The public has been concerned about "family breakdown" for a long time, but it was not until the passage of welfare reform in 1996 that the federal government decided to get into the business of promoting marriage. Although it was little noticed at the time, three of the four purposes of the welfare legislation refer directly or indirectly to marriage and family formation. The law exhorts states to promote "job preparation, work and marriage," to "prevent and reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies," and to "encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families."
The Bush administration, as it contemplates this year's extension ofwelfare legislation, plans to make marriage even more central. Theadministration's reauthorization proposal, announced February 27, includes $300million for demonstration grants to focus on promoting healthy marriages andreducing out-of-wedlock births. Meanwhile, Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating haslaunched a $10-million, multisector marriage initiative, and other smaller-scalegovernment-sponsored initiatives have been enacted in Arizona, Florida,Louisiana, Michigan, and Utah. The federal government is primarily concerned withreducing out-of-wedlock births, which it views as a principal cause of welfaredependency and a host of other social problems. By contrast, state marriageinitiatives are mostly concerned about the effects of high divorce rates andfather absence on children.
This new emphasis on marriage as a panacea for social problems is troubling tomany liberals. For one thing, it risks being dismissive of children who happen tofind themselves in single-parent families. It also can be seen as disparagingsingle mothers and ignoring the fact that many women have left abusive marriagesfor good reasons.
That said, it's hard to dismiss an overwhelming consensus of social-scienceresearch findings that children tend to be better off, financially andemotionally, when their parents are married to each other. Around 50 percent ofall first marriages are expected to end in divorce, and 60 percent of alldivorces involve children. One-third of all births are out of wedlock, nearly 40percent of children do not live with their biological fathers, and too manynonresident fathers neither support nor see their children on a regular basis.
Children living with single mothers are five times as likely to be poor asthose in two-parent families. Growing up in a single-parent family also roughlydoubles the risk that a child will drop out of school, have difficulty finding ajob, or become a teen parent. About half of these effects appear to beattributable to the reduced income available to single parents, but the otherhalf is due to noneconomic factors. It's not just the presence of two adults inthe home that helps children, as some argue. Children living with cohabitingpartners and in stepfamilies generally do less well than those living with bothmarried biological parents.
Marriage also brings benefits to husbands and wives. Married adults are moreproductive on the job, earn more, save more, have better physical and mentalhealth, and live longer, according to an extensive review of research conductedby scholar Linda Waite. Although Waite admits that these findings partly reflectthe selection of better-adjusted people into marriage, she finds that when peoplemarry, they act in more health-promoting and productive ways.
Conservatives are prone to exaggerate these research findingsand underplay the importance of economics. If married people are more likely(other things being equal) to produce thriving children, other things are not, infact, equal. It's not just the case that single mothers find themselves poorbecause they are unmarried; they find themselves unmarried because they are poor.Successful marriages are more difficult when husbands and wives are poorlyeducated, lack access to jobs that pay decently, and cannot afford decent childcare. Economic hardship and other problems associated with poverty can wreakhavoc on couples' relationships.
The controversy mostly isn't about research, however, but about values.Most people regard decisions to marry, divorce, and bear children as intenselyprivate. Any policy proposals that hint at coercing people to marry, reinforcingVictorian conceptions of gender roles, or limiting the right to end bad marriagesare viewed as counter to American values of individual autonomy and privacy. Someworry about the existence of hidden agendas that threaten to put women back intothe kitchen, ignore domestic violence, and eliminate public assistance forlow-income families. Others fear that holding out marriage as the ideal blamessingle parents, many of whom do a terrific job under difficult circumstances. Useof the term "illegitimate" is especially offensive because it stigmatizeschildren (and, in fact, is legally inaccurate, as children born outside ofmarriage now have virtually the same legal rights as those born within marriage).And some worry that the pro-marriage agenda discriminates against ethnic andsexual minorities and their children, particularly gays and lesbians.
There are also more pragmatic concerns. Skeptics of the pro-marriage agendaobserve that the decline in marriage is worldwide, a result of overwhelmingsocial and economic forces that cannot be reversed. In their view, attempts tochange family formation behavior are largely futile; we should instead justaccept and help support the increasing diversity of family forms. For others, theconcern is less about the value of promoting marriage and more about whethergovernment, rather than individuals, communities, or faith institutions, shouldlead the charge.
