America’s exodus from marriage
More than 40 percent of children are born out of wedlock, while more than half of births (53 percent) among all women under 30 now occur outside of marriage. Between 1970 and 2012, the annual number of marriages per 1,000 unmarried adults decreased by more than 50 percent. The divorce rate today is about twice that of 1960, though it’s declined since hitting its highest point in our history in the early 1980s. For the average couple marrying for the first time in recent years, the lifetime probability of divorce or separation now falls between 40 and 50 percent. Today more than a quarter of all children live in single-parent families, compared to only 9 percent in 1960. And the number of unmarried couples has increased seventeen-fold in the last 50 years.
All of this has profoundly negative implications–for the emotional and mental well-being of children; for America’s social fabric and “civil society”; for social mobility and the gap in income inequality; and for dependency on government and costs to the state (family breakdown costs the taxpayers billions every year). The collapse of marriage in America, then, has enormous human and social ramifications. And whatever one thinks about same-sex marriage, this collapse has occurred long before any state approved marriage between gays.
The report offers a range of recommendations to reverse this trend, including eliminating marriage penalties and disincentives for the poor and for unwed mothers, tripling the child tax credit, providing marriage education and evaluating marriage programs, engaging Hollywood to help shape positive attitudes toward marriage and parenting, launching social media campaigns, and presidential leadership on this issue.
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For men, the risk/reward ratio shifted way over into the risk column a few decades ago.
BDavis on January 18, 2013 at 10:23 PM
Yep. Men get screwed. So why bother?
John the Libertarian on January 18, 2013 at 10:30 PM
Not paying for your own kids is one of the biggest reasons we’re IN this mess, breeder moron! As witness every God-blessed welfare queen with ~4 children by as many fathers, who is supported by the tax dollars of not only the childfree but responsible people like you.
The only truly effective marriage-strengthening programs are religiously based. Keep your cotton pickin’ hands off.
ROTFLOL you have GOT to be joking!!!
The absolute best you could do is bring some restrictions back to the cr@p they air, like a version of the Hayes code that isn’t 1950′s wannabe-Puritanism. Oh wait, that would be “evil rightwingers forcing their morals on other people”. Can’t have the government actually trying to protect its citizens from harmful liberal ideas.
1. We’re broke.
2. 30 seconds of pro-marriage messages in a world of 24/7 immorality on 1000 channels is a joke.
…do I really even need to say anything?
MelonCollie on January 18, 2013 at 10:34 PM
I think the author has cause/effect backwards with respect to cost to tax payers for failed families.
We subsidize failed families. Either in failing to ever form to breaking them apart. Surprise, when you subsidize something you get more of it.
Gay marriage is just a continuation of the regressive’s attack on the family, but one I am willing to continue to fight.
First, Social Security separates having well raised children from the equation of being secure in old age. That led to fewer children. This led to easy divorce for those without children. This led to abortion on demand and easy divorce for those with children.
As long as we subsidize people’s old age with OTHER PEOPLES CHILDREN’S LABOR, this trend will never end.
astonerii on January 18, 2013 at 10:34 PM
Bingo! The family death knell happened when the state decided to become daddy.
melle1228 on January 18, 2013 at 10:37 PM
Bingo. He’s as confused as the author of the book Strapped, who correctly identified why my generation is broke (and blew apart the myth that we’re all buying needless luxuries) but whose proposed solutions included national daycare.
MelonCollie on January 18, 2013 at 10:39 PM
Women just don’t bring very much to the table anymore. They usually delay marriage until their looks are fading, their chance of having children is reduced, and they have a emotional baggage train of past relationships. The risks are significant, the payoff is low, and many men would rather direct their efforts to something more rewarding.
sharrukin on January 18, 2013 at 10:39 PM
Not all women are like that and not all men are wonderful catches either.
The problem is that the women’s movement has lied to young women that it is best to wait for families and marriage- and that a man is optional. They have also lied and said that women can have sexual relationships like men.
Let’s face it, men have no reason to get married if they have a woman living with them doing all their stuff for them without the benefits of marriage.
Make a man wait for sex etc. and I can guarantee 9 times out 10, a woman would get a wedding ring.
melle1228 on January 18, 2013 at 10:43 PM
Nail. Head. Piledriver.
When do most men want to get married? When they’re young and horny.
What then is the best incentive to get most men to marry the sweet thing they would run a marathon in a howling blizzard to furiously deflower? Tell them “Get me a ring or you don’t get a thing.”
It’s crude and very socially unacceptable to say…but it’s irrefutably true.
MelonCollie on January 18, 2013 at 10:47 PM
This is one of the main reasons why this country is falling apart
The Notorious G.O.P on January 18, 2013 at 10:53 PM
True. That was what I meant by men directing their efforts elsewhere. Many are no longer even bothering to consider the possibility of marriage, or a family and that means they don’t have to accumulate much in the way of assets preparing for something that isn’t going to happen.
Absolutely. No argument on this at all.
Or one on tap for sex when wanted. Booty calls, friends with benefits, and the hooking up culture reduces women to something cheap and disposable, not something you want to put a ring on.
