Marriage, Poverty, and Public Policy

Single parenthood does not inevitably lead to poverty. In countries with a moreadequate social safety net than the United States, single parent families aremuch less likely to live in poverty. Even within the United States, singlemothers with high levels of education fare relatively well.

In this briefing paper, we summarize recent empirical evidence concerning therelationship between marriage and poverty, and develop the four points above inmore detail. We also emphasize the need to develop a larger anti-poverty programthat provides the jobs, education, and child care that poor families need inorder to move toward self-sufficiency.

The Economic Context

Children living with married parents generally fare better than others interms of family income. In 2000, 6 percent of married couple families withchildren lived in poverty, compared to 33 percent of female householders withchildren.⁽⁶⁾ Mothers who never marry are morevulnerable to poverty thanvirtually any other group, including those who have been divorced.⁽⁷⁾

But the low income associated with single parenthood reflects manyinterrelated factors. Income is distributed far more unequally in the UnitedStates than in most other developed countries, making it difficult for low-wageworkers (male or female) to support a family without a second income. Women whobecome single mothers are especially likely to have inadequate wages, bothbecause of pre-existing disadvantages such as low educational attainment and workexperience and because the shortage of publicly subsidized child care makes itdifficult for them to work full time. In 2000, only 1.2 percent of children ofsingle mothers with a college degree who worked full-time year round lived inpoverty.⁽⁸⁾ For single mothers with some collegeworking full-time, the poverty rate was less than 8 percent.⁽⁹⁾

Whether single or married, working parents face high child care costs that areseldom factored into calculations of poverty and income. Consider the situationof a single mother with two children working full-time, full year round at theminimum wage of $5.15 an hour, for an income of $10,712. If she files for andreceives the maximum Earned Income Tax Credit, she can receive as much as $3,816in public assistance. But the EITC phases out quickly if she earns much more thanthe minimum wage, and her child care costs are very high. Unless she is luckyenough to have a family member who can provide free child care, or to find afederally subsidized child care slot, more than 20 per cent of her income willgo to pay for child care.⁽¹⁰⁾ Federally subsidizedchild care remains quitelimited. Most families who made a transition from welfare to employment in the1990s did not receive a subsidy.⁽¹¹⁾

The high cost of child care helps explain why the economic position of singleparents has improved little in recent years despite significant increases intheir hours of market work.⁽¹²⁾ It may also explainwhy single parents arelikely to live in households with other adults who can share expenses with them.About 40 percent of births to single mothers take place among cohabitors, andmuch of the increase in nonmarital childbearing in recent years reflects thistrend rather than an increase in among women living without a partner.⁽¹³⁾ Theeconomic stress associated with reductions in welfare benefits over the past sixyears may have increased the pressure on single mothers to cohabit, often withpartners who are unwilling or unlikely to marry.⁽¹⁴⁾

On both a symbolic and a practical level, marriage facilitates the incomepooling and task sharing that allows parents to accommodate family needs.⁽¹⁵⁾Not surprisingly, many low-income families consider marriage the idealarrangement for child rearing.⁽¹⁶⁾ The FragileFamilies and Child Welfare projectcurrently underway in about twenty cities shows that about 50 per cent ofunmarried parents of newborns live together and hope to marry at somepoint.⁽¹⁷⁾ Lower expectations among some couples were associated not with disinterest inmarriage but with reports of drug or alcohol problems, physical violence,conflict and mistrust.⁽¹⁸⁾

The advantages of marriage, however, do not derive simply from having twonames on a marriage certificate, and they cannot be acquired merely by goingthrough a formality. Rather, they grow out of a long-term and economicallysustainable commitment that many people feel is beyond their reach.

Causality Works Both Ways

Liking the abstract idea of marriage and being able to put together a stablemarriage in real life are two very different things. Unemployment, low wages, andpoverty discourage family formation and erode family stability, making it lesslikely that individuals will marry in the first place and more likely that theirmarriages will deteriorate. These economic factors have long-term as well asshort-term effects, contributing to changes in social norms regarding marriageand family formation and exacerbating distrust between men and women. Theselong-term effects help explain why African-Americans marry at much lower ratesthan other groups within the U.S. population. Poverty is a cause as well as aconsequence of non-marriage and of marital disruption.⁽¹⁹⁾