Finally, marriage per se is too simplistic a solution to the complex problemsof the poor. Marrying a low-income, unmarried mother to her child's father willnot magically raise the family out of poverty when the parents often have noskills, no jobs, and terrible housing, and may be struggling with depression,substance abuse, or domestic violence. Advocates also worry that funds spent onuntested marriage-promotion activities will be taken away from programs thatprovide desperately needed services for single parents, such as child care.
In response to some of these concerns -- as well as research showing thatserious parental conflict harms children -- some marriage advocates respond thatmarriage per se should not be the goal but rather voluntary, "healthy" marriages.They also agree that protections should be built into programs to guard againstdomestic violence. But this only raises doubts about how "healthy" will bedefined, and by whom, and whether we even know how to help people create betterrelationships.
There also are some plainly foolish ideas in the marriage movement. WestVirginia currently gives married families an extra $100 a month in welfarepayments as a "marriage incentive." Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation hasproposed giving a $4,000 government bounty to welfare recipients who marry beforethey have a child and stay married for two years. Charles Murray wants to endpublic assistance altogether and has proposed eliminating all aid tounmarried mothers under 18 in one state to test the idea. This proposal is especially egregious and surely would harm children of single mothers.
Progressives and others thus are placed in a quandary. They don't wantto oppose marriage -- which most Americans still value highly -- but areskeptical of many pro-marriage initiatives. Given that healthy marriage isplainly good for children, however, one can envision a reasonable agenda -- onethat would gain broad support -- that we might call Marriage-Plus. This approachputs the well-being of children first by helping more of them grow up in married,healthy, two-parent families. However, for many children, the reality is thatmarriage is not a feasible or even a desirable option for their parents. Thus, asecondary goal is to help these parents -- whether unmarried, separated,divorced, or remarried -- cooperate better in raising their children. These arenot alternative strategies. Children need us to do both.
A marriage-plus agenda does not promote marriage just for marriage's sake.It acknowledges that married and unmarried parents, mothers and fathers, may needboth economic resources and noneconomic supports to increase the likelihood ofstable, healthy marriages and better co-parenting relationships. In addition, amarriage-plus agenda focuses more on the front end (making marriage better to bein) rather than the back end (making marriage more difficult to get out of).
Here are some elements of this agenda.
Help "fragile families" at the birth of a child. For many poor families, relationship-education programs may be helpful but not enough. A new national study finds that at the time of their child's birth, one-half of unmarried parents (so-called "fragile families") are living together, and another third are romantically attached but not cohabiting. The majority of these parents are committed to each other and to their child and have high hopes of eventual marriage and a future together -- although these hopes too often are not realized. We should reach out to young parents to help them achieve their desire to remain together as a family. A helpful package of services to offer these young families might include a combination of "soft" services -- relationship-skills and marriage-education workshops, financial-management classes, and peer-support groups -- and "hard" services, such as job training and placement, housing, medical coverage, and substance-abuse treatment, if necessary. At present, all we do is get the father to admit paternity and hound him for child support. [See Ronald B. Mincy, "What about Black Fathers?"]
Reduce economic stress by reducing poverty. Poverty and unemployment can stress couples' relationships to their breaking point. Results of a welfare-to-work demonstration program in Minnesota suggest that enhancing the income of the working poor can indirectly promote marriage. The Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP), which subsidized the earnings of employed welfare families, found that marriage rates increased for both single-parent long-term recipients and two-parent families. Married two-parent families were significantly more likely to remain married. MFIP also reduced the reported incidence of domestic abuse.
Provided better-paying jobs and job assistance. The inability of low-skilled, unemployed men to provide income to their families is a major reason for their failure to marry the mothers of their children. Better employment opportunities help low-income fathers, and men in general, to become responsible fathers and, perhaps, more attractive and economically stable marriage partners. There is also growing support for making changes in the child-support system to ensure that more support paid by fathers goes to the children (rather than being used to recoup government program costs).
Support proven ways of preventing teen pregnancy. Teen pregnancy and birth rates have fallen by over 20 percent since the early 1990s, and there is now strong evidence that a number of prevention programs are effective. [See Isabel V. Sawhill, "Is Lack of Marriage the Real Problem?"] A related strategy is enforcement of child support. States that have tough, effective child-support systems have been found to have lower nonmarital birth rates, presumably because men are beginning to understand there are serious costs associated with fathering a child.
