Cross-posted at The Atlantic and Family Inequality.
In 1996 the Hoover Institution published a symposium titled “Can Government Save the Family?” A who’s-who list of culture warriors — including Dan Quayle, James Dobson, John Engler, John Ashcroft, and David Blankenhorn — were asked, “What can government do, if anything, to make sure that the overwhelming majority of American children grow up with a mother and father?”
There wasn’t much disagreement on the panel. Their suggestions were (1) end welfare payments for single mothers, (2) stop no-fault divorce, (3) remove tax penalties for marriage, and (4) fix “the culture.” From this list their only victory was ending welfare as we knew it, which increased the suffering of single mothers and their children but didn’t affect the trajectory of marriage and single motherhood.
So the collapse of marriage continues apace. Since 1980, for every state in every decade, the percentage of women who are married has fallen (except Utah in the 1990s):
Red states (last four presidential elections Republican) to blue (last four Democrat), and in between (light blue, purple, light red), makes no difference:
But the “marriage movement” lives on. In fact, their message has changed remarkably little. In that 1996 symposium, Dan Quayle wrote:
We also desperately need help from nongovernment institutions like the media and the entertainment community. They have a tremendous influence on our culture and they should join in when it comes to strengthening families.
Sixteen years later, in the 2012 “State of Our Unions” report, the National Marriage Project included a 10-point list of familiar demands, including this point #8:
Our nation’s leaders, including the president, must engage Hollywood in a conversation about popular culture ideas about marriage and family formation, including constructive critiques and positive ideas for changes in media depictions of marriage and fatherhood.
So little reflection on such a bad track record — it’s enough to make you think that increasing marriage isn’t the main goal of the movement.
Plan for the Future
So what is the future of marriage? Advocates like to talk about turning it around, bringing back a “marriage culture.” But is there a precedent for this, or a reason to expect it to happen? Not that I can see. In fact, the decline of marriage is nearly universal. A check of United Nations statistics on marriage trends shows that 87 percent of the world’s population lives in countries with marriage rates that have fallen since the 1980s.
Here is the trend in the marriage rate since 1940, with some possible scenarios to 2040 (source: 1940-1960; 1970-2011):
Notice the decline has actually accelerated since 1990. Something has to give. The marriage movement folks say they want a rebound. With even the most optimistic twist imaginable (and a Kanye wedding), could it get back to 2000 levels by 2040? That would make headlines, but the institution would still be less popular than it was during that dire 1996 symposium.
If we just keep going on the same path (the red line), marriage will hit zero at around 2042. Some trends are easy to predict by extrapolation (like next year’s decline in the name Mary), but major demographic trends usually don’t just smash into 0 or 100 percent, so I don’t expect that.
The more realistic future is some kind of taper. We know, for example, that decline of marriage has slowed considerably for college graduates, so they’re helping keep it alive — but that’s still only 35 percent of women in their 30s, not enough to turn the whole ship around.
So Live With It
So rather than try to redirect the ship of marriage, we have to do what we already know we have to do: reduce the disadvantages accruing to those who aren’t married — or whose parents aren’t married. If we take the longer view we know this is the right approach: In the past two centuries we’ve largely replaced such family functions as food production, healthcare, education, and elder care with a combination of state and market interventions. As a result — even though the results are, to put it mildly, uneven — our collective well-being has improved rather than diminished, even though families have lost much of their hold on modern life.
If the new book by sociologist Kathryn Edin and Timothy Nelson is to be believed, there is good news for the floundering marriage movement in this approach: Policies to improve the security of poor people and their children also tend to improve the stability of their relationships. In other words, supporting single people supports marriage.
To any clear-eyed observer it’s obvious that we can’t count on marriage anymore — we can’t build our social welfare system around the assumption that everyone does or should get married if they or their children want to be cared for. That’s what it means when pensions are based on spouse’s earnings, employers don’t provide sick leave or family leave, and when high-quality preschool is unaffordable for most people. So let marriage be truly voluntary, and maybe more people will even end up married. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Philip N. Cohen is a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and writes the blog Family Inequality. You can follow him on Twitter or Facebook.
