The Future of Marriage in America

http// pairing. rutgers. edu/Publications/SOOU/TEXTSOOU2007. htm The order of Our Unions The affable Health of Marri suppu swan in the States 2007 shew The Future of wedlock in America David Popenoe Copyright 2007 Introduction In this familys essay, David Popenoe argues that longsighted-run app arnt motions point to the gradual enfeebling of sum as the primary amicable institution of family life sentence. More Americans straightaway argon living to permither, embraceing at erstwhile(a)er progresss or non at wholly, and circumstances of life children in liveing or solo pargonnt households.Over alone, the U. S. trends ar fol funkying the cold-advanced trends toward non spousals ceremony in Northwestern European nations, albeit at a s pull down and oft un scour pace. Popenoe attri solo whenes the alter of matrimony to a broad cultural shift forward from religion and social tralatitiousism and toward faith in person-to-person freedom and tolerance for di verse life styles early(a)(a)wise kn receive as layperson individualization. This cultural shift is a central feature of unused(a) societies and thitherfore unlikely to be reversed.Comp bed to Europeans, much(prenominal)over, Americans ar much libertarian and thus may be to a greater extent susceptible to harshly damaging consequences of blue individualisation on family life. As Popenoe concludes, it will probably make a cultural awakening, perchance prompted by rational self- pertain, to avoid much(prenominal)(prenominal) an out tot up. We will father to take in the view that personal happiness depends on soaring-trust and lasting relationships and that such relationships require constraints on short-term adult interests in order to foster semipermanent commit handsts to children, and thus to the future.Barbara Dafoe albu menhead THE FUTURE OF MARRIAGE IN AMERICA David Popenoe or so a decennary ago, in our first annual State of Our Unions make-up in 1 999, the lead essay was Whats Happening to trade union. The picture we pied was hopeful, if non especially optimistic. conjugal union, we reported, is weakening plainly it is too soon to import its obituary. In this, our ninth annual report to the nation, I motive to add together what has been happening to hymeneals in moderne historic period and peer into the future. unitary question in lineamenticular is compelling Is uniting in America headed in the circumspection of the European nations, where it is an even weaker social institution than in the get together States? Or ar we, as in other argonas of our issue lifesuch as our risqueer(prenominal) level of spiritual fellowship and beliefthe great censure to the dependingly entrenched trends of the developed, occidental societies? This raises, in turn, a nonher intriguing question Is America so far a ace nation in family terms, or be we becoming much divided by constituent and class? brotherhood and F amily Trends of the Past Decade on that point can be no doubt that the institution of trade union has pretend to weaken in fresh stratums. Whereas matrimony was in one case the dominant and mavin acceptable form of living ar executement for couples and children, it is no longer. Today, there is much family diversity Fewer adults atomic number 18 unify, more are disunited or remaining single, and more are living together outside of coupling or living al hotshot. The nigh modern data are operable in the second half of this report. Today, more children are innate(p) out-of-wedlock ( instanter n primordial four out of x-spot), and more are living in stepfamilies, with cohabiting entirely un wed adults, or with a single parent. This subject matter that more children to each angiotensin converting enzyme year are not living in families that include their own get wed, biological parents, which by all available empirical evidence is the meretricious standard for in suring optimal out deals in a childs development. In the late 1990s quite an a bit was written near a conjugal union and family turn rough, or a reversal of the umpteen family weakening trends.Most negative family trends exhaust slowed appreciably in upstart years they welcome not continued in the dramatically swift flight of stairs upward that prevailed in the 1970s and 1980s. Much of this may be due(p) simply to the slowing of social trends as they mature. The merely major family trend that has actually reversed direction is cohere. After rising steeply, set somewhat around 1965, the disjoin cast has dropped gradually since the early 1980s, apparently mainly the resolvent of adults becoming better educated and marrying at a later shape up. other possible reasons for the decreasing divorce rate are the rise of non- matrimonial cohabitation and a exacerbate in second and subsequent marriages. Divorcees, for example, perplex become more likely to cohabit rather than remarry, thus avoiding remarriages that meet always had a disproportionately mettlesome risk of divorce. The unification Gap One affect development of novel years is the emersion of a marriage and divorce pass between variantly educated segments of the commonwealth.People who have finished college (around a quarter of the world) tend to have significantly high(prenominal) marriage and spurn divorce place compared to those with little(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) command. Among those married in the early 1990s, for example, only 16. 5 pct of college educated women were divorced within ten years, compared to 46 per centum for high direct dropouts. Indeed, most of the late(a) divorce rate worsen has been among the college educated for those with less than a high cultivate education, the divorce rate actually has been rising. 1) The weakening of marriage and the resultant harvest-feast of family diversity thus is put in much more prominently among thos e with less education and associated abase incomes. The underlying reason for this may be as simple as the fact that the personality and social characteristics enabling one to complete college are similar to those that foster like a shots long marriages. Or, that delayed entry into the adult world of work and accouchement, and the increase in income and k right offledge that college typically fosters, better allows mature dissuademine and financial credentials to undergird natural selection of bug outner and family life.Whatever the reasons, this marriage and divorce breakage has been a major contributor to the growing frugal inequality in America. Some expect the marriage flutter to grow erectr in the future because children tend to follow the family mien of their parents. Children of the educated and financially soft are better socialized to marry successfully and to contain childbearing within marriage, whereas children of the lower classes frequently do not hav e this advantage. moreover it is doubtful that this gap will have much effect on the over-all drift of marriage in America.The increase in the college-educated portion of the state has been slowing appreciably. And the fertility of college-educated women has dropped. Twenty-four portionage of college-educated women aged 40-44 were childless in 2004, compared to only 15 pct of women