Sex is only part of it. Not a small part, but they also have to be someone likable, someone who can bring something to the table…a skill? cooking? something? Too often many young women think that nothing is required or expected of them but a moxie attitude and sex. Given that they are already giving sex away for free and the attitude gets old fast, they are left with not much of anything to offer.
sharrukin on January 18, 2013 at 10:54 PM
If our society was anything approaching sane, you would be completely correct and I could not raise a single word against anything you said.
Unfortunately, decades of liberalism and the deliberate pushing of filth have twisted our priorities. IMHO, many men will now only start thinking about things besides sex if they’re suddenly not able to get it from everyone and her sister, or if they REALLY get bitten by the love bug.
MelonCollie on January 18, 2013 at 10:59 PM
It is a tertiary symptom. First Social Security and the Tax that comes with it makes having your own children less valuable and more costly. Primary cause… Second, because people have to rely less on their children in old age, they have fewer or none at all. Unless you want to have a family for your own reasons, this causes you to work to prevent those little burdens (the person’s view, not mine). Third, because marriage is no longer centered on what is best for children (what children?) it holds less value to people. Fourth, children are expendable… This ranges from abandoning a pregnant woman, to a man offering to pay for an abortion, to a woman begging for money for an abortion, to even the irresponsibility of allowing your children to go to a pathetic excuse for an educational system more in line to a daycare center…
astonerii on January 18, 2013 at 11:00 PM
You may be right, but too many women want to spend 10-15 years sleeping around before ‘settling’ on a walking ATM machine, and are then shocked and amazed that increasing numbers of men (Peter Pan syndrome) are passing on that wonderful offer.
Men who spend time in that sort of culture also become the sort of men who’s priorities are so messed up, that they are no longer good for much of anything either.
sharrukin on January 18, 2013 at 11:04 PM
Most of your post seems to suggest that the best way to encourage marriage is to leave no way for old people to be supported short of burdening their adult children, who by then will be dealing with teenage children of their own.
May I ask how your 1800′s societal model is supposed to account for the dispersion of families thanks to the automobile? Or if many of those adult children are unable to leave their scarce employment? Or for the very many old people who do in fact need professional care?
My own boss had to put her mother in a home even though she knew it would sap her will to live because she literally could not safely carry her mother around the house. She was in very real danger of dropping her brittle mom and had no choice, though it drove her to tears and her mother to the fate she predicted.
MelonCollie on January 18, 2013 at 11:08 PM
There lies a natural, god given if you will, chain of responsibility for people. It is simple and easy to understand. It has worked for thousands of years and in societies that still practice it, it works great.
You are Responsible for your self. The next level of responsibility is to your immediate family, that would be mother, father, brother, sister, sons and daughters. The next level is your extended family to include grand parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandchildren. After that comes friendships and associations (such as say a church), finally would come your immediate community and charities. Right there, for a normal family and community would amount to hundreds of people you could rely on.
So what if she had to put her in a home? What the hell does that have to with what I argued. Old people can plan for their old age. Have children or save money to pay other people’s children to care for them, I do not care. But what you are talking about is having OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN pay for someone not related to them, unknown to them, and someone for whom they have not responsibility to or from! I call it what it is, SLAVERY.
astonerii on January 18, 2013 at 11:16 PM
Guys, you’re taking it so seriously. Don’t confuse what we do here with problem solving, it’s not. What we do here is an autopsy.
DFCtomm on January 18, 2013 at 11:17 PM
If we really wanted to fix the problems we would:
(1)Married couples who pay income taxes would only have to pay for the highest earner in the family. The second adult and any children below 18 years pay no taxes.
(2) Only married couples can get welfare. Welfare limited to two years total during your lifetime.
(3) Only married couples should get social security.
(4) You only get social security if you produced offspring who are now paying taxes or belong to a marriage who pay taxes. This should make the anti-amnesty people happy and the demographics people happy. Produce babies who get a job or you don’t get your money back!
Might as well make the entitlements work for a good purpose instead of a bad one.
William Eaton on January 18, 2013 at 11:20 PM
You are being as much as a hyberbolic looney-tune as Dumb-te.
Further discussion on this issue could qualify as hijacking IMO so I’ll just address your statement that this model has been used for 1000s of years.
Prior to the invention of the train, no family could move faster than a horse-drawn cart, and moving was such a one-way affair that you might not see anyone from “back home” for the rest of your life. There was more incentive to stay in one location all your life than most of us will ever know.
Even then not much changed until Henry Ford came along. But now a family can move farther in a day’s drive than they could in a month’s worth of travel. Visiting relatives left behind is way easier…but commuting all the way back and forth to care for them, even if you can afford it, is another story.
Our society has dispersed to the point that expecting each and every person to take care of their own elderly parents is no longer normal, nor even really possible. Your fundamentalist-induced temper tantrums and your incessant whining about “TYRANNY!” will not change a d@mn thing.
MelonCollie on January 18, 2013 at 11:37 PM
SS is a complete failure and trying to retool it is a waste of time. It was introduced when America was mostly an agrarian nation and 6-8 kids per family was not uncommon. Neither of these are true any longer.
