Marriage gap

Last updated

The marriage gap describes observed economic and political disparities in the United States between those who are married and those who are single. The marriage gap can be compared to, but should not be confused with, the gender gap. [1] As noted by Dr. W. Bradford Wilcox, American sociologist and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, and Wendy Wang, director of research at the Institute for Family Studies, "College-educated and more affluent Americans enjoy relatively strong and stable marriages and the economic and social benefits that flow from such marriages. By contrast, not just poor but also working-class Americans face rising rates of family instability, single parenthood, and lifelong singleness." [2]

Contents

Politics and marriage

As part of the marriage gap, unmarried people are "considerably more liberal" than married people. [1] [ failed verification ] With little variation between professed moderates, married people respond to be conservative 9 percent more, and single people respond to be liberal 10 percent more. [1] [ failed verification ] [3] Married people tend to hold political opinions that differ from those of people who have never married.[ citation needed ]

Party affiliation in the United States

In the U.S., being a married woman is correlated with a higher level of support for the Republican Party, and being single with the Democratic Party. Marriage seems to have a moderate effect on party affiliation among single people. As of 2004, 32 percent of married people called themselves Republicans while 31 percent said they were Democrats. Among single people, 19 percent were Republicans and 38 percent Democrats. [1] [ failed verification ] The difference is most striking between married and single women. Married women respond as being Republicans 15 percent more; single women respond as being Democrats 11 percent more. [1]

Political issues

The marriage gap is evident on a range of political issues in the United States:

Marriage and cohabitation

It is not clear that legally or religiously formalized marriages are associated with better outcomes than long-term cohabitation. Part of the issue is that in many western countries, married couples will have cohabited before marrying so that the stability of the resulting marriage might be attributable to the cohabitation having worked.

A chief executive of an organisation that studies relationships are quoted for having said:

"Because we now have the acceptance of long-term cohabitation, people who go into marriage and stay in marriage are a more homogenous group. They are people who believe in certain things that contribute to stability. So the selection effect is really important. Yes, it's true that married couples on average stay together longer than cohabiting couples. But cohabitation is such an unhelpful word because it covers a whole ragbag of relationships, so it's not really comparable. We're better off talking about formal and informal marriages: those that have legal certificates, and those that don't. Is there any difference between a formal and informal marriage? If we really compare like with like, I'm not sure you'd see much difference." – Penny Mansfield [4]

Interpreting the data

American marriage and family life are divided more today than it ever has been. "Less than half of poor Americans age 18 to 55 ( just 26 percent) and 39 percent of working-class Americans are currently married, compared to more than half (56 percent) of middle- and upper-class Americans." (cite) And when it comes to coupling, poor and working-class Americans are more likely to substitute cohabitation for marriage: poor Americans are almost three times more likely to cohabit (13%), and working-class Americans are twice as likely to cohabit (10%), compared with their middle- and upper-class peers age 18–55 (5%). [2] These findings suggest that lower income and less-educated Americans are more likely to be living outside of a partnership. Specifically, about six in 10 poor Americans are single, about five in 10 working-class Americans are single, and about four in 10 middle- and upper-class Americans are single. [2]

And when it comes to childbearing, working-class and especially poor women are more likely to have children than their middle- and upper-class peers and these children of poor women have a significantly higher chance of being born out of wedlock. [2] Estimates derived from the 2013–15 National Survey of Family Growth indicate that poor women currently have about 2.4 children, compared with 1.8 children for working-class women and 1.7 children for middle- and upper-class women. [5] According to the 2015 American Community Survey, 64 percent of children born to poor women are born out of wedlock, compared with 36 percent of children born to working-class women, and 13 percent of children born to middle- and upper-class children. [6]

With respect to divorce, working-class and poor adults age 18-55 are more likely to divorce than are their middle- and upper-class counterparts. 46 percent of poor Americans aged 18–55 are divorced, compared with 41% of working-class adults and 30 percent of middle- and upper-class adults. [6]

