Fifty years ago, marriage and divorce rates in America were roughly equal among all classes and races. Not anymore. Not even close. When headlines this month announced divorce rates were down to their lowest point in decades that was true, sort of.
The educated and affluent are saying “I do” far more often – and divorcing less often – than the poor and less educated. And that’s bad news if the country values equality. Marriage increases household wealth, and the chances for children’s success. At one Ivy League college, 90 percent of new students come from two-parent families. Among America’s poorest only 20 percent of kids have two parents at home.
Marriage itself is becoming the custom of the well-placed in society, a kind of luxury item.
Some observers are warning of a new caste system in America, based on marriage. And these big, historic trends are not easily reversible.
Listen to a conversation on On Point about America's marriage gap and what it means for the future of families.
Do you see it? More wedding bands where there’s more money? Which side of the gap are you on? And if you’re not affluent and not hitching up, why not?
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Comments: 2
quality and hope that someday you might make an attempt to present a
more balanced picture.
All of your experts agreed with each other, and all but one of the
callers your screeners let in agreed with the experts.
In addition, the experts sometimes made doubletalk, as when one of
them argued that low income parents do not put off marriage for
economic reasons, because married low income parents are in better
economic straits. This did not make logical sense. Perhaps the married
parents are married BECAUSE they were already better off!
In addition, your show referenced but did not question the slanted,
racist, and out of date notion of the "Tangle of Pathologies"
surrounding black families, as well as the (unstated, but present)
"Welfare Queen" myth brought up by your caller from Atlanta.
One factor which should have been considered is that low-income women
of all colors also do not have adequate access to quality
non-abstinence sex education and birth control (including abortions).
These factors, in concert with their general lack of employment and
educational opportunities means that they are more likely to become
mothers against their will or out of inertia and fatalism. In addition,
no one discussed the possibility that with a better public educational
system, better access to health care and childcare, and other improved
social supports single mothers, black or of any other race, might be
able to make a better go of raising their children on their own.
Another thing to consider is that women still have less earning power
than men in our society and they disproportionately end up as
custodial parents in divorce cases as well as in abandonments.
Mothers, particularly low-income mothers (of any race), are
discriminated against in pay and hiring much more often (check with
MomsRising.org for figures) than married or unmarried women who do not
have children or men with children. If women are discriminated against
in employment and do not have access to quality childcare, then it the
inevitable result is that their children will not be as well supported
outside of school as well as not succeeding educationally.
Gay families were left entirely out of this story, an although I
understand that childbearing was its focus and therefore not quite as
applicable, I found that omission a little odd as it wasn't explained.
I only worked out as out-of-wedlock childbearing came up again and
again that it was really the focus. Focus on the family, hmm? Perhaps
that should have been the name of this story.
(I will note as some may feel it would have bearing on my argument
that I myself am white, middle class, and in a heterosexual
cohabitative relationship in case someone should claim I am overly
sensitive to racialist, heterosexist, or classist biases)
I'm not saying that your experts and callers had no valuable data or
arguments to present, but you presented a rather one-dimensional
story. I would be encouraged to see these issues presented from more
angles (not just the ones I suggest in this post) in a future story.