Decline of Marriage Called Threat to U.S. - 9/21/99

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from: Smart Marriages


The problem has worried policymakers at the highest levels of the U.S. 
government. "To the extent that the collapse of marriage is behind larger 
social problems, the government has to deal with it where it can," Bruce 
Reed, President Clinton's chief domestic policy adviser, said in an 
interview. 

The Clinton administration has embraced the idea that strong marriages 
and two-parent families are in the national interest, Reed said. "That 
was a controversial notion when political leaders in both parties stepped 
forward in the early '90s and started talking about it," he added. 


Desert News 
Tuesday, September 21, 1999

Decline of Marriage called threat to U.S. 

Americans are less inclined to marry than ever before

By Will Dunham Reuters News Service

WASHINGTON ‹ Americans are less inclined to get married than at any time 
in U.S. history, posing social and public-policy dilemmas and threatening 
to dissolve the "glue" that connects fathers to their children, experts 
say. 

A report released by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University 
found "a substantial weakening of the institution of marriage" in 
America. The researchers said the U.S. marriage rate has never been 
lower, births to unmarried women have skyrocketed, the divorce rate 
remains high and Americans' marriages are less happy than in the past. 

"There is no known society that has gotten along without marriage and has 
done a decent job in rearing and sponsoring the next generation," said 
Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, National Marriage Project co-director. 

The crumbling of the institution of marriage should not be viewed as a 
benign social trend with no costs to society at large, added the 
project's other co-director, David Popenoe. 

"Marriage is a fundamental social institution," the National Marriage 
Project report says. "It is central to the nurture and raising of 
children. It is the 'social glue' that reliably attaches fathers to 
children. It contributes to the physical, emotional and economic health 
of men, women and children, and thus to the nation as a whole." 

The problem has worried policymakers at the highest levels of the U.S. 
government. "To the extent that the collapse of marriage is behind larger 
social problems, the government has to deal with it where it can," Bruce 
Reed, President Clinton's chief domestic policy adviser, said in an 
interview. 

The Clinton administration has embraced the idea that strong marriages 
and two-parent families are in the national interest, Reed said. "That 
was a controversial notion when political leaders in both parties stepped 
forward in the early '90s and started talking about it," he added. 

"It's not so controversial now, but I think it's not a moral judgment, 
it's just simply an analytical fact that if you can increase the ratio of 
kids who grow up with two parents you're going to reduce a number of 
social problems associated with (children in single-parent homes). It 
makes sense."

 Studies have concluded that children growing up without their biological 
father present are more likely to commit crime, abuse drugs and alcohol, 
drop out of school, commit suicide, live in poverty and become pregnant 
as a teen than children living with their married parents.

Four decades of crisis 

U.S. government statistics cited in the Rutgers report detail a crisis in 
marriage whose origins can be traced back about 40 years. The report, 
citing census data, said the marriage rate has plummeted by a third since 
1960. It said there were about 73 marriages per 1,000 unmarried women 
aged 15 and up in 1960. In 1996, the last year for which such figures 
were available, the rate was about 49 per 1,000.

 Popenoe said the U.S. marriage rate now has dropped below a previous 
historic low recorded at the turn of the century. He said several factors 
have contributed to the trend. One is that Americans are postponing 
marriage until they are older. 

In 1960, the median age for first marriages was 20 for women and 23 for 
men. In 1997, with many college-educated Americans delaying marriage 
until their 30s, the median age for marriage rose to 25 for women and 27 
for men, the report said.

 "The later the marriage, by and large, the lower the (overall) marriage 
rate in the long run. In other words, people delay too long and then they 
decide not to marry after a while," Popenoe said. 

In addition, many American women, particularly black women, are giving 
birth and raising children without getting married. In 1960, 5.3 percent 
of all U.S. babies were born to unwed mothers, according to government 
statistics. 

In 1997, 32 percent of all babies were born to unmarried women‹and a 
startling 69 percent of black babies had unwed mothers. 

The percentage of U.S. children living without their father present also 
has ballooned. In 1960 9 percent of children lived in a single-parent 
household. Last year 28 percent of all children and 55 percent of black 
children lived with a single parent. Children in single-parent households 
overwhelmingly live with their mothers, with fathers absent, experts said.

Missing fathers add to social ills 

Those trends generally are borne out even if a stepfather is present, 
Popenoe said.

 He and Whitehead said other factors affecting the marriage rate since 
1960 are a huge jump in cohabiting partnerships; an explosion of sex 
outside marriage; the movement of women into the labor market, making 
many less reliant on a husband for economic reasons; an increase in 
individualism among Americans; and a popular culture and mass media that 
often are hostile to the institution of marriage.

 The U.S. divorce rate now is twice what it was in 1960, although it has 
declined moderately since its peak in the early 1980s. The number of 
divorces ballooned from 9.2 per 1,000 married women in 1960 to 19.5 in 
1998, the report said. 

"We're world leaders in marital volatility and disruption," said Don 
Browning, director of the Religion, Culture and Family Project at the 
University of Chicago. "This is a form of social difficulty that we are 
facing that is very, very large and it will cost everybody a lot."

 Experts said the U.S. government has contributed to the problem in the 
past 40 years with policies that have served as disincentives to 
marriage, such as welfare programs that encouraged unwed motherhood and 
the "marriage penalty" under which married Americans pay higher taxes 
than singles. 

"Government can't wave a magic wand and raise the marriage rate, even 
assuming there's a social agreement that raising the marriage rate would 
be a good thing," William Galston, director of the University of Maryland 
Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy and a former Clinton domestic 
policy adviser, said. "But government can certainly eliminate the 
obstacles and inequities and ought to think about doing so very 
seriously."

 Administration officials point to several steps taken in recent years to 
address the issue including: eliminating a welfare rule that limited the 
number of hours a married couple could work and still receive benefits; 
enacting a law that allows Americans to take time off from work to tend 
to family and medical needs, and proposing a number of tax law changes. 

Reed, who heads the White House Domestic Policy Council, said: "As to 
what government can do to affect the decision of 'to marry or not to 
marry' and 'to divorce or not divorce,' those are hard questions. But I 
do think ... it's worth looking at everything government does to make 
sure that it's not contributing to the problem."



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