The marriage gap is susceptible to multiple interpretations because it is not clear to what extent it is attributable to causation and what to correlation. It may be that people who already have a number of positive indicators of future wellbeing in terms of wealth and education are more likely to get married. "The distinction between correlation and causation cuts to the heart of the debate about marriage. The evidence is unequivocal; children raised by married couples are healthier, do better at school, commit fewer crimes, go further in education, report higher levels of wellbeing. It is easy for politicians to deduce - and assert - that married couples, therefore, produce superior children. But the children do not necessarily do better because their parents are married and there is actually very little evidence that marriage alone, in the absence of anything else, benefits children." – Penny Mansfield [4]

Why the marriage divide?

As noted by W. Bradford Wilcox and Wendy Wang,

A series of interlocking economic, policy, civic, and cultural changes since the 1960s in America combined to create a perfect family storm for poor and working-class Americans.12 On the economic front, the move to a postindustrial economy in the 1970s made it more difficult for poor and working-class men to find and hold stable, decent-paying jobs.13 See, for example, the increase in unemployment for less-educated but not college-educated men depicted in Figure 9.14 The losses that less-educated men have experienced since the 1970s in job stability and real income have rendered them less "marriageable," that is, less attractive as husbands—and more vulnerable to divorce. [2]

Wilcox and Wang continue, however, and contend that it is not only economics. Citing Cornell sociologist Daniel Lichter and colleagues, they note that "shifts in state-level employment trends and macroeconomic performance do not explain the majority of the decline of marriage in this period; indeed, the retreat from marriage continued in the 1990s even as the economy boomed across much of the country in this decade." [2] In the words of Lichter in colleagues, ""Our results call into question the appropriateness of monocausal economic explanations of declining marriage." [7] In fact, "The decline of marriage and rise of single parenthood in the late 1960s preceded the economic changes that undercut men's wages and job stability in the 1970s." [2] [8]

There exist several possible reasons for the emergence of the Marriage Divide. First, as posited by W. Bradford Wilcox, Wendy Wang, and Nicholas Wolfinger, "because working-class and poor Americans have less of a social and economic stake in stable marriage, they depend more on cultural supports for marriage than do their middle- and upper-class peers." [2] [9]

Second, "Working-class and poor Americans have fewer cultural and educational resources to successfully navigate the increasingly deinstitutionalized character of dating, childbearing, and marriage. The legal scholar Amy Wax argues that the "moral deregulation" of matters related to sex, parenthood, marriage, and divorce proved more difficult for poor and working-class Americans to navigate than for more educated and affluent Americans because the latter group was and remains more likely to approach these matters with a disciplined, long-term perspective." [2] [10] "Today's ethos of freedom and choice when it comes to dating, childbearing, and marriage is more difficult for working-class and poor Americans to navigate." [2]

Third, "in recent years, middle- and upper-class Americans have rejected the most permissive dimensions of the counterculture for themselves and their children, even as poor and working-class Americans have adopted a more permissive orientation toward matters such as divorce and premarital sex. [11] The end result has been that key norms, values, and virtues— from fidelity to attitudes about teen pregnancy—that sustain a strong marriage culture are now generally weaker in poor and working-class communities." [2] [11]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES).
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Wilcox, W. Bradford; Wang, Wendy (September 2017). "The Marriage Divide: How and Why Working-Class Families Are More Fragile Today - AEI". AEI. Archived from the original on 2017-09-25. Retrieved 2018-03-13.
  3. ↑ Definitions of moderate, conservative, and liberal were not given.
  4. 1 2 Penny Mansfield quoted in the Guardian of 17-7-2007
  5. ↑ "National Survey of Family Growth, 2013–15". www.cdc.gov. 2018-01-24. Retrieved 2018-03-13.
  6. 1 2 US Census Bureau. "2015 American Community Survey". www.census.gov. Retrieved 2018-03-13.
  7. ↑ Lichter, Daniel T; McLaughlin, Diane K; Ribar, David C (2002). "Economic Restructuring and the Retreat from Marriage". Social Science Research. 31 (2): 230–56. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.35.1851 . doi:10.1006/ssre.2001.0728.
  8. ↑ Andrew J. Cherlin, Labor's Love Lost: The Rise and Fall of Working-Class Family in America (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2014).[ page needed ]
  9. ↑ Wilcox, W. Bradford; Wolfinger, Nicholas H; Stokes, Charles E (2015). "One Nation, Divided: Culture, Civic Institutions, and the Marriage Divide". The Future of Children. 25 (2): 111–27. doi:10.1353/foc.2015.0015. S2CID   146507127.
  10. ↑ South, Scott J; Spitze, Glenna (1986). "Determinants of Divorce over the Marital Life Course". American Sociological Review. 51 (4): 583–90. doi:10.2307/2095590. JSTOR   2095590.
  11. 1 2 W. Bradford Wilcox, "State of Our Unions 2010."