Reduce work/family stresses on couples. Stress in the workplace spills over into the home. Persistent overtime, frequent travel, and inflexible leave policies place great strain on couples at all income levels. Employers are increasingly demanding nonstandard work schedules. A recent study found that married couples with children who work night and rotating shifts are at higher risk of separation and divorce. The absence of affordable and reliable child care forces many parents who would prefer a normal workday to work split shifts solely to make sure that a parent is home with children.
Cut tax penalties and other marriage disincentives. There has always been strong support for reducing marriage tax penalties for many two-earner families. This is a complicated task because the majority of married couples, in fact, receive tax bonuses rather than penalties. A positive step was taken in 2001 to reduce significantly the marriage penalty affecting low-income working families in the Earned Income Tax Credit program. While there is uncertainty about the extent to which these tax-related marriage penalties affect marital behavior, there is broad general agreement that government has a responsibility to "first do no harm" when it comes to marriage.
Similarly, there is near unanimous agreement that government should not makeit harder for eligible two-parent families to receive welfare benefits andassistance. In the past, the old welfare program, Aid to Families with DependentChildren, was much criticized for offering incentives to break up families. Atleast 33 states already have removed the stricter eligibility rules placed ontwo-parent families, and the president's welfare reauthorization proposalencourages the other states to do the same. In addition, it proposes to end thehigher work participation rate for two-parent families, a federal rule that hasbeen criticized widely by the states. Another needed reform would forgiveaccumulated child-support debt owed by noncustodial fathers if they marry themothers of their children. (Currently, such debt is owed to the state if themothers and children are receiving welfare benefits.)
Help those who want to marry and stay married. A vast industry is devoted to helping couples plan a successful wedding day -- wedding planners, 500-page bridal guides, specialty caterers, the list goes on. But where do young people go to learn about how to sustain good, lifelong marriages? In fact, we now know a lot about what makes contemporary marriages work. With the transformation of gender roles, there are fewer fixed rules for couples to follow, meaning they have to negotiate daily who does what and when. In the absence of the legal and social constraints that used to keep marriages together, there's now a premium on developing effective relationship skills. Building on three decades of research, there are a small but rapidly growing number of programs (both religious and secular) that help people from high school through adulthood understand the benefits of marriage for children and for themselves, develop realistic expectations for healthy relationships, understand the meaning of commitment, and learn the skills and attitudes needed to make marriage succeed. Other programs help married couples survive the inevitable ups and downs that occur in most marriages, and help remarried couples with the additional challenges of step-parenting. Oklahoma, Utah, and Michigan have begun using government funds to make these relationship- and marriage-education programs accessible to low-income couples. The Greater Grand Rapids Community Marriage Policy initiative is urging area businesses to include marriage education as an Employee Assistance Program benefit, arguing that it's more cost-effective to prevent marital distress than to incur the costs of counseling and lost productivity involved when employees' marriages break up.
A marriage-plus agenda that includes activities such as these isnot just the responsibility of government. Some of the strategies proposed hereare being implemented by private and religious groups, some by governments, andsome by partnerships between these sectors. The approach adopted in Oklahoma,Greater Grand Rapids, and Chattanooga, for example, mobilizes the resources ofmany sectors of the community -- government, education, legal, faith, business,and media -- in a comprehensive effort to create a more marriage-supportiveculture and to provide new services to promote, support, and strengthen couplesand marriage and reduce out-of-wedlock childbearing and divorce. This "saturationmodel" seems particularly promising because it takes into account the manyfactors that influence individuals' decisions to marry, to divorce, or to remainunmarried. We should proceed cautiously, trying out and evaluating new ideasbefore applying them widely.
Ironically, in the midst of this furor about government's role in marriage,it's worth noting that the federal government recently has begun to shirk a basicresponsibility: counting the numbers of marriages and divorces in the UnitedStates. Since budget cuts in 1995, the government has been unable to report onmarriage and divorce rates in the states or for the nation as a whole. And, forthe first time in the history of the Census, Americans were not asked to givetheir marital status in the 2000 survey. What kind of pro-marriage message fromthe government is that?
If liberals and conservatives are serious about strengthening families for thesake of helping children, liberals ought to acknowledge that noncoercive andegalitarian approaches to bolstering marriage are sound policy. Conservatives,meanwhile, should admit that much of what it takes to make marriage work for thebenefit of spouses and children is not just moral but economic.
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