Dan Lichter of Ohio State University puts it this way: "Marriage can be apathway from poverty, but only if women are 'marriageable,' stay married, andmarry well."⁽²⁰⁾ Precisely because marriage offerseconomic advantages,individuals tend to seek potential spouses who have good earnings potential andto avoid marriage when they do not feel they or their potential mates cancomfortably support a family. Ethnographic research shows that low-income womensee economic stability on the part of a prospective partner as a necessaryprecondition for marriage.⁽²¹⁾ Not surprisingly, menincreasingly use the samecalculus. Rather than looking for someone they can "rescue" from poverty,employed men are much more likely to marry women who themselves have goodemployment prospects.⁽²²⁾

Poor mothers who lack a high school degree and any regular employment historyare not likely to fare very well in the so-called "marriage market." Teenagegirls who live in areas of high unemployment and inferior schools are five toseven times more likely to become unwed parents than more fortunately situatedteens.⁽²³⁾ A study of the National LongitudinalSurvey of Youth confirms thatpoor women, whatever their age, and regardless of whether or not they are or haveever been on welfare, are less likely to marry than women who are not poor. Among poor women, those who do not have jobs are less likely to marry than thosewho do.⁽²⁴⁾

It is easy to spin a hypothetical scenario in which marrying off singlemothers to an average male would raise family incomes and reduce poverty. Butunmarried males, and especially unmarried males in impoverished neighborhoods,are not average. That is often the reason they are not married. Researchers fromthe Center for Research on Child Well-Being at Princeton University reportresults from the Fragile Families Survey showing that unmarried fathers weretwice as likely as married ones to have a physical or psychological problem thatinterfered with their ability to find or keep a job, and several times morelikely to abuse drugs or alcohol. More than 25 percent of unmarried fathers werenot employed when their child was born, compared to fewer than 10 percent ofmarried fathers.⁽²⁵⁾

Poor mothers tend to live in neighborhoods in which their potential marriagepartners are also likely to be poorly educated and irregularly employed.Low-earning men are less likely to get married and more likely to divorce thanmen with higher earnings.⁽²⁶⁾ Over the past thirtyyears, labor marketopportunities for men with low levels of education have declinedsubstantially.⁽²⁷⁾ Several studies suggest that thedecrease in real wages forlow-income men during the 1980s and early 1990s contributed significantly tolower marriage rates in those years.⁽²⁸⁾

This trend has been exacerbated by the high incarceration rates for menconvicted of non-violent crimes, such as drug use. While in jail, these men arenot available for women to marry and their diminished job prospects after releasepermanently impair their marriageability. High rates of incarceration amongblack males, combined with high rates of mortality, have led to a decidedlytilted sex ratio within the African-American population, and a resulting scarcityof marriageable men.⁽²⁹⁾ One study of the marriagemarket in the 1980s found thatat age 25 there were three unmarried black women for every black man who hadadequate earnings.⁽³⁰⁾ As Ron Mincy of ColumbiaUniversity emphasizes, simplepro-marriage policies are likely to offer less benefit to African-Americansfamilies than policies encouraging responsible fatherhood and paternalengagement.⁽³¹⁾

In short, the notion that we could end child poverty by marrying offimpoverished women does not take into account the realities of life among thepopulation most likely to be poor. It is based on abstract scenarios that ignorethe many ways in which poverty diminishes people's ability to build and sustainstable family relationships.

Quality Matters

Happy, healthy, stable marriages offer important benefits to adults andchildren. But not all marriages fit this description. Marital distress leads toharsh and inconsistent parenting, whether or not parents stay together. Studiesshow that a marriage marked by conflict, jealousy and anger is often worse forchildren's well-being than divorce or residence from birth in a stablesingle-parent family.⁽³²⁾ For instance, researchshows that while children bornto teenagers who were already married do better than children born tonever-married teens, children born to teen parents who married after thebirth do worse on some measures, probably because of the high conflict thataccompanies marriages entered into with ambivalence or under pressure. Someresearch suggests that, among low-income African-American families, children fromsingle-parent homes show higher educational achievement than their counterpartsfrom two-parent homes.⁽³³⁾

The idea that marriage can solve the problems of children in impoverishedfamilies ignores the complex realities of these families. The Fragile Familiesstudy shows that many low-income parents of new born children already havechildren from previous relationships. Thus, their marriages would not createidealized biological families, but rather blended families in which child supportenforcement and negotiation among stepparents would complicaterelationships.⁽³⁴⁾ A recent study of families inpoor neighborhoods in Boston, Chicago and SanAntonio also reveals complex patterns of cohabitation and coparenting.⁽³⁵⁾