that age who didnt finish high school. (2) On a topic scale, the continuation of this fertility discrepancy could sternly counteract any beneficial family effects of higher(prenominal) education. The European electric charge No matter how weak it has become, however, compared to other modern nations marriage rest at the center of American life. active 85 part of Americans are expected to marry whatevertime in their lives, compared to less than 70 pct in a number of European nations. Only ten pctage of Americans in an inter topic scene agreed that marriage is an out-dated institution, compared to 26 per centum in the UK and 36 per centum in France. (3) Only closely ten percent of American couples are cohabiting outside of marriage, compared to about one ordinal in Sweden. And our commercial wedding industry certainly has become huge. to date an overriding question is whether marriage and family trends in every modern community are headed in a common direction.In other words, is there a set of family trends endemic to modern (urban, industrial, democratic, and still mostly westerly) societies that supercedes economic, cultural, and even religious differences among regions and nations? If so, the current family system in the United States is not an exception but merely a laggard we will gradually be swept up in the tide. Up to now, the pacemakers in most coeval marriage and family trendsall piteous in the direction of a non-marriage stopping pointhave been the nations of Northwestern Europe, especially the Nordic countries.They have the modish age at first marr iage, the lowest marriage and highest non-marital cohabitation rates, and the largest number of out-of-wedlock line of descents. The nations in grey Europe such as Spain, Italy and Greece, with less cohabitation and fewer out-of-wedlock have gots, tend to style more like the United States. Family tralatitiousism rest stronger in these grey nations, and juvenility stack live longer in their childhood homes, frequently until they marry, rather than living independently or in cohabiting unions.The United landed estate and the Anglo-settler nations, Canada, Australia and mod Zealand, typically stand more or lesswhere in between the two extremes. only with respect to each of the dominant family trends of recent decades the other modern nations have been moving, albeit at varying speeds and not without some temporary lapses, in the Northwest European direction. The dowry of throng getting married has been expiry down, the number of people cohabiting outside of marriage has been increasing, and the out-of-wedlock birth ploughshare has been skyrocketing. surrounded by the early to mid 1990s and the early 2000s, for example, the marriage rate dropped 12 percent in Italy, 14 percent in Spain, 22 percent in Canada, 28 percent in new-fangled Zealand and 24 percent in the United States. At the uniform time, the non-marital cohabitation fate (of all couples) climbed 23 percent in Italy and Australia, 53 percent in the United Kingdom, and 49 percent in the United States. The nonmarital birth rate jumped 24 percent in the United States, 48 percent in the United Kingdom, 96 percent in Italy, and a whopping 144 percent in Spain. 4) In one major respect the United States has long been the pacesetter and not the laggard. For generations, we have had the highest divorce rate. Yet even this is now changing. The U. S. rate has been dropping for several decades, while the divorce rate in some(prenominal) European nations has gruntleed the equivalent or been climbing. The number of divorces per one thousand married women in the United Kingdom in 2002 was 14. 4, not too removed from the United States rate of 18. 4. In the ago, the incidence of family adjournment was closely align with the incidence of divorce, but this is no longer the case.Because more people now cohabit in place of marrying, when a cohabiting couple breaks up it is not registered as a divorce would be. Unfortunately, we have no standard coverage system for the breakup of cohabiting couples, but all empirical studies show that cohabiting couples breakup at a much higher rate than married couples. opus only ten percent of American couples cohabit, some 20 percent of British couples do. So if we are considering total family breakup, it is likely the case that Britain electropositive a number of other European nations now surpass us. on that point is one other in-chief(postnominal) respect in which America has been in the vanguard of family trendswe have the highes t character of mother-only families. Many European nations have a much higher percentage of out-of-wedlock births than we do, but the great majority of these births are to unmarried but cohabiting couples. In America, much more often, children are born to a lone mother with the father not in mansion and often out of the childs life. Nearly half of all extramarital births in America were of this nature in 2001, according to the latest available data. 5) One reason is our relatively high percentage of births to teenagers, 80 percent of which are non-marital and more than half of those to lone mothers another(prenominal) is that 70 percent of all unweddedded births to African Americans are to lone mothers. However, the gap in mother-only families between the United States and other nations of the westernmost is likewise in the process of diminishing. Being born to a lone mother is only one passage to living in a mother-only family. another(prenominal) route is by means of the break-up of parents after the child is born, which is far more common among parents who cohabit compared to those who marry.With parental break-up rates in other nations climbing rapidly, give thanks by and large to increased non-marital cohabitation, many of these nations are catching up with us in the alarming statistic of mother-only families. Even by the early 1990s, according to the calculations of several scholars, New Zealand had caught up with the United States with tight 50 percent of children expected to regard single parenting by age 15, and the figure for Canada and five European countries exceeded 33 percent. (6) These percentages would probably be much higher if they were recalculated today using more recent data.So if we are moving in the direction of the more negative family trends of other modern nations, and they are moving in the direction of our negative trends, where does this leave us? Arent we all in a common basket, destined to witness an institution of m arriage that is ever weakening? Before considering this, let us first have a ensure at the possibility that America is becoming increasingly bifurcated into twain distinct farmings. Could it be that only one part of America is moving in a European family direction? The American vehement- juicy DivideThe recent family trends in the Western nations have been largely generated by a typical set of cultural values that scholars have come to label laic individualism. It features the gradual abandonment of religious attendance and beliefs, a strong list toward expressive values that are preoccupied with personal impropriety and self-fulfillment, and a political emphasis on egalitarianism and the tolerance of diverse