Comments 102
Mordicai — June 6, 2013
Their suggestions were (1) end welfare payments for single mothers
Oh no kidding, a bunch old old rich dudes got together & decided that the first step was to stop giving poor women money? Well, they sure sound like ethical people!
Felonious Grammar — June 6, 2013
I suspect marriage rates would drop precipitously if the cost of housing were to be lowered so that single people, with or without children, had affordable housing available to them. That two can live cheaper than one (especially when they're both working) often makes it necessary for people to live as couples, in spite of their preferences. Two working single mothers could live cheaper than one, also; seeing that as a possibility and developing contracts for it, could provide single mothers (or fathers) an alternative to slogging through alone or being in a destructive relationship.
If most housing weren't built for nuclear families, then perhaps it would be easier to develop other "family" structures and cultures with which people could support themselves without having to depend on someone who is detrimental to them. If houses were, as a rule, built with a garage, attic, or second story apartment, some divorced or unmarried couples could live in the same location with their child or children while not living together.
Group housing run democratically and cooperatively can be great for young adults, especially students, who want a household but can't afford to start one from scratch.
Larkspur — June 6, 2013
Could you post the correct link for "disadvantages accruing to those who aren’t married" please?
Lunad — June 6, 2013
Even aside from the monetary disadvantages of single-parenthood, the main problem is a lack of stability. We know that children benefit most from stability in their housing, schooling, communities, and family relationships. What we want to encourage is stable families. Right now, that means marriage. Especially among the poor, unmarried couples with kids are much more likely to split than those that are married. I think there should be more supports for single parents, but policies that encourage stable relationships should be tried as well. There have been experiments with subsidized couples counseling. Policies to encourage stable employment opportunities should help (it's easier to work on a stable relationship if other things are stable in your life). Policies that help people avoid unwanted pregnancies are useful too. We know many things that don't work, but that doesn't mean that there aren't things that do.
fss — June 6, 2013
https://xkcd.com/605/
Yrro Simyarin — June 6, 2013
So you are arguing that we are replacing the family with the state, and that this is a good thing? That's a pretty major social change - has any culture successfully tried it?
HoosierNSF — June 7, 2013
Forget marriage. The new paradigm should be a collaborative group of people, including people who want children and people who don't want children, with everyone contributing. A huge fertility industry is driven by women who waited too long - much of that energy needs to get redirected, not into adopting or taking children away from other people, but sharing the burden of raising children with those who can barely afford it.
Anna — June 7, 2013
"To any clear-eyed observer it’s obvious that we can’t count on marriage anymore — we can’t build our social welfare system around the assumption that everyone does or should get married if they or their children want to be cared for."
I do not know the intricacies of the US welfare system well enough to comment, but in the UK for example, there is a lively debate that the local welfare system inadvertently discourages marriage (especially having children within wedlock). This has considerable similarities with some other European welfare systems as well. Wherever you stand on the debate, there is no denying that public policies regarding family, parenthood, and marriage, such as welfare, are active agents in shaping marriage trends.
Please correct me if I misunderstood: You are saying that the US social welfare state should NOT be based under the assumption that civil partnerships/marriage and a co-parent family unit are optimal for being a caregiver or being cared for. If this is what you mean, then what are the viable alternatives that the welfare system should promote? I can certainly envision the theoretical alternatives - many of which require a complete overhaul of Western-style kinship, which is both an unrealistic and imo questionable aspiration - but can't think of any pragmatic ones.
On a side note, I am confused by your use of "welfare" here. I was under the impression that the American usage refers to providing government assistance to its poorest citizens. On the other hand, you weren't only talking about challenging public policy assumptions for poor people here, but about all social spheres, right?
ViktorNN — June 7, 2013
No one will love children as much as their parents. This is the #1 reason why the decline of marriage is a disaster.