Marriage to a stepfather may improve a mother's economic situation, but itdoes not necessarily improve outcomes for children and in some cases leads tomore problems than continued residence in a stable single-parent family. Even ifprograms succeed in getting first-time parents married, there is no guaranteethat the couples will stay married. Research shows that marriages contracted inthe 1960s in order to "legitimate" a child were highly likely to end indivorce.⁽³⁶⁾ Multiple transitions in and out ofmarriage are worse for childrenpsychologically than residence in the same kind of family, whatever its form,over long periods of time.⁽³⁷⁾

Women and children in economically precarious situations are particularlyvulnerable to domestic violence.⁽³⁸⁾ While it may betrue that cohabitingcouples are more prone to violence than married couples, this is probably becauseof what social scientists call a "selection effect": People in non-abusiverelationships are more likely to get married. Encouraging women in an unstablecohabiting relationship to marry their partners would not necessarily protectthem or their children. Indeed, the first serious violent episode in an unstablerelationship sometimes occurs only after the couple has made a formalcommitment.⁽³⁹⁾

Even when it does not take a violent form, bad fathering can be worse than nofathering. For instance, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse atColumbia University found that while teens in two-parent families are, onaverage, much less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol than teens in one-parentones, teens in two-parent families who have a poor to fair relationship withtheir father are more likely to do so than teens in the average one-parentfamily.⁽⁴⁰⁾

Furthermore, even good marriages are vulnerable to dissolution. The currentrisks of a marriage ending in divorce are quite high, although they have comedown from their peak in 1979-81. It is now estimated that approximately 40percent of marriages will end in divorce, and the risk of divorce is elevatedamong people with low income and insecure jobs. Sociologist Scott Southcalculates that every time the unemployment rate rises by 1 percent,approximately 10,000 extra divorces occur.⁽⁴¹⁾Comparing the income ofsingle-parent families and married-couple families in any particular year leadsto an overly optimistic assessment of the benefits of marriage, because itignores the possibility of marital dissolution.

Marriage may provide a temporary improvement in a woman's economic prospectswithout conferring any secure, long-term protection for her children. Indeed, ifmarriage encourages mothers to withdraw time from paid employment, this can lowertheir future earnings and increase the wage penalty that they incur frommotherhood itself.⁽⁴²⁾

Two Parent Families Are Also Under Stress

Poverty among children is not confined to single-parent families. In 2000,about 38% of all poor young children lived in two-parent homes.⁽⁴³⁾ Thesefamilies have been largely overlooked in the debates over anti-poverty programsand marriage. Indeed, the campaign to increase marriage has overlooked one of themost important public policy issues facing the United States: the growingeconomic gap between parents, whether married or unmarried, and non-parents.

The costs of raising children have increased in recent years, partly becauseof the expansion of opportunities for women in the labor market and partlybecause of the longer time children spend in school. The lack of public supportfor parenting has also contributed to a worsening of the economic position ofparents relative to non-parents.⁽⁴⁴⁾ Unlike otheradvanced industrial countries,the United States fails to provide paid family leaves for parents, and levels ofpublicly subsidized support for child care remain comparatively low. Mostemployment practices penalize workers who take time away from paidresponsibilities to provide family care.⁽⁴⁵⁾ Thehigh cost of parenting in thiscountry helps explain many of the economic disadvantages that women face relativeto men.⁽⁴⁶⁾ It may also help explain why many menare reluctant to embracepaternal responsibilities.

The Need for a Better Social Safety Net

The association of single parenthood with poverty is not inevitable. In Canadaand France, single mothers -- and children in general -- are far less likely tolive in poverty. Sweden and Denmark, with higher rates of out-of-wedlock births,have much lower rates of child poverty and hunger than does the United States.The reason for the difference is simple: These countries devote a greaterpercentage of their resources to assisting families with children than wedo.⁽⁴⁷⁾Similarly, dramatic differences in child poverty rates within our countryreflect differences in tax, child care, and income assistance policies acrossstates.⁽⁴⁸⁾

Fans of the 1996 welfare reform law point to a dramatic decline in the welfarerolls since its enactment. Much of this decline is attributable to the economicboom and resulting low unemployment rates of the late 1990s. Despite promisesthat work requirements and time limits would lead to a more generous package ofassistance for those who "followed the rules, " cash benefits have declined.Between 1994 and 1999, the real value of maximum benefits fell in most states,with an overall decline in inflation-adjusted value of about 11 per cent.⁽⁴⁹⁾Average benefits declined even more, as recipients increased their earnings.Indeed, the declining value of benefits is another reason why caseloads havefallen.⁽⁵⁰⁾