lifestyles. An realised empirical generalization is that the greater the dominance of unconsecrated individualism in a culture, the more fragmented the families.The fundamental reason is that the traditional atomic family is a somewhat inegalitarian group (not only between husbands and wives but also parents and children) that requires the suppression of some individuality and also has been strongly supported by, and governed by the rules of, orthodox religions. As a come alonging impediment to personal autonomy and social equality, therefore, the traditional family is an especially attractive unit for attacks from a sacrilegious individualisticic perspective. On sightly, America has been moving in the direction of lay individualism, as can be seen in the general drift of our family trends. precisely the on average covers up some very substantial variations, some of which account for why, determi train at internationally, we are a nation with relatively button-down family values. A recent guinea pig cultural Values Survey (7) prove that American adults usefully can be split into three groups, base on the degree to which they have embraced secular individualism, ranging from the Orthodox to the Progressives, with Independents in the middle. The survey establish 31 percent of the population in the religiously Orthodox category, 17 percent in the secular Progressive category, and 46 percent as Independents.The Orthodox category is far larger than one finds in Western Europe and the other Anglo nations, and the Progressive category (i. e. , secular individualist) is intimately smaller, and therein lies the major basis for American family exceptionalism. One thing that makes these categories so prominent in American culture is that they are strongly evince geographicalally. As analyzed by demographers at the University of Michigan, the two extremes are reflected in the so-called Red (Republican) and regretful (Democratic) state distinction frequently make in recent national political analysis. 8) The more Progressive aristocratic states are principally those of the Northeast, the Upper Midwest, and the West bank, while the more Orthodox Red states are found in the South, the lower Midwest, and the Mountain region of the West. Reflecting their different ideologies, the blue-blooded states tend to have lower marriage and higher cohabitation rates, along with lower fertility, while the Red states are more traditional in their family organize. realise box in the second half of this report. The ideology and family appearance found in the benighted states resembles that of the other Western nations, although not quite as far down the path of Progressivism. If one were referring only to this part of America, one would not be talking about American exceptionalism. The large Orthodox population of the Red states, however, does give the United States a bizarre configuration in the modern world. If it were not for this population, we would not be having a culture war and we probably would not even be having a national conversation about the weakening of marriage. there is no such conversation about marriage in the Northwestern European nations, disdain the fact that the institution of mar riage is considerably weaker there than it is here. It is clear that the family social organisation of America is exceptional in some respects. The question is, are we so exceptional that we can resist the modern trend of marriage and family compensate? So far the answer is nowe have been headed down the same path as every other modern, Western society toward ever-increasing secular individualism with its associated family structures.If this trend continues, the family structure of the Red states will come to look more and more like todays blue-blooded states, and the Blue states will look ever more like Europe. The Prospect for ethnical budge To reverse this trend of marriage and family pass up would take a cultural revolution of some kind, and it is interesting to consider and evaluate what this susceptibility look like, and what could bring it about. One potential source of change would be a significant expansion in influence and authority of todays orthodox, anti-individu alist religions.Much has been written in recent years about the weakening of secularization, pointing out that modernization no longer necessarily fashion the demise of religion. The evidence for this comes from the newly modernizing countries of the world, however, where orthodox religions have actually been earning, rather than losing, strength. There is no evidence that anything like this has been happening to date in the Western European and Anglo nations. Quite the opposite with each passing year these nationsincluding the United Statesare more secular than ever earlier.The topic Cultural Values Survey tick offd above found that regular churchgoing has dipped infra 50 percent and only 36 percent see people should live by Gods principles, final that America no longer enjoys cultural consensus on God, religion, and what constitutes right and wrong. (9) A powerful indicator of future trends are the beliefs and attitudes of todays new-fangled people, which are unmistakably more secular and individualist than those of their elders.A recent study concluded that emerging adults (ages 18-24) in America, compared to their earlier counterparts and their older contemporaries, are more disaffected and disconnected from society, more cynical or negative about people, and have moved in a liberal direction. (10) A pew Foundation national survey found that 20 percent of todays young people (18-24) say they have no religious affiliation or are atheist or agnostic, nearly double the percentage of the non-religious found in that age group less than 20 years ago.In the same time period the percentage of young people who did not agree that they had old fashioned values about family and marriage jumped from 17 percent to 31 percent. (11) A study in Britain, starkly pointing up the entrenched nature of this generational shift, found that a child with two religious parents has only a 50 percent chance of cosmos religious, while a child with one religious parent has 2 5 percent chance of being religious. 