Ultimately, it seems that liberals’ commitment to the sexual revolution-and, in some circles, hostility to what feminists and Marxists call a repressive patriarchal institution-trumps their professed devotion to the poor and determination to tackle the root causes of poverty
” It is also strongly correlated with countless other benefits for both married adults and children, from higher earnings for the former to higher high school graduation rates for the latter. As one of the foundational building blocks of society, its importance to the well-being of the country in general and to the health of the American Dream in particular cannot be overstated.
Yet when it comes to talking about the importance of the family, the Left is by and large either strangely silent or outright hostile.
The traditional family is not in good shape, especially in the lower class and now, increasingly, in the middle class. For a vast number of Americans, childbearing and marriage no longer go hand in hand. The number of out-of-wedlock births has skyrocketed from 10 percent as recently as 1970 to more than 40 percent today. Among black Americans, seven out of 10 children are born to unmarried mothers-more than two and half times the rate for white children. Additionally, researchers estimate that the average couple marrying for the first time has a 40 percent to 50 percent probability of divorcing.
Taken together, the spectacular increase in the number of out-of-wedlock births and the pervasiveness of divorce spell trouble for the children who grow up without both of their parents. Of the plethora of statistics linking the collapse of the family to a host of social ills, one in particular stands out: Being raised in a ily reduces a child’s probability of living in poverty by about 80 percent. Even after controlling for the different education levels of single mothers and married couples, the married poverty rate is still more than 75 percent lower.
When compared to children in intact married homes, children raised by single parents are more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems; be physically abused; smoke, drink, and use drugs; be aggressive; engage in violent, delinquent, and criminal behavior; have poor school performance; be expelled from school; and drop out of high school. While many of these negative outcomes are associated with the higher poverty rates of single mothers, in many cases, the improvements in child well-being that are associated with marriage persist even after adjusting for differences in family income. This indicates that fathers bring home more than just a paycheck.
Studies also show that the negative effects of being raised in a single-parent home are not confined to childhood: They continue into adulthood and thus have far-reaching implications for economic mobility. “Children living in single-parent homes are 50 percent more likely to experience poverty as adults when compared to children from intact married homes,” writes Rector. “This intergenerational poverty effect persists even after adjusting for the original differences in family income and poverty during childhood.”
The collapse of the family is a deep-seated cultural problem. As such, it admits of no simple policy solutions. For those on the Left and the Right who are concerned about the vitality of the American chatstep klachten Dream in the 21st century, strengthening the family ought to be an absolute priority. When it comes to the American Dream, the family is not a tangential social or religious issue; it is a crucial economic one that is deeply intertwined with mobility.
Dependence and the Welfare State
In his 1964 State of the Union Address, President Lyndon Johnson declared all-out war on poverty, “the most ancient of mankind’s enemies.” His goal: nothing less than “total victory.” His method: Go after “the causes, not the just the consequences of poverty.”