Punitive attitudes, as well as time limits, have discouraged many eligiblefamilies from applying for assistance. The Census Bureau estimates that less than30 per cent of children in poverty resided in a family that received cash publicassistance in 1998.⁽⁵¹⁾ Take-up rates for FoodStamps and Medicaid have declinedin recent years.⁽⁵²⁾ The implementation of the newChildren's Health Insuranceprogram has been quite uneven. As a result, states have saved money, but manychildren have gone without the food or medical care they needed. Public supportfor child care increased on both the federal and the state level. Still, mostfamilies who made a transition from welfare to work in the late 1990s did notreceive a subsidy.⁽⁵³⁾

During the economic boom of the late 1990s, increases in earnings among singleparents helped make up for declining welfare benefits. As a result, poverty ratesamong children declined from a high of about 21 per cent in 1996 to about 16 percent in 2000.⁽⁵⁴⁾ But these figures do not take intoaccount the costs of childcare and other work-related expenses, and they offer little hope for the futureof children in low-income families as unemployment rates once again begin toclimb.⁽⁵⁵⁾

The most important federal policy promoting the welfare of low income familiesis currently the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a fully refundable tax creditaimed at low-income families with children. Because benefits are closely tied toearnings, and phase out steeply after family income reaches $12,460, the EITCimposes a significant penalty on two-earner married couples, who are less likelyto benefit from it than either single parent families or married couples with aspouse at home. This penalty is unfair and should be eliminated.

Other problems with the EITC, however, should be addressed at the same time.Families with two children receive the maximum benefit, which means thatlow-income families with three or more children do not receive any additionalassistance. More than a third of all children in the country live in familieswith three or more children. Partly as a result of limited EITC coverage, thesefamilies are prone to significantly higher poverty rates.⁽⁵⁶⁾ Furthermore, theEITC is phased out in ways that penalize middle income families, who currentlyenjoy less public support for child rearing than the affluent.⁽⁵⁷⁾ An expandedunified tax credit for families with children could address this problem.⁽⁵⁸⁾

Given the pressing need for improvements in basic social safety net programsand the threat of rising unemployment, it is unconscionable to reallocate alreadyinadequate Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) funds to policiesdesigned to promote marriage or provide a "marriage bonus." There is littleevidence that such policies would in fact increase marriage rates or reducepoverty among children. Indeed, the main effect of marriage bonuses wouldprobably be to impose a "non-marriage" penalty that would have a particularlynegative impact on African-American children, who are significantly less likelyto live with married parents than either whites or Hispanics.⁽⁵⁹⁾ As JulianneMalveaux points out in her discussion of the Bush proposal, "a mere $100 millioncan be considered chump change. But the chump who could have been changed is theunemployed worker who misses out on job training because some folks find thoseprograms -- but not marriage-promotion programs -- a waste."⁽⁶⁰⁾

Well-designed programs to help individuals develop and improve familyrelationships may be a good idea. However, they should not be targeted to thepoor, but integrated into a larger provision of public health services, or builtinto existing health insurance programs (mandating, for instance, that bothpublic and private health insurance cover family counseling). Such programs alsoshould not be limited to couples who are married or planning to marry. Fathersand step-fathers who are not living with their biological children also needguidance and encouragement to develop healthy, nurturing relationships. Gay andlesbian families -- who are currently legally prohibited from marriage -- alsomerit assistance.

Public policies should not penalize marriage. Neither should they provide aneconomic bonus or financial incentive to individuals to marry, especially at thecost of lowering the resources available to children living with single mothers.Such a diversion of resources from public assistance programs penalizes thechildren of unmarried parents without guaranteeing good outcomes for the childrenof people who are married. A variety of public policies could help strengthenfamilies and reduce poverty among all children, including a broadening of theEarned Income Tax Credit, expansion of publicly subsidized child care, efforts topromote responsible fatherhood, improvements in public education and jobtraining, and efforts to reduce income inequality and pay discrimination. Unlikesome of the pro-marriage policies now under consideration, these policies wouldbenefit couples who wish to marry but would not pressure women to enter or remainin intimate relationships they would not otherwise choose.

Acknowledgment: The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance ofArlocSherman, senior research associate at the Children's Defense Fund, withstatistical references and calculations.

Notes

1. Alexandra Starr, "Shotgun Wedding by Uncle Sam?" Business Week, June 4,2001.

2. Cheryl Wetzstein, "States Want Pro-Family Funds," The Washington Times,December 10, 2001; Robin Toner and Robert Pear, "Bush Urges Work and MarriagePrograms in Welfare Plan," New York Times, February 27, 2002.

