Worried About Inequality? Fix Marriage.

Two-parent marriages are still key to a flourishing society.

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Melissa Kearney, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland joins Assistant Editor Luis Parrales to talk about her new book, The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind. The two discuss the decline in married households over the past decades, how that decline has exacerbated inequality and negatively impacted parents and children, and why it’s so controversial to talk about marriage as a policy matter in the first place.

Show notes:

-Melissa’s profile at the University of Maryland

-Melissa’s profile at Brookings

-A Driver of Inequality That Not Enough People Are Talking About

-Male Earnings, Marriageable Men, and Nonmarital Fertility: Evidence from the Fracking Boom

-The Puzzle of Falling US Birth Rates Since the Great Recession

-Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: An Intergenerational Perspective

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Comments (12)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    This was a good interview, both by guest and host.

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    Mick.Staton

    The most interesting statistic I heard in this was that the percentage of college educated women who get married has stayed steady at about 70% throughout the decades, but it is the non-college educated women that are not getting married.

    If you listen to some voices on the right you would begin to think that the decline of marriage and the rise of single parent households was being driven by liberated women who go to college and start careers and have no time for men or children, but that does not seem to be the case at all.

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  3. Very Old Grumpy Guy

    I guess this is really all we can do to address this problem. In my "bubble" EVERYONE knows that the two parent household statistically dominates all other family formations for child rearing. All we can do is make those who don't know this aware of this. While I wouldn't rule out "guberment" action to address this issue, I cannot see how it won't be authoritarian thrusting of the government into the lives of the individual.

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    Andy Napoli

    Fantastic podcast. I learned a ton. The fracking boom natural experiment is absolutely fascinating

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  5. ErrantThoughts

    Listening to this podcast I wish I could have taken you to a class I took in college about the economics of developing nations. The class was elevated in that I took it during summer session which meant a much smaller class and for whatever reason about 50% of students were from outside the U.S.

    One of the biggest differences between a developed nation and a developing one was that in developed nations women have fewer children and they have them later in life. This is due to the education women receive, both in general and on sex in the specific.

    What this podcast meanders around is that if you want to improve the number of children born into wedlock you need to prevent very young people from having children they didn't plan for. This means candid sex education starting at the age of 14 or even earlier. Sadly it seems to have become conservative dogma that teaching young people about sex will make them want to have sex. This ignores over two thousand years of history of young people very much wanting to have sex regardless of education.

    Depriving young people not only of information they need on sex but also access to contraceptives, like condoms and the pill, make occurrences of women in their mid 30s becoming grandmothers, like one Lauren Boebert recently became, more likely. The futures of the grandchildren of these very young grandmothers is often not the most promising.

    "Conservatives" need to decide which is more important to them, increasing the number of children born into stable two parent families which have a better chance at a future as good or better than their parents had, or avoiding the responsibility for teaching young people about sex and providing access to contraceptives.

    Bonus, educating people on sex and contraceptives also reduces the number of abortions. So people who call themselves pro-life should feel doubly shamed about refusing to support education on sex and contraceptives.

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      Scarlette Tarte

      This is the same for ecology. If you care about the planet, about caring for resources and planet diversity, you work for equal rights for women.

      Where women have a choice, they marry later and have fewer kids. Where women are educated and have a choice, the reduction in children is even more pronounced.

      Women really do rule the world entire, when allowed, their choices have a much more profound effect on humanity than men's. The fate of the planet, even, can lie in their hands. If in any way you want a better world, work for the rights of women.

      If conservatives want women to have more children, they need to make it worth their while. Same for getting married. Women finish college, even attend college in greater numbers than men. The amount of truly eligible men is dropping, even for working class women.

      A working class woman can make as much at the factory as a man. She is also now in positions of authority, as managers, etc. Why should she marry a guy who is no better than her? Who doesn't make more, who sits around watching football on the weekend, or out drinking or drugging? Who maybe is more of a burden than a help? Who just stresses her out?

      Sure, there are good guys out there, but not all. And it's the same with men...why settle for a woman that isn't top notch?

      I get it. I am married to a great man. Comparing him to other men, he is a prince. Great provider, a person who stays busy, who has his own interests and passions and who encourages me to have mine. He never has wanted dinner on the table or thought the dishes were my department. He was a hands on, actively involved father. He is educated and READS, for God's sake. In so many homes, I never see a book in the hands of the men.

      Who needs someone LESS than they are, or who bring less into the relationship?

      This is actually not a "problem to be solved". That ship has sailed.
      Relationships are just evolving. As culture changes, the institutions of that culture will change. This is a natural part of human culture.

      If conservatives want stability and to promote eauality, quit trying to force people into marriages, and instead promote contraception and education, or apprenticeships into the trades.

      Trying to make everyone get married when there is no longer real incentives for getting married, doesn't make any sense.

      Interestingly, highly educated, upper class people ARE getting married and staying married. The incentives are there. They both make enough money so that being a partnership is highly lucrative. They are not held back by a bad marriage partner, but that partner adds to their lives. These couples are most often liberal in their politics as well.

