Posted on 01/06/2015 4:24:51 AM PST by Kaslin
How big a problem is family fragmentation? "Immense," says Mitch Pearlstein, head of the Minnesota think tank Center of the American Experiment. "The biggest domestic problem facing this country."
So big he went out and interviewed 40 experts of varying ideology across the nation and relayed their answers in his book "Broken Bonds: What Family Fragmentation Means for America's Future." That's the good news. The bad news is that none of the experts is confident he has an answer, and neither is Pearlstein.
What is family fragmentation? The facts are easy to state. About 40 percent of babies born in America these days are born outside of marriage. That's true of about 30 percent of non-Hispanic whites, more than 50 percent of Hispanics and more than 70 percent of blacks.
Back in 1965 Daniel Patrick Moynihan was prompted to write his report on the black family when the out-of-wedlock birth rate of blacks was 25 percent. He believed, correctly, that this spelled trouble ahead. Half a century later that's the figure for supposedly privileged non-Hispanic whites.
Scandinavian countries also have high out-of-marriage birth rates, but couples tend to stay together and raise their children to adulthood. In America, not so much.
Pearlstein notes that the percentage of children living with two parents in 2009 was 86 percent among Asians, 75 among non-Hispanic whites, 67 percent among Hispanics and 37 percent among blacks.
But these numbers include step-parents. And when you take into account findings that child abuse by stepfathers is substantially above average, that's not entirely good news.
The numbers that show that children raised by their two biological (or adoptive) parents do substantially better in every respect in life than those who are not. They do better in school and in higher education, they do better at jobs and economically, they develop more stable and lasting relationships personally. They are more likely to earn success -- what American Enterprise Institute Arthur Brooks identifies as the chief source of personal satisfaction and happiness.
When confronted with those facts, the impulse of most Americans is to be wary of passing judgment on single parents. Some of them indeed do raise children who do well. Many struggle through difficulties that happily married parents seldom experience.
Back in the culturally conformist America of the mid-20th century, there was a stigma against unmarried parenthood and divorce. Marriage rates were higher and divorce rates much lower.
But there is little sign that such a stigma will return. Even among cultural and religious conservatives, there is no perceptible move to repeal the no-fault divorce laws that almost every state passed in the 1970s.
Family fragmentation is unsettling nevertheless, because it seems to be creating a two-tier society. In his 2012 book "Coming Apart," AEI scholar Charles Murray highlighted how among the wealthiest 20 percent of whites, divorce rates and single parenthood have returned to 1950s levels after a blip upward in the 1970s.
But among the poorest 30 percent of whites -- and among much larger percentages of Hispanics and blacks -- divorce and single parenthood have become a way of life. That is exacerbated by the recent decline in college attendance by young men and the dearth of job opportunities for less educated men. That makes them less marriageable and less prepared to take responsibility for children they may father.
Brookings Institution scholar Isabel Sawhill, echoing Murray, tells Pearlstein that we are becoming a "bifurcated society," not just because of income inequality but because of family formation patterns. This is something like the view taken in a 2013 speech by President Obama, which described family fragmentation as a consequence of economic inequality.
One conclusion from all this is that the nation is being deprived of a substantial amount of human capital by family fragmentation. Young people are achieving less than their potential, with cumulative negative consequences for all of us.
Is there any way to reverse the trend toward family fragmentation? Some of Pearlstein's experts call for raising taxes, and some call for lowering them. Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah calls for legislative remedies to reverse "implicit marriage penalties in our tax code and welfare programs."
Such policy changes might be useful "nudges," to use Harvard law professor (and Obama appointee) Cass Sunstein's term. But perhaps well-off Americans should, as Charles Murray suggests, preach what they practice. Few Americans want to stigmatize single parents. But should we be afraid to tell people there's a better way?
Change the financial incentives for single parenthood. Stop the money. Stop the problem.
I see it every day. I fight it every day.
The only hope is a spiritual revival. The government’s incentives matter but a re not primary. Spiritual comes first. Rock ‘n roll culture (or whatever you choose to call it) has triumphed. Nothing matters but having a good time.. No standards. Most women under thirty have been totally indoctrinated by the whorish Sex and the City. Anybody who takes a stand against the new Sodom and Gomorrah is ridiculed as a prude.
Jesus is the answer. Once that is inn place government policy will gat back in line.
“Financial incentives affect behavior. They do not cause it.”
Of course financial incentives cause behavior! Why wouldn’t they? Have you ever heard of B.F. Skinner? or even been a parent? Rewards are extremely powerful influences over the drives that cause behaviors. This is a researched fact.
There are other influences on behavior as well, or course, but the reward factor is big. Free will is operative, and is woven into the mix, but that is another topic.
Incentivize married households through the tax code and welfare benefits. Right now, it is more attractive to collect benefits as a single-parent household. Of course, this would require politicians with the backbone to actually seek a solution.
Thank you for alerting us to this book. I will definitely request it from my library and read it.
“Return unto Me and I will return unto you.” Indeed. This country needs to return to GOD.
“Is there any way to reverse the trend toward family fragmentation?”
Yes, end welfare!
No welfare = 16 yr old girls won’t fall on their back with their legs in the air for every gang-banger that walks by.
You would be surprised how conservative(selective) women/girls would get if taxpayers aren’t supporting them.
Well, I may not be one of 40 experts of various ideologies, but I’d say the answer is pretty simple.
Stop taking from those who act responsibly and rewarding those who act irresponsibly.
Of course, if we did that, the Democrat party would cease to exist in its current form.
Two birds with one stone...
Interesting the baby picture in the article looks like a white child...
I guess putting the highest percentage of out of wedlock births baby picture might be considered racism...
Change the financial incentives for single parenthood. Stop the money. Stop the problem.
I agree, remove the GD Government from the role as provider and the women will stay with their men as they in turn will find work to care for their families.
When Clinton first took office, locals girls were getting pregnant and having babies. You’d have two mommas and two babies living in a trailer, living off Welfare. When Welfare Reform passed, they got jobs.
It keeps coming back to that one truth:
You cannot legislate morality.
The liberals, however, have certainly legislated rewards for immorality - funding young girls to produce children to increase their income. It would take morality on the part of young women to reject this way of life.
You wouldn’t believe the number of white girls in my office with kids from more than one dad..............
A lot of people want their personal gratification when they want it. Even suggesting that behaving this way causes harm to individuals and to society upsets them and triggers screeds about “forcing your religion on people” and so forth.
I’m talking about “right-wingers” here, as indicated by their FR participation. There is a bipartisan consensus *against* the kind of social structures that require individuals to sacrifice their own perceived benefit for the general good.
“Primary influences in a culture are going to be primarily social...”
This era is now gone, in the rear view mirror, vanished. This statement was true when western culture looked to its Judeo Christian roots to inform its ideology/laws/etc.
Our American culture is now post Christian and neo pagan. The line has been crossed. Want proof? To begin with, one can start by recognizing the millions of babies aborted since Roe vs. Wade. The majority of people in the United States have no problem with these abortions.
Modern man in the United States is driven by materialism alone, for the most part. There is a thin veneer/vestige of Judeo- Christian morality attempting to be an operative influence, but indeed materialism and the quest for power is driving the average man’s decisions, ideology, and choices.
We need Jesus.
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