3. Jonathan Rauch, "The Widening Marriage Gap: America's New Class Divide,"National Journal, Friday, May 18, 2001.

4. Cheryl Weitzstein, "Unwed Mothers Set a Record for Births," The WashingtonTimes, April 18, 2001.

5. See Jared Bernstein, Irv Garfinkel, and Sara McLanahan, A ProgressiveMarriage Agenda, forthcoming from the Economic Policy Institute.

6. U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Historical Poverty Statistics -- Table 4. PovertyStatus of Families, by Type of Family, Presence of Related Children, Race, AndHispanic Origin: 1959-2000," Available at http://www.census.gov. In 1999, 36percent of single-mother households lived in poverty. Poverty in the U.S.1999. Current Population Reports, P60-210 (Washington, D.C.: GovernmentPrinting Office, 2000).

7. Alan Guttmacher Institute, "Married Mothers Fare the Best Economically, EvenIf they Were Unwed at the Time they Gave Birth," Family PlanningPerspectives 31, no. 5: pp. 258-60, September, 1999; Ariel Halpern, "PovertyAmong Children Born Outside of Marriage: Preliminary Findings from the NationalSurvey of America's Families," (Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute, 1999).8. Calculations by Arloc Sherman, Children's Defense Fund, based on the March2001 Current Population Survey.

9. Ibid. See also Neil G. Bennett, Jiali Li, Younghwan Song, and Keming Yang,"Young Children in Poverty: A Statistical Update," released June 17, 1999. NewYork: National Center for Children in Poverty,http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/nccp/99uptext.html.10. Linda Giannarelli and James Barsimantov, Child Care Expenses of America'sFamilies, Occasional Paper Number 40 (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute,2000).

11. Rachel Schumacher and Mark Greenberg, Child Care After Leaving Welfare:Early Evidence from State Studies (Washington, D.C.: Center for Law andSocial Policy, 1999).

12. Kathryn H. Porter and Allen Dupree, "Poverty Trends for Families Headed byWorking Single Mothers, 1993-1999," Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,August 16, 2001. For full article: http://www.cbpp.org/8-16-01wel.pdf.

13. Pamela Smock, "Cohabitation in the U.S.: An Appraisal of Research Themes,Findings, and Implications," American Review of Sociology 26, no.1 (2000):pp. 1-20.

14. Gregory Acs and Sandi Nelson, "'Honey, I'm Home.' Changes in LivingArrangements in the Late 1990s," New Federalism: National Survey of America'sFamilies (The Urban Institute), June 2001, pp. 1-7. A new study by JohnsHopkins researchers, presented on February 20, 2002 at a welfare forum inWashington D.C., however, shows that these partnerships are unstable and may notbe better for children than single-parent households. See Robin Toner, "TwoParents not Always Best for Children, Study Finds," New York Times,February 20, 2002.

15. Many dual-earner families with preschool age children include a parent whoworks evenings and nights in order to provide care during the day while theirhusband or wife is at work. See Harriet Presser, "Employment Schedules AmongDual-Earner Spouses and the Division of Household Labor by Gender," AmericanSociological Review 59, no. 3 (June 1994): pp. 348-364.

16. Kristen Harknett and Sara McLanahan, "Do Perceptions of Marriage ExplainMarital Behavior? How Unmarried Parents' Assessments of the Benefits of MarriageRelate to their Subsequent Marital Decision;" and Marcia Carlson, Sara McLanahan,and Paula England, "Union Formation and Stability in Fragile Families," paperspresented at the meetings of the Population Association of America, WashingtonD.C., April 2001.

17. More details on the Fragile Families study are available athttp://crcw.princeton.edu/fragilefamilies/nationalreport.pdf.

18. Maureen Waller, "High Hopes: Unwed Parents' Expectations About Marriage,"Children and Youth Services Review 23 (2001): pp. 457-84.

19. Sara McLanahan, "Parent Absence or Poverty: Which Matters More?" pp. 35-48 inGreg Duncan and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, eds., Consequences of Growing Up Poor(New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1997). On the impact of poverty in creatingnon-marriage and marital disruption, see Aimee Dechter, "The Effect of Women'sEconomic Independence on Union Dissolution," Working Paper Np. 92-98 (1992).

Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI; MarkTesta et al, "Employment and Marriage among Inner-City Fathers," Annals of theAmerican Academy of Political and Social Science 501 (1989), pp. 79-91; KarenHolden and Pamela Smock, "The Economic Costs of Marital Dissolution: Why Do Womenbear a Disproportionate Cost?" Annual Review of Sociology 17 (1991), pp.51-58. On the association of low income with domestic violence see KristinAnderson, "Gender, Status, and Domestic violence," Journal of Marriage and theFamily 59 (1997), pp. 655-670; A. M. Moore, "Intimate Violence: DoesSocioeconomic Status Matter?" in A.P. Gardarelli, ed., Violence BetweenIntimate Partners (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1997), pp. 90-100; A. J. Sedlackand D.D. Broadhurst, D.D., Third National Incidence Study of Child Abuse andNeglect: Final Report (Washington D.C.: Department of Health and HumanServices 1996).20. Daniel T. Lichter, Marriage as Public Policy (Washington, D.C:Progressive Policy Institute, September 2001).

