4 in 10 Children are born to unmarried mothers in the US. So sayeth a new study from the CDC.
There are tons of studies that examine the implications of the aforementioned scenario on children, and it is fairly unequivocal that it is a circumstance that society should disincentivize.
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8 years ago
Both. I was speaking specifically about incentivizing marriage before having children, because of the evidence that shows profound effects on child outcomes. The average age of childbirth has actually increased over the years if Im not mistaken
ReplyDeleteI think what Ms. Costandi (hey what's up?) was getting at was the lack of distinction between children born out of wedlock and children born to single women within the study itself, which is very important. Surely not being married at the time of a birth tell us nothing worth knowing, and the causation the study suggests is kind of hazy.
ReplyDeleteThe study itself acknowledged that "many infants are also born to couples in cohabiting relationships: According to the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), about 40% of recent nonmarital births were to cohabiting women." Are there any studies on the effects of child-rearing in cohabiting relations on the outcome of children? How many of the children born of out wedlock see their parents unite in marriage shortly afterwards?
If these hypothetical studies I’ve just proposed show that children born to cohabiting parents are just as well off as those born to married parents, we needn’t incentivize marital birth. We should target the more direct causes of unwanted child outcomes, which might have something to do with the fact that premarital births are most predominant in minority communities who are notoriously the nation’s poorest. Government benefits to single mothers would help, which might account for the high premarital birthrates in more socialized countries like Sweden and France. What are the outcomes of children born to unmarried white parents compared with that of unmarried black or Hispanic parents?
I just think the study is too incomplete to make any informed conclusions. And depending on the answers to my proposed questions, incentivizing marital birth may not make a bit of difference.