Marriage

Related Research Articles

Cohabitation is an arrangement where people who are not married, usually couples, live together. They are often involved in a romantic or sexually intimate relationship on a long-term or permanent basis. Such arrangements have become increasingly common in Western countries since the late 20th century, being led by changing social views, especially regarding marriage, gender roles and religion.

Divorce is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the bonds of matrimony between a married couple under the rule of law of the particular country or state. Divorce laws vary considerably around the world, but in most countries, divorce requires the sanction of a court or other authority in a legal process, which may involve issues of distribution of property, child custody, alimony, child visitation / access, parenting time, child support, and division of debt. In most countries, monogamy is required by law, so divorce allows each former partner to marry another person.

In family law, effects of marriage is a legal term of art used to describe all of the rights and obligations that individuals may be subject and entitled to if they are in a common-law marriage, an annulled marriage, domestic partnership or a civil union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Premarital sex</span> Sexual activity before marriage

Premarital sex is sexual activity which is practiced by people before they are married. Premarital sex is considered a sin by a number of religions and also considered a moral issue which is taboo in many cultures. Since the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, it has become accepted by certain liberal movements, especially in Western countries. A 2014 Pew study on global morality found that premarital sex was considered particularly unacceptable in "Muslim Majority Countries", such as Malaysia, Jordan, Pakistan, and Egypt, each having over 90% disapproval, while people in Western European countries were the most accepting, with Spain, Germany, and France expressing less than 10% disapproval.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Working poor</span> Working people whose incomes fall below the poverty line

The working poor are working people whose incomes fall below a given poverty line due to low-income jobs and low familial household income. These are people who spend at least 27 weeks in a year working or looking for employment, but remain under the poverty threshold.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of the family</span> Branch of sociology

Sociology of the family is a subfield of the subject of sociology, in which researchers and academics study family structure as a social institution and unit of socialization from various sociological perspectives. It can be seen as an example of patterned social relations and group dynamics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Educational attainment in the United States</span> Overview about the educational attainment in the United States

The educational attainment of the U.S. population refers to the highest level of education completed. The educational attainment of the U.S. population is similar to that of many other industrialized countries with the vast majority of the population having completed secondary education and a rising number of college graduates that outnumber high school dropouts. As a whole, the population of the United States is spending more years in formal educational programs. As with income, levels differ by race, age, household configuration, and geography.

The terms average Joe, ordinary Joe, Joe Sixpack, Joe Lunchbucket, Joe Snuffy, Joe Blow, Joe Schmoe and ordinary Jane, average Jane, and plain Jane, are used primarily in North America to refer to a completely average person, typically an average American. It can be used both to give the image of a hypothetical "completely average person" or to describe an existing person. Parallel terms in other languages for local equivalents exist worldwide.