21. Kathryn Edin, "A Few Good Men: Why Poor Mothers Don't Marry or Remarry?"The American Prospect, January 3, 2000, p. 28; Kathryn Edin and LauraLein, Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-WageWork (New York: Russell Sage, 1998).

22. Valerie Oppenheimer and Vivian Lew, "American Marriage Formation in the1980s," in Karen Mason and An-Magritt Jensen, eds, Gender and Family Change inIndustrialized Countries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 105-38;Sharon Sassler and Robert Schoen, "The Effects of Attitudes and Economic Activityon Marriage," Journal of Marriage and the Family 61 (1999): pp.148-49.

23. John Billy and David Moore, "A Multilevel Analysis of Marital and NonmaritalFertility in the U.S.," Social Forces 70 (1992), pp. 977-1011; SaraMcLanahan and Irwin Garfinkel, "Welfare is No Incentive," The New YorkTimes, July 29, 1994, p. A13; Elaine McCrate, "Expectations of Adult Wagesand Teenage Childbearing," International Review of Applied Economics 6(1992) pp. 309-328; Ellen Coughlin, "Policy Researchers Shift the Terms of theDebate on Women's Issues," The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 31,1989; Marian Wright Edelman, Families in Peril: An Agenda for SocialChange (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), p. 55; Lawrence Lynn andMichael McGeary, eds, Inner-City Poverty in the United States (Washington,D.C.: National Academy Press, 1990), pp. 163-67; Jonathan Crane, "The EpidemicTheory of Ghetto and Neighborhood Effects on Dropping Out and TeenagedChildbearing," American Journal of Sociology 96 (1991), pp. 1226-59; SaraMcLanahan and Lynne Casper, "Growing Diversity and Inequality in the AmericanFamily," in Reynolds Farley, State of the Union, Vol. 2, pp 10-11; MikeMales, "Poverty, Rape, Adult/Teen Sex: Why 'Pregnancy Prevention' Programs Don'tWork," Phi Delta Kappan, January 1994, p.409; Mike Males, "In Defense ofTeenaged Mothers," The Progressive, August 1994, p. 23.

24. Dian McLaughlin and Daniel Lichter, Poverty and the Marital Behavior of YoungWomen," Journal of Marriage and the Family 59, no.3 (1997): pp. 582-94.

25. Wendy Single-Rushton and Sara McLanahan, "For Richer or Poorer?" manuscript,Center for Research on Child Well-Being, Princeton University, July 2001, p. 4;Kathryn Edin, "What do Low-Income Single Mothers Say About Marriage?" SocialProblems 47 (2000), pp. 112-33.

26. Robert Nakosteen and Michael Zimmer, "Man, Money, and Marriage: Are HighEarners More Prone than Low Earners to Marry?" Social Science Quarterly 78(1997): pp. 66-82.

27. Francine D. Blau, Lawrence W. Kahn and Jane Waldfogel, "Understanding YoungWomen's Marriage Decisions: The Role of Labor and Marriage Market Conditions,"Industrial and Labor Relations Review 53, no. 4 (July 2000): pp.624-48.

28.Robert Nakosteen and Michael Zimmer, "Men, Money, and Marriage" SocialScience Quarterly 78 (1997), pp. ; Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr. "The Future ofMarriage," American Demographics 18 (June 1996), pp. 39-40; Francine Blau,Lawrence Kahn, and Jane Waldfogel, "Understanding Young Women's MarriageDecisions," Industrial and Labor Relations Review 53 (2000): pp.624-48.

29. William A. Darity, Jr. and Samuel L. Myers, Jr., "Family Structure and theMarginalization of Black Men," Policy Implications" in The Decline in MarriageAmong African Americans: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Implications, ed.M. Belinda Tucker and Claudia Mitchell-Kernan. (New York: Russell SageFoundation, 1995), pp. 263-308.

30. Daniel.T. Lichter, D. McLaughlin, F. LeClere, G. Kephart, and D. Landry,"Race and the Retreat from Marriage: A Shortage of Marriageable Men?" AmericanSociological Review 57 (December 1992): pp. 781-99.