Even if the state did provide some facsimile of the quality of childcare that a stay at home mom or dad in a traditional marriage provides (a level of quality which the state will never be able to afford), the real mom and dad can do it for a fraction of that cost because they simply love their kids in a way that paid public childcare providers never can.
We can attempt to build a not-as-good, extremely expensive simulation of the real thing, or we can stop the destruction of the real thing.
As it is now, we're doing neither - we're destroying the traditional family and replacing it with poverty stricken single parent households dependent on govt for a very low level of subsistence. If our goal is to create a growing underclass made up of "families" of poor, undereducated children of single parent households, then everything's working great.
[links] Link salad wakes up way too early and flies home | jlake.com — June 7, 2013
[...] Marriage is Over: “Live With It” — Fascinating. [...]
Johnno — June 7, 2013
Marriage will recover when gay and lesbian marriage is legalized and the institution regains some respect & meaning. Straights-only marriage is a process of social exclusion and that ain't cool. Fortunately straight marriage is so camp that it already is gay so the next bit is easy. It is the future, and don't worry - there will be cake!
Overt exclusion is a non-replicating meme in developed world, because social evolution selects covert forms of social exclusion, not overt forms. For diehard fans of exclusion new forms of discrimination will evolve.
JonCarter — June 7, 2013
I have no problem with single mothers as long as they pay their own way and don't expect married people (who have their own families to take care of) to foot their bill.
Live and let live (provided you pay your own bills).
Brutus — June 7, 2013
The best thing government could do for children is to stop letting them be raised by people with no experience raising children.
Sujay Kentlyn — June 7, 2013
Is this talking only about legal marriage, or does this also include long-term cohabiting relationships?
Marriage is declining globally: Can you say that? | Family Inequality — June 12, 2013
[...] I basically argued that marriage decline in the U.S. is universal and inevitable. The headline for the post at the Atlantic was “How to Live in a World Where Marriage Is in Decline,” and at Sociological Images it was, “Marriage Is Over: Live with It.” [...]
The Decline of Marriage - — June 13, 2013
[...] post originally appeared on Sociological Images, a Pacific Standard partner [...]
eeka — June 13, 2013
I wish these studies would make it clear whether "marriage" is referring to heterosexual legal marriage, or to any committed partnership. In my circle, the number of people having weddings and whatnot has decreased, but nearly everyone is either in a committed relationship or is a single parent by choice (most of the single parents by choice are adoptive parents, but a few are women who've used donor insemination). I don't think these families are the same as families who really didn't intend to raise a child alone -- or families who are sticking together because of whatever type of pressure and are providing a child with a home life full of fighting and dysfunction.
Fascist Friday Wrap-Up – June 14, 2013 | Total Fascism — June 15, 2013
[...] This article has some very interesting graphs, relating to the decline in marriage rates since 1980. [...]
Open Thread and Link Farm: The Fat Foreigner Edition | Alas, a Blog — June 20, 2013
[...] Marriage is Over: Live With It [...]
blackiris — June 22, 2013
Pensions being based on spouse's earnings is a good thing. It is a huge help to women. Getting rid of that would just be regressive.
blackiris — June 22, 2013
You're mixing things up here. Trying to bring back marriage is a good thing. Just because people who support marriage wanted to cut welfare doesn't mean you have to be against strengthening marriage.
What we need to do is to find a better way to strengthen marriage.
blackiris — June 22, 2013
All of these arguments are missing a critical point:
People want to be married!
They want to have life-long love relationships.
They want their children to avoid the pain of divorce and to have close relationships with their fathers.
Creating conditions where this happens is a good thing to do.
We just need to start talking about ways to do this that might really work. As Cohen points out, cutting welfare did not work.
