The number of single parents in America has increased dramatically: The proportion of children born outside marriage has risen from roughly 30 percent in 1992 to 41 percent in 2009. For women under age 30, more than half of babies are born out of wedlock. A lifestyle once associated with poverty has become mainstream. The only group of parents for whom marriage continues to be the norm is the college-educated.
Some argue that these changes are benign. Many children who in the past would have had two married parents could have two cohabiting parents instead. Why should the lack of a legal or religious tie affect anyone’s well-being?
There are three reasons to be concerned about this dramatic shift in family life.
First, marriage is a commitment that cohabitation is not. Taking a vow before friends and family to support another person “until death do us part” signals a mutual sense of shared responsibility that cannot be lightly dismissed. Cohabitation is more fragile — cohabiting parents split up before their fifth anniversary at about twice the rate of married parents. Often, this is because the father moves on, leaving the mother not just with less support but with fewer marriage prospects. For her, marriage requires finding a partner willing to take responsibility for someone else’s kids.
Second, a wealth of research strongly suggests that marriage is good for children. Those who live with their biological parents do better in school and are less likely to get pregnant or arrested. They have lower rates of suicide, achieve higher levels of education and earn more as adults. Meanwhile, children who spend time in single-parent families are more likely to misbehave, get sick, drop out of high school and be unemployed.
It isn’t clear why children who live with their unmarried biological parents don’t do as well as kids who live with married ones. Adults who marry may be different from those who cohabit, divorce or become unwed mothers. Although studies try to adjust for these differences, researchers can’t measure all of them. People in stable marriages may have better relationship skills, for instance, or a greater philosophical or religious commitment to union that improves parenting. Still, raising children is a daunting responsibility. Two committed parents typically have more time and resources to do it well.
Third, marriage brings economic benefits. It usually means two breadwinners, or one breadwinner and a full-time, stay-at-home parent with no significant child-care expenses. Unlike Murphy Brown — who always had the able Eldin by her side — most women do not have the flexibility afforded a presumably highly paid broadcast journalist. And it’s not just a cliche that two can live more cheaply than one; a single set of bills for rent, utilities and other household expenses makes a difference. Though not necessarily better off than a cohabiting couple, a married family is much better off than its single-parent counterpart.
Sawhill, Isabel Twenty Years Later, It Turns Out Dan Quayle Was Right About Murphy Brown and Unmarried Mom, http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2012/05/25-unmarried-mothers-sawhill
Editor's note: The loss of the basic building block of modern society, the two parent family, contributes to increasing social problems for society. I see this in my practice on a daily basis. No family is perfect, and all families are dysfunctional in one way or another, but the question of whether some family configurations are better at raising children than others has been proven repeatedly, and the findings are clear that two parent families where the parents are married get better results in raising children.
Do these findings mean that all parents should stay married no matter what for the sake of the children? Of course not. Life is more complicated than that. Do these findings mean that no individual can do a good job raising a child, or children, alone, of course not. But in general, when it's possible, two married parents with loving extended family make the best milieu for the raising of children. Does our society support this model in such a way that it is the normative model that people are encouraged to emulate? Societal support has been weakening with the diminishing influence of our religious institutions, the lack of support from our social institutions such as schools, the social welfare system, and the criminal justice system. We pay lip service to the important role that parents play but then our major social institutions insert themselves as "experts" in family life and undercut the role of the parents.
Our social welfare policies would rather see women working in minimum pay jobs and place their children in day care than support them in parenting them themselves. This is a very misguided policy and is backfiring when we see the social symptoms of school failure, drug abuse, and criminal activity in the young.
In some communities such as the African American community black men are incarcerated at higher rates than are in college and because of these policies their children and their children's mothers are deprived of the presence and support that these men could provide.
Unlike other first world countries, the United States does not provide much support for parenting in the form of child subsidies, health insurance, and other economic support. With our capitalistic model we value money more than we do our children, and the social indicators measuring the well being of children and their families are much poorer in the United States than other first world countries.
I will be providing more data on this phenomenon and commentary in future articles. It is important for social workers, regardless of their field of practice, to be aware of the factors in our society than impact child and family welfare so that we can advocate for social policies that will enhance our mutual quality of life. Marriage is good thing for our society: heterosexual and same sex marriage, and we would benefit and our clients would benefit, if we advocated for cultural norms and factors that support it.
