WaPo article on decline in marriage

[ksmith]

Interesting article in this morning's Post Online. I think reg'n is required:

Numbers Drop for the Married With Children
Institution Becoming The Choice of the Educated, Affluent

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 4, 2007; Page A03

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Punctuating a fundamental change in American family life, married couples with children now occupy fewer than one in every four households -- a share that has been slashed in half since 1960 and is the lowest ever recorded by the census.

As marriage with children becomes an exception rather than the norm, social scientists say it is also becoming the self-selected province of the college-educated and the affluent. The working class and the poor, meanwhile, increasingly steer away from marriage, while living together and bearing children out of wedlock.

This was interesting:

"We seem to be reverting to a much older pattern, when elites marry and a great many others live together and have kids," said Peter Francese, demographic trends analyst for Ogilvy & Mather, an advertising firm.

So, is it like the Middle Ages all over again, or what?

Comments

[juliabk.livejournal.com]

Ah, well, it's gay marriage, y'know. Killing the entire thing.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but the author of the article doesn't mention that. He also doesn't mention any morality talking points. The reasons people give for not marrying seem to reflect 1) economic concerns, 2) not wanting to repeat their parents' mistakes.

What's interesting, and I'm speculating like hell here, is that the class considered to contain as many, if not more, liberals than conservatives, is the one marrying, while the lower middle/working classes, which are the supposed backbone of the moral conservative movement, are starting to edge away from it.

[juliabk.livejournal.com]

Which, to my mind, simply points up the fact that marriage, as an institution, isn't much of a brick in most folks' political walls. It's just the latest nonsense label slapped on The Good Ol' Days [TM].

Either that or there are far more intelligent poor folks than anyone wants to credit. :-):-)

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Of the younger people I know with kids -- in their 20s or 30s -- one, with three kids, has been married once, after having a child with a man who said he'd marry her, and then she found out he'd knocked up four other women. And when she married the father of her second child, he turned out to not be telling the truth about his life or past. Now she lives with the best friend of the not-yet-ex, whom she accidentally had a child with (economics stops them from planning any children) but she can't afford to divorce the absent spouse -- with kids, a divorce in her state is expensive.)

We're talking child of college-educated parents, but did not finish herself, and is a line manager in a factory.

The other ones I've heard of down the grapevine. Elder son and his girlfriend have a baby, but he is not in college, and hasn't married her. His doctor father is presumably floating most of the bills. Second son also not in college.

The third one? She was the one supporting the family, and finally gave up on the spouse ever getting a job and divorced him. Living with a boyfriend and her two kids -- and expecting with the boyfriend.

They all seem to be more fearless than I was -- I didn't want to be a single parent, and then picked the wrong spouse, who didn't want to share me.

Once again, we will be a nation of college-educated immigrants, if we don't chase them all off through the new Visa requirements and waiting lists.