2040 : la fin du mariage - Ressource Info — December 2, 2014
[…] Le sociologue américain Philip N. Cohen (qui tient le blog Family Inequality, @familyunequal, Wikipédia) et qui vient de faire paraître le livre La famille, diversité, inégalité et changement sociaux, va plus loin encore. Selon lui, le mariage décline dans le monde entier. Tant et si bien qu’il annonce, tout à fait sérieusement, sa fin prochaine. […]
2040 : la fin du mariage | InternetActu — January 23, 2015
[…] Le sociologue américain Philip N. Cohen (qui tient le blog Family Inequality, @familyunequal, Wikipédia) et qui vient de faire paraître le livre La famille, diversité, inégalité et changement sociaux, va plus loin encore. Selon lui, le mariage décline dans le monde entier. Tant et si bien qu'il annonce, tout à fait sérieusement, sa fin prochaine. […]
2040 : la fin du mariage | saraa — January 23, 2015
[…] Le sociologue américain Philip N. Cohen (qui tient le blog Family Inequality, @familyunequal, Wikipédia) et qui vient de faire paraître le livre La famille, diversité, inégalité et changement sociaux, va plus loin encore. Selon lui, le mariage décline dans le monde entier. Tant et si bien qu’il annonce, tout à fait sérieusement, sa fin prochaine. […]
2040 : la fin du mariage, du couple, du père, de Dieu, du patriarcat… Quelle famille alternative ? | Le Mouvement Matricien — January 27, 2015
[…] Le sociologue américain Philip N. Cohen (qui tient le blog Family Inequality,@familyunequal, Wikipédia) et qui vient de faire paraître le livre La famille, diversité, inégalité et changement sociaux, va plus loin encore. Selon lui, le mariage décline dans le monde entier. Tant et si bien qu’il annonce, tout à fait sérieusement, sa fin prochaine. […]
2040 : la fin du mariage, du couple, du père, de Dieu, du patriarcat… Quelle famille alternative ? — January 27, 2015
[…] Le sociologue américain Philip N. Cohen (qui tient le blog Family Inequality,@familyunequal, Wikipédia) et qui vient de faire paraître le livre La famille, diversité, inégalité et changement sociaux, va plus loin encore. Selon lui, le mariage décline dans le monde entier. Tant et si bien qu’il annonce, tout à fait sérieusement, sa fin prochaine. […]
fredwillcutt — May 10, 2016
If one would like a trailhead into a causal discovery re: marriage decline using deductive reasoning, try hormonal family planning mechanisms as a premise - especially hormonal intrauterine devices and anything containing levonorgesterel. Data is available and interesting.
swampwiz0 — June 5, 2016
The real reason that marriage is declining is because women have stopped buying into the notion of permanent monogamy, instead wishing to practice serial monogamy, which leads to the mating schema of discarding the husband when the wife "just doesn't feel it anymore" (75% of marriages in the USA are filed by women), causing the harsh financial & child-separation effects that rational men to respond with just not being all that motivated to getting married since women's concurrent loss of sexual modesty has made getting sexual serviced widely available without having to get married. This serial monogamy mating schema causes such a women who has "been around the block" a few times to lose her ability to pair-bond with whatever beau happens to be with her when the musical mates music stops and she feels it is that proper time to marry, which generates positive feedback into her losing her feelings for him. And of course there is a divorce culture that tells women who remain married that they are "oppressed", with "Sex & The City" garbage telling them that they can change their men with the same frequency that they change their hairstyle.
The old patriarchal mating schema - i.e., the sexually modest, virgin bride only sexually servicing her husband - generated positive feedback in that men had to get married to get regular sex. Women who were divorcees were looked upon as failures as the popular notion was that such a woman couldn't manage to keep a husband, so they did their best to keep hubby happy, and certainly could not imagine divorcing, absent the 4 As: Adultery, Abuse, Addiction & Abandonment.
Men, being mainly attracted to order & regularity - and of course, sexual needs fulfillment - found the marriage institution to be very beneficial. However, marriage now increasingly looks to be a temporary thing that is to be ended whenever the wife wants to end it, but with the harsh penalties as noted. And now since women easily "put out" without having to get married first, men just don't see the point of getting married, except for those that really have a strong desire to have children. I find it interesting that a lot of futuristic, dystopic stories seem to have the common theme of there being no marriage, with reproduction; there is a reason why it is always include in the plot.