12) Another cultural transformation that could move the family in a more traditional direction is widespread immigration. In combination with low birthrates, massive immigration is capable of changing the culture, social experiences, and self-identity of a populationincluding the ideologies of secularism and individualism. This possibility is beginning to be discussed in Europe, where birthrates in many nations remain s thoroughly up down the stairs replacement level and immigration, mostly from orthodox Muslim countries with high birthrates, is high and growing.The percentage of foreign born in many Western European nations is now similar to that in America, around twelve percent, but the birthrates of these groups are typically far higher than the indigenous populations. Projections are that the percentage of people of foreign origin may reach as high as one third in some European nations by 2050, and far higher than that in the major cities . (13) What is not cognise is how these new immigrants lastly will react to secular individualism and the other cultural beliefs and practices of modern, Western democracies.As many have noted, because of long-standing antipathies between peoples of the Muslim faith and those of Christianity, often violent and going back well more than a millennium, it does seem possible that Europe faces the prospect of a major cultural transformation sometime in the future through immigrants who, rather than assimilate, will drive the culture in a new direction. The immigration situation in the United States, however, is different, and it does not seem as likely that in the predictable future immigrant groups will be able to seriously shift our culture in a more traditional direction.The most likely medical prognosis for cultural change, of course, is the growing Hispanic population. The percentage of Hispanics is projected to reach 25 percent of the total population by 2050, when non-Hispanic Whites will make up only a slim majority. (14) But unlike Europe we are already a nation made up of many different immigrant groups many Hispanics have been here for years, and they share a common religious heritage in Christianity. Thus Hispanics dont pose the same threat of not assimilating to Western culture as do the Muslims.Indeed, to date, Hispanics seem to have assimilated into the American culture of secular individualism more than the reverse. For example, the unwed birth percentage among Hispanics has jumped from 19 percent in 1980 to 48 percent in 2005 and stands well above the percentage for the non-Hispanic White population (25 percent). Hispanics have the same divorce rate as non-Hispanic Whites, and in recent years their rate of non-marital cohabitation has grown faster than that of any other immigrant group.These trends neutralize earlier expectations that Hispanics might bring this nation a new curve of family traditionalism. The prediction of the continued growt h of secular individualism within modern cultures rests on some powerful facts. So far in the Western experience, at to the lowest degree, the dominant sociological factors associated with secular individualism are that the higher the educational and income levels of a population, and the more urbanized it is, the greater the degree of secular individualism. Is it likely that any time in the near future educational, income, and urbanization levels in America will drop?They have been increasing inexorably for three centuries, so a turnaround would most likely pass only in the event of some catastrophe, all natural or man-made. Absent such a catastrophe (which certainly can not be ruled out in todays world), the most likely future scenario is that secular individualism will increasingly leave out the cultures of the West. The trump out prospects for cultural change, therefore, rest on the possibility that, at some time in the future, new generations of secular individualists the mselves will undergo a change of heart.One way this might occur is through the growth of new, non-orthodox religious ideologies that remained compatible with secular individualism but take it in new directions. Unfortunately, the new religious strains that have emerged in recent decades, so-called New Age religions, have been profoundly individualistic. None has shown any interest in preserving marriage and family solidarity. Indeed, they seem part and parcel of the secular individualist movement, albeit with a more spiritual bent.The same seems to hold true for todays rapidly growing green movement, which itself shows signs of becoming a new quasi-religion in which the environment has replaced God as a decoct of almost divine adoration. So far there is unretentive evidence that pro-green translates into pro-marriage or pro-family, although it is c formerlyivable that somehow the conservation of nature could become translated into the conservation of the family. any widely accept ed new morality that might change family deportment would probably have to be compatible with secular individualisms motivating forcerational self-centeredness.The self-interest of todays young people still includes the desire to have strong intimate relationships and to want to do best by their children. And there is every reason to believe that these interests will continue into the future because they are, in fact, an intrinsic part of being human. The task that lies ahead, then, is to help young people to see the importance of marriage and strong families as the best way to achieve these interests to help them slang that a better and more meaningful way of life, two(prenominal) for themselves and for their children, involves a commitment to long-term marriage.What Can be Done? As a first step, the institution of marriage needs to be promoted by all levels of society, particularly the families, the schools, the churches, the non-profit sector, and the government. The great majority of American high school seniors still want to get married, with 82 percent of girls and 70 percent of boys tardily saying that having a heart snarl marriage and family life is extremely all-important(a) to them. These percentages, in fact, represent a slight increase from the late 1970s. 15) But as high schoolers reach young adulthood, when the attraction of cohabitation and careers gains strong currency, devising the actual commitment to marriage is not easy. Young people need, therefore, to be made continually aware of the many benefits married life brings, both(prenominal) for themselves and for their children. The empirical evidence is now strong and persuasive that a secure marriage enhances personal happiness, economic success, health and longevity. This evidence should become a regular part of our educational programs and our public discourse. Yet successful marriage onward motion requires more than empirical evidence. trades union has fallen by the wayside, i n part, because it receives less and less social recognition and approval. Any norm of behavior requires for its maintenance the continuing support of the community, including active social pressures to uphold it. When social approval and pressures wither, the norm weakens. Todays young people have been taught through the schools and in their communities a strong cognitive content of tolerance for choice lifestyles. Thou shalt not make moral judgments about other peoples family behavior seems to have become a dominant cognitive content in our times.The reason for this is completely understandable children and young people come from ever more diverse family situations which are not of their own doing, and they should be fully accepted and not be penalized. The problem is that this moral message is carried on into adult life, where it is applied not to children and young people but to adults who do have choices about how they shape their lives. In an effort not to judge much less stigmatize any adult life style, we have all too often become virtually reserved about the value and importance of marriage.This silence is extremely damaging to the promotion of a pro-marriage culture. The widespread promotion of marriage is directed at only half of the problem, however. Getting people to marry is one