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The Marriage Crisis Hurts Social Mobility; Implications for Australia
Topic Started: 4 Oct 2013, 07:15 AM (4,231 Views)
peter fraser
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The Marriage Crisis Hurts Social Mobility
Richard V. Reeves and Joanna Venator | October 3, 2013
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Marriage is becoming an affluent pursuit, and social mobility is stagnating: two big contemporary American problems. Are they related?

Derek Thompson at The Atlantic thinks so. His “How America's Marriage Crisis Makes Income Inequality So Much Worse”, suggests the changing landscape of marriage is fuelling the income gap. Of course, the importance of these changes in the shape of the family goes beyond inequality and mobility, but it is not possible to separate marriage and mobility.

Single mothers and social mobility

Having two earners is clearly better, in financial terms, than having one. It used to be that a breadwinning male was "head" of the household. But two heads are better than one: households with two working spouses have an income three times that of a single mother, as Thompson illustrates nicely:

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The rise in single mothers matters for income inequality. But it’s a concern for social mobility too. On this blog, we have highlighted the rising number of single mothers among twenty-somethings—and what it means for the future prospects and mobility of children. Children of married parents have better life outcomes, in terms of education, health, and income—in large part because they have more resources available to them.

Assortative mating and social mobility

Thompson focuses briefly on what he calls the “marriage gap,” or what academics inelegantly call “assortative mating.” This signals the tendency of like to marry like: those who are college educated and high-earning marry each other; and those with less education and less income marry each other (if they marry at all).

Brookings has examined the role of assortative mating in the context of economic mobility and gender. One reason women stay in the income brackets of their parents is that they marry someone from a similar background: the earnings of a married woman’s husband bear as much resemblance to her parents’ income as her own earnings.

Marriages as childrearing institutions

Marriage, then, becomes another mechanism through which advantage is protected and passed on. Affluent, committed parents tend to get married, stay married, and raise their children together. Indeed, this is arguably now the main social purpose of marriage. As women have advanced in the workplace, the rationale for marriage has become about child-rearing, not income-sharing. As Shelly Lundberg and Robert A. Pollak put it in their paper “Cohabitation and the Uneven Retreat from Marriage in the U.S., 1950-2010”:


The primary source of the gains to marriage shifted from the production of household services and commodities to investment in children…Marriage is the commitment mechanism that supports high levels of investment in children and is hence more valuable for parents adopting a high-investment strategy for their children.

In the U.S., marriages are excellent institutions within which to raise children well and optimize their life chances. This lesson has not been lost on the affluent.
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Edited by peter fraser, 4 Oct 2013, 07:16 AM.
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Dr Watson
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Just a suggestion Peter - what about adding some comments of your own?
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt — Bertrand Russell
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herbie
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The West in general still doesn't seem to have really figured out to handle all of the various social implications that came from the pill and the feminist movement. Plenty of individuals and organisations have figured out how to gain money/popularity/support from them of course. But some pretty fundamental compensating 'solutions' are still missing. If 'we' want to find such 'compensating' solutions/think they'd be good/are required?

Though a social change as big as that one is a hard act ta follow up on ... :re:
A Professional Demographer to an amateur demographer: "negative natural increase will never outweigh the positive net migration"
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stinkbug
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peter fraser
4 Oct 2013, 07:15 AM

Thompson focuses briefly on what he calls the “marriage gap,” or what academics inelegantly call “assortative mating.” This signals the tendency of like to marry like: those who are college educated and high-earning marry each other; and those with less education and less income marry each other (if they marry at all).

Makes sense. Longer term, I would have thought that having partners who potentially saw themselves as not equal would cause big problems in a marriage.
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While it's true that those who win never quit, and those who quit never win, those who never win and never quit are idiots.

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herbie
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stinkbug
4 Oct 2013, 09:10 AM
Makes sense. Longer term, I would have thought that having partners who potentially saw themselves as not equal would cause big problems in a marriage.
Depends on the expectations one's society in general places on/fosters in the parties to the marriage Stinkbug.

The West's more recent general concept of 'equality' in same is a tad unusual. Most really are rather much more clearly male/female role defined - From what I can see?

Time will tell which is 'best' I guess. (If that "survival of the fittest" stuff I mentioned to Kulganis in another thread has any validity to it.)
A Professional Demographer to an amateur demographer: "negative natural increase will never outweigh the positive net migration"
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stinkbug
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herbie
4 Oct 2013, 09:45 AM
Depends on the expectations one's society in general places on/fosters in the parties to the marriage Stinkbug.

The West's more recent general concept of 'equality' in same is a tad unusual. Most really are rather much more clearly male/female role defined - From what I can see?

Time will tell which is 'best' I guess. (If that "survival of the fittest" stuff I mentioned to Kulganis in another thread has any validity to it.)
I wasn't alluding to much to gender definition, as I was around 'meeting of the minds'.
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While it's true that those who win never quit, and those who quit never win, those who never win and never quit are idiots.

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herbie
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stinkbug
4 Oct 2013, 10:05 AM
I wasn't alluding to much to gender definition, as I was around 'meeting of the minds'.
I actually like me sheila ta have a kind heart Stinkbug. (Without being stupid about it.) 'N think its good if she values the same in me.

I imagine that could be called 'a meeting of the minds' ?
A Professional Demographer to an amateur demographer: "negative natural increase will never outweigh the positive net migration"
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stinkbug
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herbie
4 Oct 2013, 10:12 AM
I actually like me sheila ta have a kind heart Stinkbug. (Without being stupid about it.) 'N think its good if she values the same in me.

I imagine that could be called 'a meeting of the minds' ?
Exactly.

And education especially shapes peoples' views on such things.
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While it's true that those who win never quit, and those who quit never win, those who never win and never quit are idiots.

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Kulganis
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Survival of the fittest is a misnomer, it describes changes to a species over many generations.



Humans are biologically polygamous, mostly, though there is some variation, males usually only stay with their mate till the children are old enough to walk.
Western values try to hold people to monogamous relationships, it doesn't work that well, human's average divorce rate is 4 years into marriage – roughly the average age it takes to raise a baby.

The Bugis people of Indonesia separate their society into five different genders. Marriage in their society is obviously very complicated. (especially since Indonesia is now under sharia law)
"If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life's exciting variety, not something to fear." - Gene Roddenberry

"Balloon animals are a great way to teach children that the things they love dearly, may spontaneously explode" -- Lee Camp
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herbie
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Kulganis
4 Oct 2013, 10:53 AM
... Humans are biologically polygamous, mostly ...
You be "biologically polygamous" if you want Kulganis - But I know what's jolly good for me! :D
A Professional Demographer to an amateur demographer: "negative natural increase will never outweigh the positive net migration"
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