      Not to preach, but conservatives, your answer is staring right at you, from the picture of these marriages.

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  6. Mirabelle

    Economic realities for most people do not support relationship formation. We work harder and longer, and more people in a household work. Work is given the priority that relationships used to have.

    People in higher classes have more resources, beginning in their childhood and following them throughout life. This allows them to moderate and mitigate the modern economic stresses that prevent stable relationship formation. The fact that it's taking each generation longer to achieve relationship and economic stability is evidence of the stresses on relationships in society. These stresses touch almost everyone.

    Going to college is both expensive and requires time. If economic pressures insist that college is not possible, this resource can never be tapped. Relationships can also be expensive and time consuming. If they are dysfunctional, they require an enormous amount of resources. It is understandable when some people decide relationships are more draining than supporting. So if education leading to more opportunities doesn't exist and relationships are a negative not positive force, individuals will look for comfort in their stress-filled lives. Now children enter the mix. Now the stresses are compounded and relief is even farther away. Mental issues can crop up.

    Living in a two parent neighborhood teaches cultural values and skills which is a resource that allows those people an edge in succeeding.

    How do we teach people to maximize the resources they have, emotional and material, and learn the path to success, including the ability to create a stable relationship? Church used to be helpful but has chosen to focus on political not social matters. And the lack of this cultural knowledge is hard to overcome, as anyone who works with struggling people knows.

    Our serious culture problems are not fighting "woke," and the other popular but shallow culture issues, but in learning and teaching how people love and support each other. We no longer have TV or other cultural messages that regularly present successful relationship skills to the greater public. We have no other positive relationship messaging, and we see how we continue to lose these skills in society.

    At the policy level, all government can do is stuff money in the cracks. Without the cultural messages about creating a supportive society, all we've got left is money. (And by cultural messages I don't mean Republicans self-righteously telling others to get their act together and use their bootstraps. That's just cruel.)

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  7. April

    Really interesting and thought provoking podcast. Melissa Kearney is terrific. This will be a tough one to solve, but talking about the issue is the first step. I am looking forward to hearing more podcasts hosted by Luis.

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    Jason Godwin

    Great episode!

    Two points:

    1. I personally think the reason we don't like to talk about this issue in the policy sphere (and Dr. Kearney hinted at this) is we want a policy solution, a tax credit, or a government program to "fix" all of our problems. Politicians want to promise they can fix the problem when in fact, this is not really a policy problem. People not getting married and not having kids is a societal and social problem that no amount of legislation will ever fix. Ask Japan (and see Jonah Goldberg's G-File about "The Japanification of America": https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/gfile/i-think-were-turning-japanese-i-really/). Japan has thrown a wide range of policy ideas at their declining marriage and fertility rates with zero success. The problem is entirely social and not political.

    2. I actually left a long comment on the G-File linked above a couple years ago (and stand by everything I said), but basically I think one of the social issues we have is basically self-centeredness. A spouse and kids just "get in the way" of one's ability to travel the world, do cool things you can put on Instagram, advance your career, and so on. I personally have a family member who doesn't hide the fact that they don't want any additional kids (they have one) because it would harm their ability to advance their career. Combine that with the idea that women don't need a husband's salary to live a comfortable life and there are basically no social advantages to marriage these days...at least not at the surface level. To me (a hopelessly single 33-year old), the idea of having a larger household income and traveling the world and doing fun stuff you can put on Instagram WITH a wife and kids sounds far more exciting and fulfilling...but what do I know.

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      Kmregan7

      Underlying your thoughts seems to be this idea that…a fulfilling life (one that someone finds fulfilling to THEM) isn’t okay or moral or something. You’re right- women do not need a husbands salary to live a comfortable life. And to that I say great! Who wants to be married to someone who is only married because of social or financial advantage? That’s exactly what we used to have….and it made people pretty miserable. Especially women.

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    2. Placid Paddler

      Reading your post was very thought provoking. Thanks.

      You gave me the idea that maybe the proper policy response is to realize that there is nothing to be done except to deal with it and try to avoid creating future problems by depending on trends to either continue or to change. Since my theory has always been to blame it on redistribution, and as that’s not going to stop, we should just own it. A problem you cannot solve is a fact, after all.

      Also, for men, I think 33 is both too early to be worried about not finding the right person, and to be making up your mind about kids. I was 33 when I met my wife, and she wasn’t in any hurry to get married. I don’t think most men marry women their age anymore. I think that was a Boomer and early Gen X oddity.

      Finally, you make me wonder if small families don’t just beget small families. Most the people I know with three or more kids came from families that size or larger. It’s only children and parts of pairs that seem most uninterested in kids at all.

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      Mudskipper

      But the people who have a career and the ability to travel the world ARE the ones who are getting married and having kids. Perhaps not as many kids as they used to have, but if what Melissa Kearney is saying is true (and I think the statistics back her up) it is the poorer, working class people who are not getting married.

      I don't think you are hopelessly single at age 33. The average age of marriage for men in the US is around 30. So you are still in the fat part of the bell curve. 😊

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