thing, helping them to stay married is something else entirely. Helping people to stay married is the main focus of an important set of programs known as marriage education. Typically conducted in group settings rather than counseling situations, marriage education programs focus on developing the knowledge, attitudes and skills needed for making a wise marital choice and having a successful marriage.Although marriage education has been around for many decades, it latterly has been thrust into the limelight thanks to widespread publicity and government financial assistance. The importance of marriage education is magnified by the fact that the marital relationship t oday is so different from what it was in the past. Marriage is now establish almost entirely on close fellowship and romantic love, mostly stripped of the economic dependencies, legal and religious restrictions, and extended family pressures that have held marriages together for most of human history.Until fairly recent times marriages had little to do with romantic love, versed passion, or even close friendship they were functional partnerships in the intense struggle of life. Today, a successful marriage rests almost entirely on how well one gets along, intimately and for the long term, with someone of the opposite sex. The relationship knowledge this requires has never been part of statuesque education, but there is no reason to believe that it can not effectively be taught to married couples and those about to be married, as well as to younger people as part of the high school curriculum.Indeed, the initial empirical evaluations of marriage education programs conclude that t hey are both well-received and have generally positive outcomes. Marriage promotion and marriage education are essential steps, but in order fully to rebuild the institution of marriage there would probably have to be a cultural shift of a more fundamental nature. Modern cultures would need to pull back from the now dominant thrust of secular individualismthe excessive pursuit of personal autonomy, immediate gratification, and short-term personal gainand give greater emphasis to issues of community and social solidarity.This could come about through a growing realization, based on rational self-interest, that our personal happiness and sense of well-being over the long course of life are less affected by the amount of independence, choice, bodily delight and wealth we are able to obtain than by the number of stable, long-term and meaningful relationships we have with others. (16) And through a greater recognition of the fact that short-term adult interests can be in conflict with the long-term health and wellbeing of children, and that our childrens welfare has everything to do with the future of our nation. windup America is still the most marrying of Western nations, but nevertheless we are caught up in the prevailing trends of modernity that lead toward an ever-weakening institution of marriage. Marriage rates have been dropping and cohabitation and out-of-wedlock birth rates have been rising, thanks in large part to the growing influence of secular individualism in all modern cultures. The negative effects of this are felt most profoundly by our children, who are growing up in family situations that are less and less optimum from a child-development perspective.As we move in the direction of the weaker family structures of Europe it is important to remember that we lack many of the welfare safety-nets found there, and therefore the negative effects of marital decline on children are likely to be heightened in this country. We are not a unified nation in family terms. We have a marriage gap, whereby the college-educated have a stronger marriage culture than the less well-educated. And we have a Red state/Blue state divide, whereby the nation is geographically split up into areas of family traditionalism and non-traditionalism.Yet these divisions remain peripheral to the overall go down of marriage in America. The rebuilding of a stronger marriage culture is possible. In addition to the heavy promotion of marriage built around the self-interest of todays young people, it will probably require a cultural shift of some magnitude, one in which stable, predictable, and long-term relationships with others come to be viewed as the best foundation for adult personalities, childrearing, and family life. Footnotes 1. Steven P.Martin, Trends in married Dissolution by Womens Education in the United States, demographic Research 15-20 (December 2006), 537-560. 2. Jane Lawler Dye, Fertility of American Women June 2004. incumbent macrocosm st ory, P20-555, upper-case letter, DC US Census Bureau (2005), accede 7. 3. Reported in Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, Marriage and Divorce Changes and their driving force Forces, unpublished manuscript, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (2007). 4. Unless otherwise indicated, all calculations are by the case Marriage Project from published international data sources. . Lisa Mincieli and Kristin Moore, The Relationship scope of Births Outside of Marriage The Rise of Cohabitation, Child Trends Research Brief 2007-13 (May 2007). 6. Patrick Heuveline, J. M. Timberlake, and F. F. Furstenberg, jr. , Shifting Childrearing to Single Mothers Results from 17 Western Countries, creation and exploitation brush up 29-1 ( serve 2003), 47-71. 7. Culture and Media Institute, Alexandria, Virginia (2007). 8. Ron J. Lesthaeghe and Lisa Neidert, The Second Demographic Transition in the U. S. Exception or Textbook Example, tribe and Development brushup December 2006), 32-4. 9. Ex ecutive Summary, op. cit. 10. tomcat Smith, Generation Gaps in Attitudes and Values from the 1970s to the 1990s, in R. A. Settersten, younger , F. F. Furstenberg, Jr. , and R. C. Rumbaut (eds. ), On the Frontier of Adulthood Theory, Research, and Public Policy (Chicago Univ. of Chicago Press, 2004). 11. The Pew Research pertain, A Portrait of Generation Next, Washington, DC, 2007. 12. Alasdair Crockett and David Voas, Generations of Decline Religious Change in the twentieth Century, ledger for the Scientific Study of Religion (December 2006), 45-4. 3. David Coleman, in-migration and Ethnic Change in Low-Fertility Countries A Third Demographic Transition, Population and Development appraise 32-3 (September 2006), 401-446. 14. Philip Martin and Elizabeth Midgely, Immigration Shaping and Reshaping America, Population Bulletin 58-2 (June 2003), p. 22. 15. data from Monitoring the Future surveys, reported in this second half of this report. 