Remarriage is a marriage that takes place after a previous marital union has ended, as through divorce or widowhood. Some individuals are more likely to remarry than others; the likelihood can differ based on previous relationship status, level of interest in establishing a new romantic relationship, gender, culture, and age among other factors. Those who choose not to remarry may prefer alternative arrangements like cohabitation or living apart together. Remarriage also provides mental and physical health benefits. However, although remarried individuals tend to have better health than individuals who do not repartner, they still generally have worse health than individuals who have remained continuously married. Remarriage is addressed differently in various religions and denominations of those religions. Someone who repeatedly remarries is referred to as a serial wedder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in Chile</span> Overview of the status of women in Chile

The lives, roles, and rights of women in Chile have gone through many changes over time. Chilean women's societal roles have historically been impacted by traditional gender roles and a patriarchal culture, but throughout the twentieth century, women increasingly involved themselves in politics and protest, resulting in provisions to the constitution to uphold equality between men and women and prohibit sex discrimination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Society of the United States</span> Overview of the society of the United States of America

The society of the United States is based on Western culture, and has been developing since long before the United States became a country with its own unique social and cultural characteristics such as dialect, music, arts, social habits, cuisine, and folklore. Today, the United States of America is an ethnically and racially diverse country as a result of large-scale immigration from many different countries throughout its history.

Cohabitation in the United States is loosely defined as two or more people, in an intimate relationship, who live together and share a common domestic life but are neither joined by marriage nor a civil union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interracial marriage in the United States</span>

Interracial marriage has been legal throughout the United States since at least the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia (1967) that held that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional via the 14th Amendment adopted in 1868. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the court opinion that "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State." Since Loving, several states repealed their defunct bans, the last of which was Alabama in a 2000 referendum. Interracial marriages have been formally protected by federal statute through the Respect for Marriage Act since 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in Madagascar</span> Overview of the status of women in Madagascar

Women in Madagascar, also known as Malagasy women or Malgache women, generally live longer than men, whom they outnumber. Marrying young, they are traditionally subservient to their husbands. Roughly a third have their first child before the age of 19, and those who wish to delay having children may not have access to contraceptives. Abortion is common, with an estimated 24 percent of women having had one. Although they are constitutionally equal to men, they have unequal property rights and employment opportunities in certain areas.

Work–family balance in the United States refers to the specific issues that arise when men and women in the United States attempt to balance their occupational lives with their family lives. This differs from work–life balance in the United States: while work–life balance may refer to the health and living issues that arise from work, work–family balance refers specifically to how work and families intersect and influence each other. Work–family balance in the U.S. differs significantly for families of different social class.

The term juvenilization of poverty is one used to describe the processes by which children are at a higher risk for being poor, suffer consistent and long-term negative effects due to deprivation, and are disproportionately affected by systemic issues that perpetuate poverty. The term connotes not just the mere existence of child poverty but the increase in both relative and absolute measures of poverty among children as compared to both other vulnerable groups and the population at large.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Socioeconomic mobility in the United States</span> Social and economic class mobility

Socioeconomic mobility in the United States refers to the upward or downward movement of Americans from one social class or economic level to another, through job changes, inheritance, marriage, connections, tax changes, innovation, illegal activities, hard work, lobbying, luck, health changes or other factors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African-American family structure</span> Matter of national public policy interest

The family structure of African Americans has long been a matter of national public policy interest. A 1965 report by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, known as The Moynihan Report, examined the link between black poverty and family structure. It hypothesized that the destruction of the black nuclear family structure would hinder further progress toward economic and political equality.

Cohabitation in the United Kingdom, according to social security law would typically relate to a couple being treated as living together as a married couple even if not married or in a civil partnership. This has the effect that for means-tested benefits their resources are treated as held in common. There are also effects on benefits which depend on the claimant not having a partner.

Bangladesh did not exist as a distinct geographic and ethnic unity until independence. The region had been a part of Bangla, Bengali: বাংলা/বঙ্গ, whose history dates back to four millennia, and during the British period it formed the Bengal province, the eastern part of the British Indian Empire, which was dominated by the British rulers and Hindu professional, commercial, and landed elites. After the establishment of Pakistan in 1947, present-day Bangladesh came under the hegemony of the non-Bengali Muslim elites of the West Wing of Pakistan. The establishment of Bangladesh, therefore, implied the formation of both a new nation and a new social order.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.