The surge in out-of-wedlock births during the past forty years has provided a wealth of data on which to base study of the question: Do children raised by single or cohabiting parents face the same life prospects as children raised by two biological parents married to each other?  The answer is in.

Some researchers identify out-of-wedlock births as the chief cause for the increasing stratification and inequality of American life, the first step that casts children into an ever more rigid caste system. Studies have found that children born to single mothers are vastly more likely to be poor, have behavioral and psychological problems, drop out of high school, and themselves go on to have out-of-wedlock children.
. . .
[I]t's not that harsh economic conditions lead to women having children without fathers, but that the decision to have children without fathers leads to harsh, and self-perpetuating, economic conditions.

Marriage is becoming a class-related phenomenon: Upper-income persons are more likely to marry before having children, while lower-income individuals are not.

A recent article by Sara McLanahan, the William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University, documents the relationship between out-of-wedlock births and self-perpetuating poverty.

Using data from a new birth cohort study, I show that unmarried parents come from much more disadvantaged populations than married parents. I further argue that non-marital childbearing reproduces class and racial disparities through its association with partnership instability and multi-partnered fertility. These processes increase in [sic] maternal stress and mental health problems, reduce the quality of mothers' parenting, reduce paternal investments, and ultimately lead to poor outcomes in children. Finally, by spreading fathers‘ contributions across multiple households, partnership instability and multi-partnered fertility undermine the importance of individual fathers‘ contributions of time and money which is likely to affect the future marriage expectations of both sons and daughters.

Here is yet more empirical evidence pointing to the conclusion that, if Western nations are serious about tackling poverty and related social pathologies, we must stop pretending that family arrangements are irrelevant to public policy.  Governments should actively encourage stable families headed by two biological parents married to each other and discourage other child-rearing situations.

Dr McLanahan’s research was undertaken through Princeton’s Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study.  See their website for more publications and data.

h/t: small dead animals

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