A quarter of today’s young adults will have never married by 2030, which would be the highest share in modern history, according to the Pew Research Center. Yet both remaining unmarried and divorcing are more common among less-educated, lower-income people. Educated, high-income people still marry at high rates and are less likely to divorce.
Those whose lives are most difficult could benefit most from marriage, according to the economists who wrote the new paper, John Helliwell of the Vancouver School of Economics and Shawn Grover of the Canadian Department of Finance. “Marriage may be most important when there is that stress in life and when things are going wrong,” Mr. Grover said.An increasing fraction of children are growing in one-parent (usually a mother without the father) family. Marriage (defined broadly here as two adults living together as a family) is the foundation of every human society and children growing up without that kind of emotional and financial support are going to be at a disadvantage. It doesn't mean that they are doomed, but it does mean that life is going to be a bigger struggle than it should have been. If you are thinking about having sex, but aren't thinking about getting married, then you should be using contraceptives--no matter what the Pope might say!
I associate this with the disintegration of the nuclear family. Is there any way of doubting that if more of these children lived in two-parent households there would be less child poverty?
ReplyDeleteAll of which is to say I agree with you. Sorry for not finishing the thought.
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