growing inequality and poverty in the U.S. unless we can do something about family structure."
In the war on inequality, supporting policies that promote more stable family environments may not be a bad place to start.
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Cynthia M. Allen is a Star-Telegram editorial writer/columnist.
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(c)2014 Fort Worth Star-Telegram
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Distributed by MCT Information Services
I wonder how limiting access to birth control and abortion will impact this situation?
Quote from: Lunican on March 07, 2014, 01:55:00 PM
I wonder how limiting access to birth control and abortion will impact this situation?
A moral conundrum. Limits would seem to certainly drive up live births. And yet the
process of abortion just makes me sick. I read recently that more black children were killed by abortion in New York City than were born last year. Just a shocking thought.
It does seem to me that we should tread carefully when we disregard the wisdom of thousands of years of civilization. I won't bore you with my religious views, but this country definitely should find guidance.
Quote from: NotNow on March 07, 2014, 01:44:25 PM
traditional marriage...that it's in decline -- and that this decline has dramatic and devastating consequences for society, children in particular.
Perhaps we should outlaw divorce.
Quote from: finehoe on March 07, 2014, 02:40:18 PM
Quote from: NotNow on March 07, 2014, 01:44:25 PM
traditional marriage...that it's in decline -- and that this decline has dramatic and devastating consequences for society, children in particular.
Perhaps we should outlaw divorce.
I believe that you are being sarcastic, but I will reply seriously...I'm not sure that this problem is one that can (or should) be "legislated". It seems to me to be more of a cultural issue. What is important to us? What kind of a society do we want? If we truly learn from history, what have we learned from the last fifty years?
Quote from: Lunican on March 07, 2014, 01:55:00 PM
I wonder how limiting access to birth control and abortion will impact this situation?
What Moynahan (one of the most intelligent congressmen in a long time) found was that social disorder bred more social disorder.
I don't think a personal tool like birth control or personal choice like abortion will bring resolution to a social dilemma. Kind of like aspirin for a cancer.
Our society is based and built on family structures and the report shows that when kids fall outside of that structure they tend to enter a cycle that can spread through further generations.
No silver bullet for sure, but there are lots of options to attack it.
Having worked in indigent shelters, with battered women & kids shelters and the homeless just my unscientific survey of those involved came down to a few things. Not all inclusive of everyone, just what I heard and experienced with the men and women I helped.
- EducationMany I spoke with admitted that theyhad some form of sex education but weren't paying attention or didn't know what it meant to them. This was surprising
- Subtance ImpairmentBoth women and men admitted that much of their sexual encounters were while they were under the influence of a substance. Some women didn't even remember the encounter, which of course brings up the criminal aspect of assault. For men it was mostly alcohol.
- Personal Responsibility- One clear portion of the crowd didn't care if their actions caused any kind of problems at all. They could care less about what they do and what it does. We would hand out male and female condoms and they still came back bearing children looking for help. Clearly no tools will help here. Counseling is needed.
Understand that I was working with some extreme cases here. There were many more that were subject to divorce, blended family disputes, deceased family problems and it goes on.
Many these people got back and were able to reform their family unit after some good, solid interventional counseling and assistance. Some resisted any effort to "brainwash" them as they felt it wasn't their job to fit in anywhere. Being America, they were certainly free to go.
It's a very complex issue and one that isn't solved in a single stroke. But I do think that education that starts early that places value on understanding what a family unit can mean has merit without making people feel like they are being arm twisted.