16. For an important statement about this, see John Ashcroft and Phil Caroe, Thriving Lives Which Way for welfare? Relationships Foundation, Cambridge, England (2007).SOCIAL INDICATORS OF MARITAL HEALTH AND WELLBEING TRENDS OF THE PAST FOUR DECADES Marriage Divorce unwedded Cohabitation Loss of Child Centeredness Fragile Families with Children Teen Attitudes About Marriage and Family THE RED/BLUE AMERICAN FAMILY DIVIDE The Red State/Blue State divide has become a familiar write up in national politics. In a series of recent presidential elections, the so-called Red states have tended to vote Republican and the Blue states have voted Democratic. The Red states consist of the South (e. g. aluminium), the lower Midwest (e. g. okay), and the Mountain sphere of the West (e. g. Montana). The Blue states are those of the Northeast (e. g. Massachusetts), the upper Midwest (e. g. manganese), and the West Coast (e. g. California). Less well known is the fact that the Red and Blue states also differ significantly in family terms , and this may help to formulate their politics. The Red states typically have a more traditional family structure than the Blue States people in the Red states marry younger and in larger numbers, cohabit outside of marriage less, and have more children.This is in large part because Red Staters are likely to be more religiously observant and to belong to denominations that profess allegiance to more hidebound social values. However, the Red states also have higher divorce and out-of-wedlock birth rates than the Blue states, and these rates can hardly be considered indicators of traditionalism, much less religiosity. A closer look at the actual demographic differences among the states can help us to better understand the nature and causes of the Red/Blue American family divide.Red states have significantly higher marriage rates. The national marriage rate was 41 marriages per 1000 single women in 2005. Some of the highest marriage rates are found in the South, with are (77) and A labama (54) leading the pack, and in the Mountain states of Idaho (66), Wyoming (60) and Utah (58). The lowest marriage rates, in contrast, are found in the Northeast with Pennsylvania (24), New Jersey (27), Delaware (28) and Connecticut (28) at the bottom. a) Higher marriage rates are associated with less non-marital cohabitation, and this also clusters geographically along Red/Blue lines. The national rate of unmarried partner households (as percent of all couple households) was 10% in 2005. States in the South and Midwest have the lowest percentages Alabama (6%), multiple sclerosis (8%), Kansas (8%), and Arkansas (8%). At the opposite pole are the states in the Northeast and Northwest Vermont (14%), Maine (13%), Oregon (12%) and Washington (12%). (b) Statewide fertility rates follow a similar Red/Blue geographic distribution.The national fertility rate was 67 births per 1000 women ages 15-44 in 2005, but it was in the 70s in a number of Red states, Idaho (77), Kansas (70), and Ge orgia (70), and only in the 50s for Vermont (51), Maine (54) and Massachusetts (56). In addition to family traditionalism, the fertility rate in a number of southwestern States is greatly affected by the higher-fertility Hispanic population. (c) consecrate all together, these demographic characteristics add up to more married couples with children in the Red states and fewer in the Blue states, and this is ne of the biggest reasons for the Red/Blue political divide. Married people with children have tended disproportionately in recent presidential elections to favor the Republican Party. Indeed, for recent elections the correlation between married-with-children and suffrage Republican is one of the highest ever found between demographic factors and suffrage behavior. (d) Yet the Red states also, interestingly, have the highest out-of-wedlock birth percentages and divorce rates. While 37% of all births in the U. S. ere out-of-wedlock in 2005, the unwed birth percentages for the Red states of Mississippi (49%) and Louisiana (48%) are far ahead of the Blue states of New Hampshire (27%) and Minnesota (30%) A closer examination, however, shows that this Red/Blue geographic pattern of unwed births is heavily dictated by the racial and ethnic make up of each state, as well as by educational and income levels. States such as Mississippi and Louisiana are at the top partially due to the extremely high unwed birth percentages for Blacks (77%) and Hispanics (50%).The state with the highest overall unwed birth percentage is New Mexico (51%), owing mainly to the theatrical role of its large Hispanic population. If one removes Blacks and Hispanics from the equation and looks just at unwed births among Whites, a geographic pattern more influenced by family traditionalism emerges. For the White population only, the unwed birth percentage in Mississippi (26%) is lower than for the White population in New Hampshire (27%). Unwed birth percentages below the national average of 25% for Whites are also found in the Red states of Alabama (21%), North Carolina (23%), and Georgia (23%).In contrast, above average unwed birth percentages for Whites are found the in secular and cohabitation-high Blue states of Vermont (32%) and Maine (35%) and Oregon (29%). (e) The picture is further complicated, however, by the fact that marriage, cohabitation, and unwed birth rates are so strongly affected by income and educational levels. In general, people with lower incomes and less education tend to marry less, cohabit more, and have more births out-of-wedlock. While professed traditional family values may help to generate fewer unwed births, they do not seem to provide much protection against divorce.The highest divorce rates are found in the more religiously-based Red states such as Arkansas (25), Oklahoma (25), and West Virginia (23), in striking contrast to more secular Blue states such as Pennsylvania (11), and Massachusetts (11). The national divorce rate was 16 divor ces per 1000 married women in 2005. (f) Level of educational attainment is the single factor that probably best explains the geographic distribution of divorce. The lower the educational (and associated income) level, the higher the divorce rate, and educational levels are substantially lower in the Red states than in the Blue states.The Blue states of the West Coast stand as an exception to this education-based pattern, however, with the divorce rates for highly-educated Oregon and Washington being above the national average (probably California, too, but unfortunately divorce rates for that state are not available). In addition to education, therefore, another important causal factor in divorce may be the level of geographic mobility in a state, making the more deep settled and more transient populations of the West Coast and Mountain states more vulnerable to divorce.Mobility levels may also help to account for another geographic exception the long-settled Red states of the Cen tral Plains (e. g. Iowa and North Dakota) have very low divorce rates, comparable to those of the East Coast states. Footnotes a. Calculations by the National Marriage Project obtained using data from the Current Population Surveys, March 2005 Supplement, as well as Births, Marriages, Divorces, and Deaths Provisional Data for 2005, National snappy Statistics Report 5420, July 21, 2006, Table 3.The exceptionally high marriages rates in Nevada and how-do-you-do are not considered here because so many out-of-staters go to these states to get married. b. Calculations by the National Marriage Project using data downloaded from the American Community Survey, 2005. c. Fertility rates from Births introductory Data for 2005, National vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 55, No. 11, December 28, 2006. d. Ron J. Lesthaeghe and Lisa Neidert, The