31. Ron Mincy, Columbia University, personal communication, February 18,2002.

32. Mavis Hetherington, For Better or for Worse: Divorce Reconsidered (NewYork: W. W. Norton, 2001); Paul Amato and Alan Booth, "The Legacy of Parents'Marital Discord," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81 (2001),pp. 627-638; Andrew Cherlin, "Going to Extremes: Family Structure, Children'sWell-Being, and Social Science," Demography 36 (November 1999): pp.421-28.

33. Elizabeth Cooksey, "Consequences of Young Mothers' Marital Histories forChildren's Cognitive Development," Journal of Marriage and the Family 59(May 1997), pp. 245-62; Juan Battle, "What Beats Having Two Parents? EducationalOutcomes for African American Students in Single- Versus Dual-Parent Families,"Journal of Black Studies 28 (1998), p. 783-802.

34. Ron Mincy and Chen-Chung Huang, "'Just Get Me to the Church...': AssessingPolicies to Promote Marriage among Fragile Families," manuscript prepared for theMacArthur Foundation Network on the Family and the Economy Meeting, Evanston,Illinois, November 30, 2001. Contact Ron Mincy, School of Social Work, ColumbiaUniversity.

35. Research by Andrew Cherlin and Paula Fomby at Johns Hopkins University, asreported in Robin Toner, "Two Parents Not Always Best for Children," New YorkTimes, February 21, 2002.

36. Frank Furstenberg, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, and S. Philip Morgan, AdolescentMothers in Later Life (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 37. Frank Furstenberg, "Is the Modern Family a Threat to Children's Health?"Society 36 (1999): p. 35.

38. Richard Gelles, "Constraints Against Family Violence," American BehavioralScientist 36 (1993), pp. 575-86; A. J. Sedlack and D.D. Broadhurst, ThirdNational Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect: Final Report(Washington, D.C.: Department of Health and Human Services, 1996); KristinAnderson, "Gender, Status and Domestic Violence," Journal of Marriage and theFamily 59 (1997), 655-670; Jacqueline Payne and Martha Davis, "Testimony ofNOW Legal Defense and Education Fund on Child Support and FatherhoodInitiatives," submitted to the United States House Human Resources Subcommitteeof the Ways and Means Committee, June 28, 2001.

39. Catherine Kenney and Sara McLanahan, "Are Cohabiting Relationship MoreViolent Than Marriages?" manuscript, Princeton University; E.D. Leonard, 1994,"Battered Women and Criminal Justice: A Review (doctoral dissertation cited inTodd Migliaccio, "Abused Husbands: A Narrative Analysis," Journal of FamilyIssues 23 (2002), 26-52; K.D. O'Leary et al, "Prevalence and Stability ofPhysical Aggression Between Spouses: A Longitudinal Analysis," Journal ofConsulting and Clinical Psychology 57 (1989), pp. 263-68.

40. National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University,"Back to School 1999 – National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance AbuseV: Teens and their Parents," August 1999. See also Irvin Molotsky, "Study LinksTeenage Substance Abuse and Paternal Ties," New York Times, Aug. 31,1999.

41. "Census Bureau Reports Poor Two-Parent Families Are about Twice as Likely toBreak Up as Two-Parent Families not in Poverty," New York Times, January15, 1993, p. A6; Don Burroughs, "Love and Money," U.S. News & WorldReport, October 19, 1992, p. 58; Scott South, Katherine Trent, and Yang Shen,"Changing Partners: Toward a Macrostructural-Opportunity Theory of MaritalDissolution," Journal of Marriage and Family 63, no.3 (2001):743-754. Alsosee note 17.

42. Michelle Budig and Paula England, "The Wage Penalty for Motherhood,"American Sociological Review 66 (2001): pp. 204-225; Heather Joshi,Pierella Paci, and Jane Waldfogel. 1999. "The Wages of Motherhood: Better orWorse," Cambridge Journal of Economics 23, no.5 (1999): pp. 543-564. JaneWaldfogel, "The Effect of Children on Women's Wages," American SociologicalReview 62:2 (1997): pp. 209-217.

43. "Young Children in Poverty: A Statistical Update," June 1999 Edition.Released June 17, 1999, prepared by Neil G. Bennett, Jiali Li, Younghwan Song,and Keming Yang. New York: National Center for Children in Poverty,http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/nccp/99uptext.html. Datafor 2000 from CPS,http://ferret.bls.census.gov/macro/032001/pov/new01_003.htm.

