Generation Unbound. I am reading it–may have finished by the time this is posted. In short, her thesis is that many twenty-somethings are having unplanned children out of wedlock, with detrimental consequences, particularly for the children.
Possibly related: This chart from Frances Woolley, showing Canadians’ intentions to have children, sorted by gender and age. What stands out is that among 15-24 year-olds, females are much keener on children than males.
Certainly related: Ben Casselman on a recent Pew survey of marriage patterns. Pointer from Jason Collins.
There was a related article in The Atlantic. Putting a free IUD in every fertile womb as a default and until a woman elects to take it out is one heck of a ‘nudge’.
There couldn’t be any unintended consequences with that policy, I’m sure.
The IUD notion is silly if ” females are mch keener on children than males”.
We are observing the effects of individual motivations.
There are many factors which impact the initial formations of individual motivations; the predominance amongst those factors varies; the reasons for variances are not solely economic. While initially formed motivations can be modified (hence modifying conduct) with considerable effort and against other “forces” influencing choices, that would be a continuing battle (particularly as to the objectives and means of the modifications). Examining and understanding the factors (and their relative pre-dominances) which form initial individual motivations is more likely to result in development of acceptable means of ameliorating the presently observed conditions.
To me the big marriage question is, is the lower marriage rate and higher divorcee rate due to wealth because women do not need a husband to live well or even to have children and live well. This could be true even though richer people are more likely to get married and stay married. The related question is, is this then a good thing. Although I am a Christian I think wealth is the cause and it is a net good thing. I think it would be better if more men and women behaved better and learned to get along together better, making marriage the best option. I would also prefer that those with low income who opt out of marriage would also opt out of having children so as to not put a burden on others. Perhaps marriage in the future could take a new form where the couples live most separately to reduce conflict coming together mostly for sex and with the father sharing in the cots of raising children.