Second Demographic Transition in the US Exception or Textbook Example? , Population and Development Review 324 (December, 2006). e.Unmarried mother birth data from Births Preliminary Data for 2005, National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 55, No. 11, December 28, 2006. f. Calculations by the National Marriage Project obtained using data from the Current Population Surveys, March 2005 Supplement less population in CA, GA, HI, IN, LA and MN to train unreported divorces in these states. Divorce counts from Births, Marriages, Divorces, and Deaths Provisional Data for 2005, National Vital Statistics Report 5420, July 21, 2006, Table 3. The highest divorce rate, of course, is found in Nevada (38. ), and not considered here because of the out-of-stater problem. MARRIAGE Key Finding Marriage trends in recent decades indicate that Americans have become less likely to marry, and the most recent data show that the marriage rate in the United States continues to decline. Of those who do marry, there has been a moderate drop since the 1970s in the percentage of couples who consider their marriages to be very halcyon, but in the past decade this trend has swung in a positive direction. Americans have become less likely to marry.This is reflected in a decline of nearly 50 percent, from 1970 to 2005, in the annual number of marriages per 1000 unmarried adult women ( witness 1). Much of this declineit is not clear just how muchresults from the delaying of first marriages until older ages the average age at first marriage went from 20 for females and 23 for males in 1960 to about 26 and 27, respectively, in 2005. Other factors accounting for the decline are the growth of unmarried cohabitation and a small decrease in the object of divorced persons to remarry.The decline also reflects some increase in womb-to-tomb singlehood, though the actual amount can not be known until current young and middle-aged adults pass through the life course. The percentage of adults in the population who are currently married has also diminished. Since 1960, the decline of those married among all persons age 15 and older has been 13 percentage pointsand 25 points among black females ( prefigure 2). It should be noted that these data include both people who have never married and those who have married and then divorced.In order partially to control for a decline in married adults simply due to delayed first marriages, we have looked at changes in the percentage of persons age 35 through 44 who were married (Figure 3). Since 1960, there has been a drop of 20 percentage points for married men and 18 points for married women. (But the decline has not affected all segments of the population. name the accompanying box The Marriage Gap. ) Marriage trends in the age range of 35 to 44 are suggestive of lifelong singlehood.In times past and still today, virtually all persons who were going to marry during their lifetimes had married by age 45. More than 90 percent of women have married eventually in every generation for which records exist, going back to the mid-1800s. By 1960, 94 percent of women then alive had been married at l east once by age 45probably an historical high point. (1) For the generation of 1995, assuming a continuation of then current marriage rates, several demographers projected that 88 percent of women and 82 percent of men would ever marry. 2) If and when these figures are recalculated for the early years of the 21st century, the percentage of women and men ever marrying will almost certainly be lower. It is important to note that the decline in marriage does not mean that people are giving up on living together with a sexual partner. On the contrary, with the incidence of unmarried cohabitation increasing rapidly, marriage is giving motive to unwed unions. Most people now live together before they marry for the first time. An even higher percentage of those divorced who later remarry live together first.And a growing number of persons, both young and old, are living together with no plans for eventual marriage. There is a common belief that, although a smaller percentage of American s are now marrying than was the case a few decades ago, those who marry have marriages of higher quality. It seems reasonable that if divorce removes poor marriages from the pool of married couples and cohabitation trial marriages deter some bad marriages from forming, the remaining marriages on average should be happier.The best available evidence on the topic, however, does not support these assumptions. Since 1973, the General Social Survey periodically has asked representative sample distributions of married Americans to rate their marriages as either very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy. (3) As Figure 4 indicates, the percentage of both men and women saying very happy has declined moderately over the past 25 years. (4) This trend, however, is now heading in a positive direction. 1 Andrew J. Cherlin, Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage (Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press, 1992) 10 Michael R.Haines, Long-Term Marriage Patterns in the United States from Colonial Times to the Present, The History of the Family 1-1 (1996) 15-39. 2 Robert Schoen and Nicola Standish, The retrenchment of Marriage Results from matrimonial Status Life Tables for the United States, 1995. Population and Development Review 27-3 (2001) 553-563. 3 Conducted by the National look Research Center of the University of Chicago, this is a nationally representative study of the English-speaking, non-institutionalized population of the United States age 18 and over. Using a different data set that compared marriages in 1980 with marriages in 1992, equated in terms of marital duration, Stacy J. Rogers and Paul Amato found withal that the 1992 marriages had less marital interaction, more marital conflict, and more marital problems. Is Marital Quality Declining? The Evidence from Two Generations, Social Forces 75 (1997) 1089. THE MARRIAGE whirl There is good news and bad news on the marriage front. For the college-educated segment of our population, the institution of marriage appea rs to have gained strength in recent years.For everyone else, however, marriage continues to weaken. Thus there is a growing marriage gap in America, between those who are well educated and those who are not. young data indicates that, for the college educated, the institution of marriage may actually have strengthened. It once was the case that college-educated women married at a lower rate than their less educated peers. Indeed, marriage rates for college-educated women were lower well into the late 20th Century. Since around 1980, however, this situation has reversed. College-educated women are now marrying at a higher rate than their peers. Not only that, but the divorce rate among these women is relatively low and has been dropping. This may be due partly to the fact that college-educated women, once the leaders of the divorce revolution, now hold a more sumptuary view of divorce than less well educated women. b The out-of-wedlock childbearing of college-educated women has al ways been well below that of other