44. Nancy Folbre, Who Pays for the Kids? Gender and the Structures ofConstraint (New York: Routledge, 1994); Ann Crittenden, The Price ofMotherhood (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001); Sylvia Ann Hewlett andCornell West, The War Against Parents (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1998).

45. Joan Williams, Unbending Gender. Why Family and Work Conflict and What toDo About It. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

46. Ann Crittenden, The Price of Motherhood. Why the Most Important Job in theWorld is Still the Least Valued (New York: Henry Holt, 2001).

47. Timothy Smeeding, Barbara Boyle Torrey and Martin Rein, "Patterns of Incomeand Poverty: The Economic Status of Children and the Elderly in Eight Countries,"in John L Palmer, Timothy Smeeding, and Barbara Boyle Torrey, eds., TheVulnerable (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1988); Susan Houseknechtand Jaya Sastry, "Family 'Decline' and Child Well-Being: A ComparativeAssessment," Journal of Marriage and the Family 58 (1996); Sara McLanahanand Irwin Garfinkel, "Single-Mother Families and Social Policy: Lessons for theUnited States from Canada, France, and Sweden," pp. 367-83 in K. McFate, R.Lawson, W. J. Wilson eds., Poverty, Inequality, and the Future of SocialPolicy: Western States in the New World Order (New York: Russell SageFoundation, 1995). Michael J. Graetz and Jerry L. Mashaw, True Security.Rethinking American Social Insurance (New Haven: Yale University Press,1999).

48. Marcia K. Meyers, Janet C. Gornick, and Laura R. Peck. 2001. "PackagingSupport for Low-Income Families: Policy Variation Across the U.S. States,"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 20, no. 3: pp. 457-483.

49. Table 7-6, Green Book 2000. Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. Houseof Representatives, 106th Congress. Available athttp://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/wm001.html.

50. President's Council of Economic Advisors, The Effects of Welfare Policyand the Economic Expansion of Welfare Caseloads: An Update (Washington, D.C.:Council of Economic Advisors, 1999). 51. 2000 Kids Count Data Online,http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/kc2000/sum_11.htm.

52. Jennifer Steinhauer, "States Proved Unpredictable in Aiding UninsuredChildren," New York Times, September 28, 2000. See also Leighton Ku andBrian Bruen, "The Continuing Decline in Medicaid Coverage" Series A, No. A-37(Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 1999); Sheila Zedlewski and Sarah Brauner,"Are the Steep Declines in Food Stamp Participation Linked to Falling WelfareCaseloads?" Series B, No. B-3 (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 1999).

53. Rachel Schumacher and Mark Greenberg, Child Care After Leaving Welfare:Early Evidence from State Studies. Washington, D.C.: Center for Law andSocial Policy, 1999). On the added costs of child care and care-giving activitiesfor low-income families, see Jody Heymann, The Widening Gap: Why America'sWorking Families Are in Jeopardy and What Can Be Done about It (New York:Basic Books, 2000).

54. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Money Income and Povertyin the U.S., 1999. Figures for 2000 fromhttp://ferret.bls.census.gov/macro/032001/pov/new17_008.htm.

55. Patricia Ruggles, Drawing the Line. Alternative Poverty Measures and TheirImplications for Public Policy ( Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute Press,1990); Constance Citro and Robert Michael, eds. Measuring Poverty: A NewApproach (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Science, 1995); JaredBernstein, Chauna Brocht, Maggie Spade-Aguilar, How Much is Enough? BasicFamily Budgets for Working Families (Washington, D.C.: Economic PolicyInstitute, 2000).

56. Robert Greenstein, "Should EITC Benefits Be Enlarged for Families with Threeor More Children?" Washington, D.C.: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,2000. http://www.cbpp.org/3-14-tax.htm.

57. David Ellwood and Jeffrey B. Liebman, "The Middle Class Parent Penalty: ChildBenefits in the U.S. Tax Code," Manuscript, John F. Kennedy School of Government,Harvard University, Boston, MA., 2000.

58. Robert Cherry and Max Sawicky, "Giving Tax Credit Where Credit is Due,"Briefing Paper (Washington, D.C.: Economic Policy Institute, April 2000).Available at http://www.epinet.org/briefingpapers/eitc.html.

59. Ronald B. Mincy, "Marriage, Child Poverty, and Public Policy," AmericanExperiment Quarterly, 4:2 (Summer 2001): pp. 68-71. See also WendySigle-Rushton and Sara McLanahan, "For Richer or Poorer?" manuscript, Center forResearch on Child Well-Being, Princeton University.

60. Julianne Malveaux, "More Jobs, Not More Marriages, Lift Poor," U.S.A.Today, February 22, 2002, p. 15A.