http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21621689-how-make-families-more-stable-new-merry-go-round
In an article in the economist from this past week, it is predicted that one in four young Americans will never marry. Isabel Sawhill is a researcher who has been examining family dynamics for decades. She writes about the class statistics that accompany marriage statistics. Particularly interesting is that 90% of university-educated mothers will marry before having their first child. Among non-graduate mothers, 58% of first births are out of wedlock. Among this second group, only a third will still be "intact couples" by the time the child turns 5.
This scale continues on a downward spiral of marriage rates as income decreases. Also of interest is the rates of escaping poverty based on the marriage-status of parents. A child who is in the bottom 5th has an 83% chance of escaping if they have married parents, but only a 50% chance of escaping otherwise. Sawhill attributes this to her theory that the “feminist revolution seems to have bypassed low-income men.” Educated men tend to treat their wives and partners more as equals, while uneducated men in the majority cannot accept their partner being the breadwinner, and are more likely to opt out of the child's life entirely rather than not provide fully for the family.
Sawhill urges the use of long-term contraceptive devices such as IUDs as a possible solution. She believes this is more realistic than asking educated families to preach the family values they practice.
This is incredibly interesting to read, especially with the numbers to back it up. If someone were to guess the trends, the guesses would probably more or less fit with these results but the fact that the numbers were actually found in research shows the difference education (and probably the income that comes after earning an education) can make on the life of a family. I wonder how families will look in the future as more and more kids are encouraged to go to college rather than attend a vocational school or go straight into the workforce like people used to do.
ReplyDelete