Marriage emerged as the most popular institution throughout history primarily because it was an effective arrangement to improve the care and upbringing of children. Marriage is not necessary to have children, but it has been of enormous importance in the rearing of children. Birds and other non-human species do not have “marriage”, but both parents are often involved in raising their offspring.
With the sharp declines in birth rates since 1970 in Western and other rich countries, including much larger fractions of adults who do not have any children, both men and women have significantly increased their ages at marriage, and sharply raised their propensities to divorce. In 1950, a typical woman and man married at ages 20.3 and 22.8, respectively, whereas now the typical marital ages are 26.0 and 27.7, respectively. These changes in age at marriage are related to reduced demand for many children, increased college education of both men and women but especially of women, much greater labor force participation of married and divorced women, and the narrowing of the gender gap in earnings.
There are several reasons to be concerned about the below population replacement fertility levels in all of Europe and about half the world’s population, including China and Japan. Low fertility makes it much harder to finance retirement benefits, medical care for the aged, and other entitlements that rely on taxing working age populations to pay for the support of older persons. Low birth rates in richer countries also induce increased migration of young workers from poorer countries with large families to provide the unskilled and other young workers that every society needs. Low birth rates lead to sex-selected abortions in societies with a strong preference for having at least one son, as in China and parts of India. Below replacement fertility eventually causes populations to decline (aside from migration), which has unknown consequences for economic growth and other macro economic and social developments. As important as these topics are, I will not discuss them further since our subject today is low marriage rates and high propensities to divorce, which raise distinct issues from the effects of low fertility.
The most important economic and social concerns due to low marriage rates are the effects on rearing of children. These effects are not due to lower marriage rates alone, but rather to the close connection between these low rates and high divorce rates, and to the greater propensity of women to have children without being married, or without living with the fathers of their children.
Although many single mothers do an absolutely wonderful job in raising their children, common sense and most academic findings suggest that having a father present during the raising of children generally has a positive effect on the development of non-cognitive traits of children. These include a general respect for authority and reduced rebelliousness in school, and the avoidance of gangs and other criminal activities. It also appears that the absence of fathers has a greater effect on the non-cognitive traits of sons than daughters, although that is a less well-established finding.
The sharp deterioration during the past 50 years in the stability of black families in America is responsible, I believe, for much of the continuing dismal record in school performance and in society more generally of children from black families. When over half of all black children are raised in families with only one parent, one can hardly be optimistic about their development. Black leaders were highly critical of Patrick Moynihan when in a famous report in 1965 he attributed the low achievement levels of many black children to the absence of fathers in their homes. However, most leaders of the black community have come around to sharing Moynihan’s views as a result of the further deterioration in black families since his report, and the continuing poor school performance, high crime rates, and low incomes and high unemployment of many black children and young adults.
Children in white and Hispanic families have also suffered from the growth in divorce rates and in single motherhood. Children of divorced parents and other children raised by single moms generally do worse in school, attend less good schools, are more likely to drop out of high school, and have poorer job market experiences. Although the moms in single parent families also have lower incomes and education, I believe that a sizable portion of the below average performance of children from single parent families is due to their family structures.
I am not claiming that children are worst off when their parents divorce if their parents were fighting a lot, or if they had abusive fathers. Rather, it appears that up to a significant point, children are better off in intact families even when their families are not ideal. If correct, this suggests a considerable gain not from encouraging marriage per se, but from policies that encourage families to stay together. One approach is for governments to subsidize intact families, whatever their income levels, rather than just subsidizing families with only one parent because they have lower incomes. Other approaches may be better, but the effects of single parenting on the development of children is a far more important question than the question of who can call themselves “married”, and other family issues that preoccupy the attention of many politicians and others.