Oh yes, and when it was introduced, half of the people who paid into the system died before they saw a penny. So the system even had an unfair start.
MelonCollie on January 18, 2013 at 11:39 PM
Why does the sperm donor father abandon his baby? Why does a dog lick its balls? Because he can. There is no stigma, and the federal government will be the sugar daddy. If you cut off the welfare, the grandfather of the baby will grab his shotgun and there will be a marriage. The grandfather knows if he doesn’t he will be on the hook for another mouth to feed. That was the practical reality of a lot of marriages before the Great Society.
Ted Torgerson on January 18, 2013 at 11:45 PM
True, but there is also the fact that a casual, low value relationship has little emotional investment on anyone’s part (except of course the child). The man walks away because the woman in question doesn’t mean much to him, just as he doesn’t mean much to her. If she doesn’t want to get saddled with a fatherless child she should see to it that the quality of man she is involved with rises, and require more investment on his part before accepting such a relationship.
As you say, Uncle Sam will play the role of daddy, so she doesn’t have to worry. In fact, it’s often to her economic benefit to act in just such a manner.
sharrukin on January 18, 2013 at 11:54 PM
Marriage, for men, is such an enormously bad deal, thanks to the progressive “womans rights” movement, that you seriously need to have your mental health checked before entering into it.
Want to fix marriage? Change the divorce laws that are so ridiculously stacked against men as to make a mockery of the Constitution and equal justice under the law – to the point of legal slavery.
Rebar on January 19, 2013 at 12:14 AM
Could part of the problem be that we are now so dispersed that the three old lady matchmakers in town now don’t know you or your family because you moved to the city/another city to get a job, so they can’t introduce you to a nice young man/woman down the road?
/
kinda
cptacek on January 19, 2013 at 1:50 AM
These comments have all effectively diagnosed the cause of the decline of marriage in various forms. Basically it amounts to the fact that virtually all of the obligations of marriage for women have been eliminated while those of men have remained and remain even when the woman decides to divorce him. The decline of marriage can be laid squarely at the feet of women, not men. It is women who don’t want to marry — that is they don’t want any of the responsibilities of marriage. Now of course Not. All. Woman. Are. Like. That., but it doesn’t change the general case. And as one commenter already noted, women bring remarkably little to the table these days other than the possibility of somewhat more frequent access to sex than a man might otherwise get. Even then however, she can stop having sex with him at any point and he has absolutely no recourse — even though he is married to her.
So why should a man marry? And why should a woman marry when she can get resources extracted from men via the apparatus of the state? The decline of marriage and the growth of the welfare state go hand in hand. It is women who by and large are the biggest supporters of welfare statism.
theblackcommenter on January 19, 2013 at 3:17 AM
The problem with casual sex is that sex was meant to be within the confines of marriage which is sacred. There is a spiritual sanctity to the act itself which is a gift from God. When you abuse the gift by using sex merely because it feels good, there are always consequences. I have never met a woman who could have casual sex relationships without mental anguish that went along with it. Then when you add a child into a relationship that never head any real spiritual grounding, everyone suffers, but specifically the child. We have been sold a hedonistic bill of goods for the past 50-60 years that has thrown society into a tailspin. So many peopla have forgotten what true responsibilty is.
redlucy on January 19, 2013 at 8:09 AM
Forward!
visions on January 19, 2013 at 8:17 AM
So, Let me get this straight…
You feel that it is the government’s responsibility to take care of the elderly? That cradle to grave welfare state is the right of every person?
Just want to be clear here, because along with this dispersion is the ability to send resources around the world at the push of a button. I send money to my wife’s family every month. I TAKE CARE OF THEM, they are my responsibility as my extended family.
So, those people who choose instead of having children to live their lives to the edge or even further of their productivity have claim on my daughter’s future earnings? They own her production, is that your argument?
I am not hyperbolic, I am just telling you the truth. Government has a place, that place is to make as flat as possible a play ground for everyone to play. People need to plan for and take care of their own old age. If they want to have children, raise them so they will care for them in their old age, that is one way. If they want to stock pile gold, silver and guns and use those to pay people to care for them in their old age, that is another way. If they want to fail to do both, and then lay claim to other peoples children’s labor at the end of government’s gun pointed at their head, then the only honest answer is that those people are promoting slave labor.
astonerii on January 19, 2013 at 8:59 AM
visions gets it.
roy_batty on January 19, 2013 at 9:17 AM
Well that’s part of the reason we dispersed. Once free-market capitalism made it possible, young people who were fed the !@#$ up with the meddling old ladies who just happened to keep introducing them to a “nice young man/woman” had an option to leave.
Until trains were more than a novelty, most of the time young people would eventually fold under immense social pressure, or the old ladies would chance upon someone their target actually liked.
MelonCollie on January 19, 2013 at 1:49 PM
A bitter melon you are.
astonerii on January 19, 2013 at 3:17 PM
Shut up, dumbarse fundamentalist.
MelonCollie on January 28, 2013 at 4:40 PM