1. One Nation, Divided: What Role Do Culture, Religion, and Civic Institutions Play in the Marriage Divide in America? W. Bradford Wilcox Nicholas H. Wolfinger Charles E. Stokes

2. The Marriage Divide

3. Why the Retreat from Marriage?

4. Is Economic Restructuring the Whole Story?
Economic factors are an important part of the story
William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears (1997)
But a “purely economic theory falls short as an explanation of the dramatic transformation of family life in the U.S. in recent decades.” ~ Isabel Sawhill (2014)
Lichter et al (2002): economic restructuring accounts for only a modest share of the retreat from marriage

5. The Cultural Explanation
Four cultural trends have eroded marriage’s capacity to anchor the adult life course, and the rearing of children:
Expressive individualism
The sexual revolution
Second-wave feminism
The capstone model of marriage
Sources: Bellah et al. 1985; Cherlin 2009; Ellwood & Jencks 2004

6. The Cultural Shift

7. The Civic Explanation
The last half-century has witnessed a marked decline in civic & religious engagement.
Important because civil society has
long provided social support,
normative guidance, & religious meaning
to couples and families.

8. The Civic Shift

9. Why the Class Divide in Marriage?

10. Working Class & Poor Most at Risk
Cultural and civic shifts have proved particularly consequential for poor & working-class Americans
Fewer educational, social, & economic resources to navigate a world where sex, parenthood, & relationships are deinstitutionalized.
Civic institutions have long been a source of financial support, social solidarity, social skills for poor and working-class Americans (Verba et al. 1995).

11. More than Money
Less-educated Americans are less likely to avoid the behaviors & attitudes that make it difficult to establish stable relationships and marriages.
“Lack of money is certainly a contributing cause [of relationship problems]. . . but rarely the only factor. It is usually the young father’s criminal behavior, spells of incarceration that so often follow, a pattern of intimate violence, his chronic infidelity, and an inability to leave drugs and alcohol alone that cause relationships to falter and die.”
~ Edin & Kefalas (2005)
And less-educated people are less likely to be involved in institutions that would help to forge strong relationships.

12. Religious Attendance
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13. Marital Infidelity
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14. Percent of Teens Wishing to Attend College “Very Much”

15. Teens Embarrassed by Pregnancy NMP 2010

16. Analysis of Nonmarital Childbearing
Differences in college expectations, family stability growing up, attitudes toward single parenthood and teen pregnancy, and religious attendance between teenagers account for almost a third of the difference in the relative odds that adolescent girls from less-educated versus college-educated homes will go on to have a child before marriage.

17. What is to Be Done?

18. Important Caveats
Culture and civil society are collectively produced, not a matter of “individual responsibility”.
Culture and civil society are shaped in part by the economy and the state. So….

19. Do No Harm
Public policy should seek to “do no harm” to marriage and two-parent families by penalizing marriage among low-income families:
“[Most] households with children who earn low or moderate incomes (say, under $40,000) are significantly penalized for getting married.”
~ Adam Carasso and C. Eugene Steuerle (2005)
As a simple example, consider a mother of two children in Pennsylvania who earns $20,000 and qualifies for Medicaid (with an insurance value estimated at $3,424). If she marries someone making just $6,000, resulting in a combined income of $26,000, her children lose their Medicaid.

20. Strengthen Economic Foundations
To strengthen economic foundations of working-class and poor family life:
Expand child-tax credit to $3,000 and extend it to payroll taxes;
Expand EITC to $,1000 for single adults with no children.

21. Improve Educational Opportunity
Most Americans will not get a college degree.
We need to improve vocational education & apprenticeship programs:
Career Academies boosts work hours, income, and marriage rates of young men from low-income families.
Apprenticeship programs in South Carolina, Georgia, and Wisconsin are boosting young adults’ work and income.

22. Civic & Cultural Campaign
We need a national campaign to expand civic and cultural supports for marriage:
“Success Sequence” (finish high school, work, marry, & become a parent, in that order);
Relationship education focusing on working-class and poor couples and individuals.
Think especially hard about reaching less-educated men.
National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy is a model.