On this post, Kay Hymowitz left a comment.
Women today marry on average at 27; in 1950 it was closer to 20. Eighty percent of women marry at some point. Though that’s down from 90% in the mid century,it’s still the large majority. The big story is that though the age of marriage has gone up markedly, the age of first birth has not. I co-authored a report on the “crossover” between marriage and birth ages; you can find it here: http://nationalmarriageproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/KnotYet-FinalForWeb.pdf
In his book, Nick Schulz writes,
in 1960 almost 70 percent of adults ages 20 to 29 were married, while in the late 200s about one quarter were hitched.
He quotes James Heckman as saying that parenting matters for early childhood motivation to learn, which in turn affects longer-term outcomes. Thus, he is not on the same side as Bryan Caplan and Judith Rich Harris, who see nature mattering much more than nurture.
Nick tells an anecdote about asking manufacturing executives what was missing in the skill set of the labor pool.
“To be honest,” said one executive, rather sheepishly, “we have a hard time finding people who can simply pass a drug test.
Nick ends up advocating for building support for marriage and disdain for unwedded pregnancy.
when the baleful effects of certain cultural norms, actions, and behaviors become overwhelmingly evident for all to see, societies are able to shape their cultures in a healthier direction…the recognition of the harms of smoking. Something similar seems to be happening with recognition of the harms of obesity.
I wish Nick had gone into more depth about why women are having children before marriage. I have the sense that without knowing what their thought processes are, it is hard to know what to recommend.
The charitable answer, I think, is that many lower class women recognize that their chances of finding marrying a husband who would be a net economic asset over the long haul are slim to none, thanks to decreasing returns to low skilled labor coupled with a generous welfare state which reduces everyone’s incentives to actually get and keep a job. Furthermore, their own labor market prospects, very limited to begin with, are not heavily impacted by early child-bearing. Thus, they see no reason to wait to have kids.
The uncharitable answer is that, as you noted previously about the impulsiveness of our Thete class, for many, there simply is no thought process. The frontal lobe isn’t making the decisions here. Men have a polygamous objective function, whereas women are serial monogamists. Marriage gets in the way of serial monogamy and polygamy more than kids do. Thus, we see children before marriage, especially among the lower classes.
“Thus, he is not on the same side as Bryan Caplan and Judith Rich Harris, who see nature mattering much more than nurture.”
From what I understand, Harris suggests that nature and peer socialization (nurture) are both important. Children in two-parent homes may tend to go to better schools and thus become socialized by higher-quality peers. So I’m not sure that this is a simple nature-nurture question.
I haven’t read this book, but it purports to explore the final questions that you posed: http://www.amazon.com/Promises-Can-Keep-Motherhood-Marriage/dp/0520271467
The mix of market forces and natural selection basically say what Jeff R. (and others) have said. To Wit:
In the greatest contest of all – survival of your genes – having a child who survives to adulthood is a victory. If that child is rich or poor or wise or fool or good or bad doesn’t much matter so long as you get a grandchild. Natural selection does not care about anything, and in particular, does not care about whether you or your children are rich or poor or happy or miserable. Therefore, there will be children.
Having a restrictive society would just lead to more early and often unsatisfactory marriages.
Improving everybody’s prospects is likely the best answer – I’ll get back to you when I figure out for sure how to do that.
“He quotes James Heckman as saying that parenting matters for early childhood motivation to learn, which in turn affects longer-term outcomes. Thus, he is not on the same side as Bryan Caplan and Judith Rich Harris, who see nature mattering much more than nurture.”
I think Judith Rich Harris is clear that parenting style has no influence on personality ONCE the low bar of a basic loving and non-abusive environment is established. James Heckman focuses on the most disadvantaged subgroups and I think his “parental quality” measure is the same cut off as Harris’ “basic loving and non-abusive environment”.
It sounds to me like Schulz is cherry-picking the words of Heckman to fit his own preconceptions about marriage, family, and society.
I have the sense that without knowing what their thought processes are, it is hard to know what to recommend.
You should post an e-mail address on this site; I have some ideas, but they’re ones I’d rather not leave in public, with my real name attached.
Just saw this in a comment over at The American Conservative:
“Social support for high-investment parenting has always been a critical feature of Western social structure until the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Since then, all of the markers of family stability have headed south — including divorce rates and births out of wedlock for all races and ethnic groups.
But this relative lack of social support for marriage has had very different effects depending on traits like IQ. For example, a well-known study in behavior genetics shows that the heritability of age of first sexual intercourse increased dramatically after the sexual revolution of the 1960′s. In other words, after the social supports for traditional sexuality disappeared, genetic influences became more important. Before the sexual revolution, traditional sexual mores applied to everyone. After the revolution, genes mattered more. People with higher IQ were able to produce stable families and marriages, but lower-IQ people were less prone to doing so. These trends have been exacerbated by the current economic climate.
The triumph of the culture of critique therefore resulted in a more libertarian climate for sexual behavior that tended to produce family pathology among people at the lower end of the bell curve for IQ, particularly an increase in low-investment parenting. This in turn is likely to have decreased the viability of the society as a whole.”
I’ll put that down as part of the uncharitable view.
I should add: apparently, that’s a quote from Kevin MacDonald, a psychology professor at Cal State – Long Beach, who, according to his wikipedia page, has some pretty odd ball views. So take it for what it’s worth.
Also sounds like Brink Lindsey in Age of Abundance.