segments of the population. Now, among those who delay marriage past age 30, this is the only group becoming more likely to have children after marriage rather than before. c There is more good news.The marriages of the college educated have become more egalitarian than ever, both in the sense that husbands and wives are matched more equally in their educational and economic backgrounds, and that they hold more egalitarian attitudes about marital gender roles. d As icing on the cake, all of this may add up to greater marital happiness. The percentage of spouses among this group who rate their marriage as very happy has held fairly steady over recent decades, whereas for other parts of the population the percentage has dropped significantly. In large numbers, therefore, the college educated part of America is living the American dreamwith happy, stable, two-parent families. There is one problem, however, and it is a serious one for the future of the nation. College-educated women arent having enough children to replace themselves. In 2004, for example, twenty four percent of women 40 to 44 years old with a bachelors degree were childless, compared to only fifteen percent of those without a high school degree. f For the non college-educated population, unfortunately, the marriage situation remains gloomy.Marriage rates are continuing to decline, and the percentage of out-of-wedlock births is rising. In the year 2000, fully forty percent of high-school drop-out mothers were living without husbands, compared with just twelve percent of college-grad mothers. g Because of the many statistically well-documented benefits of marriage in such areas as income, health, and longevity, this gap is generating a society of greater inequality. America is becoming a nation divided not only by educational and income levels, but by unequal family structures. a Joshua R.Goldstein and Catherine T. Kenney, Marriage Delayed or Marriage Foregone? New Cohort Forecasts of First Marriages for U. S. Women, American Sociological Review 66-4 (2001) 506-519. b Steven P. Martin and Sangeeta Parashar, Womens Changing Attitudes Toward Divorce 1974-2002 Evidence for an Educational Crossover, journal of Marriage and Family 68-1 (2006) 29-40. c Steven P. Martin, Reassessing Delayed and Forgone Marriage in the United States, unpublished manuscript (2004), Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD. Robert Schoen and Yen-Hsin Alice Cheng, Partner Choice and the Differential Retreat from Marriage, Journal of Marriage Family 68-1 (2006) 1-10 Arland Thornton and Linda Young-DeMarco, Four Decades of Trends in Attitudes Toward Family Issues in the United States the 1960s finished the 1990s, Journal of Marriage and Family 63-4 (2001) 1009-1037. e Calculation by the National Marriage Project of data from The General Social Survey, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago. f Jane Lawler Dy e, Fertility of American Women June 2004, Current Population Report, P20-555, Washington, DC U. S.Census Bureau (2005) Table 7. g David T. Ellwood and Christopher Jencks, The Uneven bedcover of Single-Parent Families, in Kathryn M. Neckerman (ed. ) Social Inequality (New York, NY Russell Sage Foundation, 2004), 3-77. Figure 1. Number of Marriages per 1,000 Unmarried Women Age 15 and honest-to-goodness, by Year, United States (a) Year Number 1960 73. (b) 1970 76. 5 1975 66. 9 1980 61. 4 1985 56. 1990 54. 5 1995 50. 8 2000 46. 5 2005 40. a We have used the number of marriages per 1,000 unmarried women age 15 and older, rather than the gravelly Marriage Rate of marriages per 1,000 population to help avoid the problem of integrative changes in the population, that is, changes which stem merely from there being more or less people in the marriageable ages. Even this more dandy measure is somewhat susceptible to compositional changes. b Per 1,000 un married women age 14 and older. Source U. S. Department of the Census, statistical Abstract of the United States, 2001, knave 87, Table 117 and Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1986, scallywag 79, Table 124. Figure for 2004 was obtained using data from the Current Population Surveys, March 2004 Supplement, as well as Births, Marriages, Divorces, and Deaths Provisional Data for 2005, National Vital Statistics Report 5420, July 21, 2006, Table 3. http//www. cdc. gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_20. pdf) The CPS, March Supplement, is based on a sample of the U. S. population, rather than an actual count such as those available from the decennial census. See sampling and weighting notes at http//www. bls. census. gov80/cps/ads/2002/ssampwgt. htm Figure 2. dowry of All Persons Age 15 and Older Who Were Married, by Sex and Race, 1960-2005 United Statesa Total Males Black Males White Males Total Females Black Females White Females 1960 69. 3 60. 9 70. 2 65. 9 59. 8 66. 6 1970 66. 7 56. 9 68. 61. 9 54. 1 62. 8 1980 63. 2 48. 8 65. 0 58. 9 44. 6 60. 7 1990 60. 7 45. 1 62. 8 56. 9 40. 2 59. 1 2000 57. 9 42. 8 60. 0 54. 7 36. 2 57. 4 2006 56. 3 40. 9 58. 5 53. 34. 3 56. 3 a Includes races other than Black and White. b In 2003, the U. S. Census Bureau expanded its racial categories to permit respondents to identify themselves as belonging to more than one race. This means that racial data computations beginning in 2004 may not be strictly comparable to those of prior years. Source U. S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series P20-506 Americas Families and Living Arrangements March 2000 and earlier reports and data calculated from the Current Population Surveys, March 2006Supplement. Figure 3. Percentage of Persons Age 35 through 44 Who Were Married by Sex, 1960-2005, United States Year Males Females 1960 88. 0 87. 1970 89. 3 86. 9 1980 84. 2 81. 4 1990 74. 1 73. 0 2000 69. 0 71. 2006 67. 9 69. 5 Source U. S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1961, Page 34, Table 27 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1971, Page 32, Table 38 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1981, Page 38, Table 49 and U. S. Bureau of the Census, General Population Characteristics, 1990, Page 45, Table 34 and Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2001, Page 48, Table 51 internet tables (http//www. ensus. gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/cps2005/tabA1-all. pdf) and data calculated from the Current Population Surveys, March 2006 Supplement. Figure for 2006 was obtained using data from the Current Population Surveys rather than data from the census. The CPS, March Supplement, is based on a sample of the U. S. population, rather than an actual count such as those available from the decennial census. See sampling and weighting notes at http//www. bls. ensus. gov80/cps/ads/2002/ssampwgt. htm Figure 4. Percentage of Married Persons Age 18 and Older Who Said The ir Marriages Were Very Happy, by Period, United States Period Men Women 1973-1976 69. 68. 6 1977-1981 68. 3 64. 2 1982-1986 62. 9 61. 7 1987-1991 66. 4 59. 1993-1996 63. 2 59. 7 1998-2004 64. 4 60. 4 Source The General Social Survey, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago. The trend for both men and women is statistically significant (p