Posted on 12/10/2010 7:39:16 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The unemployment rate for people with a college degree or higher is 5 percent. If that were the rate for everyone, it’d be the 1990s again.
But college graduates are only 30 percent of the country. For the rest of the population, the jobs picture is grimmer. For people without a high-school degree, the unemployment rate is more than 15 percent. If that were the rate for everyone, it’d be the 1930s again.
The unemployment rates are part of a growing divergence between the fortunes of the college educated and the rest of the country, including proverbial Middle America. In his new study, “When Marriage Disappears,” University of Virginia scholar Brad Wilcox details how the college-educated have embraced traditional mores and habits — especially the formation of stable families — while they erode among everyone else.
Our elites, broadly defined as the top third of our society, aren’t nearly as decadent as advertised. According to Wilcox’s data, the highly educated (with a college diploma or higher) are less likely to divorce, less likely to have children out of wedlock, and less likely to commit adultery than the moderately educated (high-school degree or some college) and the least-educated (no high-school diploma).
The moderately educated might be called the lower-middle class or upper-working class. Wilcox refers to them as the “solid middle”: “They are not upscale, but they are not poor. They don’t occupy any of the margins, yet they are often overlooked, even though they make up the largest share of the American middle class.” He documents an equally disturbing separation between the top and the rest, and a convergence between the middle and the bottom.
In the 1970s, 73 percent of both the highly and moderately educated were in intact first marriages. That figure plummeted across the board, yet the moderately educated (45 percent in intact first marriages) are now closer to the least-educated (39 percent) than to the highly educated (56 percent).
The number for out-of-wedlock births is starker. From 1982 until today, the percentage of non-marital births among the moderately educated exploded from 13 percent to 44 percent. That figure is close to the least-educated (54 percent) and a vast distance from the highly educated (only 6 percent). Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation compares the dynamic to a carpet unraveling from the bottom, as illegitimacy first took hold among the poor and now works up the income scale.
This phenomenon is a calamity for the non-college educated. Growing up in a two-parent family brings enormous social advantages. Children in these families, Wilcox notes, are more likely “to graduate from high school, finish college, become gainfully employed, and enjoy a stable family life themselves.” An institution absolutely critical to children’s prospects is slowly becoming associated with the upper third.
Social trends are intertwining with economic trends, like increased unemployment and declining wages, in a downward spiral. “High school–educated young men today,” Andrew Cherlin of Johns Hopkins University writes, “may be the first generation in memory to earn less than their fathers did.” This economic pressure makes it harder to marry; the lack of marriage, in turn, denies men crucial social stability (married men earn more than single men with the same education and job histories).
All of this points to a slow-motion social and economic evisceration of a swath of Middle America. Wilcox even invokes the possibility of “a 21st century version of a traditional Latin-American model of family life, where only a comparatively small oligarchy enjoys a stable married and family life — and the economic and social fruits that flow from strong marriages.”
At the moment, American politics offers two separate, distinct ways not to address these issues: Either the brain-dead populism of the Left that blames it all on trade and the decline of unions, or the brain-dead populism of the Right that extols the working class without taking serious note of its agony. We’ll have to do better: There’s a crisis in the middle.
— Rich Lowry is editor of National Review.
[ and a vast distance from the highly educated (only 6 percent]
Could that be because this group is most likely to have an abortion?
This study illustrates the necessity of treating social and economic issues together. The biggest reason Americans so readily buy into Big Government is the collapse of other institutions that could provide structure and stability in their lives. The most important of those institutions is the married, 2-parent family.
Btw, it looks like liberalism is working.
No. The people who are most likely to have abortions are the poor, the same people who are most likely to give birth outside of marriage. The two go hand-in-hand.
I have also noticed in the wedding announcements almost all the people have a college degree or some education beyond HS. Very few of the announcements do the people have only a HS education.
Watch the very begining of the movie "Idiocracy"...that is exactly what is going on in America today.
In one small middle American town after another, the factory closings and layoffs one year would be followed by divorces in subsequent years.
“I see this all related to the loss of manufacturing jobs THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^. Being from a rust belt area I have seen it firsthand”
__________________________________________________________________________________
Bingo!! That’s right. When you give away your wealth creation engine.... you suffer. Ahh... but don’t tell “free traders”
that. They will tell you that you are just “living in the past” and that this is the new norm.
I hope these manufacturing execs that have been cashing fat bonus checks from their “efficiency improving” factories in China, will live long enough to see their grandchildren brought home with Amercan flags draped over their caskets, after they are killed by the Chinese military that has been modernized from profits made at granpa’s China factory.
“I see this all related to the loss of manufacturing jobs.”
It may be due to the loss of high-paying union jobs in manufacturing. In the South, most manufacturing jobs were low-paying, non-union jobs (e.g., textiles) and divorce and other family-related pathologies (spouse abuse, alcoholism, ...) among those workers were prevalent 40 years ago. Increased family dissolution may just be one of the hidden costs of economic and political trends like globalization and deregulation that overall have been beneficial.
Great column. Thanks for posting.
This article is confusing symptoms for causes.
The lack of education may make it harder to get jobs and those with poor jobs may not be married but that does not mean the lack of education causes immoral actions.
The character flaws that promote immoral actions are the same character flaws that cause the lack of education. The demand for self instant gratification causes immoral actions and the lack of persistence to pursue an advanced education. Expecting the government to be your provider, economically and medically comes from the same character flaw.
These character flaws stem from the nature of man when not controlled, selfishness and pride. Giving a person an education is only giving knowledge. It does not improve the character of the person which is needed to avoid immoral action and a higher level of living.
To give a more fuller picture, as advised by my editor (wife); a person with only a high school eduction can display a positive character when they pursue a career not requiring a college degree by making decisions to put priorities in order such as actually providing for a family instead participating in some activity that makes it harder to provide for their family. The description above is a general picture just like the article referred to paints a general description.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.