The subtitle of the book is, “How the decline in marriage has increased inequality and lowered social mobility, and what we can do about it”.

Melissa Kearney is professor of economics at the University of Maryland. Her 2023 book The Two-Parent Privilege addresses the advantages to children of being raised in a family with both biological parents present – and, more specifically, the disadvantages to children being raised in single parent homes. She examines the causes of the hugely increased prevalence of single-mother families over the last 40 – 50 years. To do so she holds strictly to solid empirical data. With her background this mainly involves quantifiable “resources”, of which income is the most readily available. The data relates to the USA. However, the results will be broadly similar in the UK – with the exception of the race issues, which may be specific to the American context.

She identifies the main reason for the rise of single mother households being the decline of marriage rather than due to divorce (which, I note, is also true in the UK, see The Empathy Gap, section 13.3). Most single mothers were never married. Moreover she also emphasises that this decline of marriage is very strongly skewed to lower earners, which she aligns with those who do not have a four year college degree. This is again the same as in the UK (see The Empathy Gap, section 13.4). In the upper socioeconomic strata, marriage has declined only a little. The decline of marriage drives fatherlessness which in turn causes multiple disadvantages to their children see The Empathy Gap, chapter 14).

Kearney identifies the origin of the decline of marriage as being the falling relative earnings of non-college-educated men – relative, that is, both to the college educated (i.e., increasing inequality) and also relative to women in the same socioeconomic and educational category. This relative decline in male earnings results in such men being deemed less attractive as husbands by the corresponding women, even when they have a child together. The instability of unmarried cohabitation leads to single mother households even if this was not initially the case. In addition to those cases where the parents end up in conflict, and the father’s meaningful involvement with his child is frustrated by the mother, purely financial and logistical pressures also contribute to de facto fatherlessness.

The book describes how these factors, including the decline of marriage, are associated with increasing inequality and diminishing social mobility. (In my words, but not the author’s, feminism is the chief culprit here because feminism deliberately set out to destroy the two-parent family and so is responsible for all that follows in its wake). The book laments the vicious circle that arises as the reducing fortunes of boys from single parent homes then cause them to be less attractive “marriage material”, so that the situation is self-reinforcing in a form of positive feedback.

This situation is hardly a great deal for the single mothers, either, so men, women and children are all disadvantaged by these developments among the working class – and increasingly the lower reaches of the middle class. Again in my words, but not the author’s, feminism – as a product of middle-class women – is a tool of the elites: the relatively wealthy, college-educated, do well enough while the rest sink.

Despite the clear relationship which Kearney demonstrates between the decline of non-college-educated men’s earnings and the decline of marriage, and all that follows from that, the author also identifies evidence that these negative social effects will not now be reversed even if men’s earnings were to be revived. She obtained evidence for this irreversibility from specific local instances of improved working class men’s incomes, e.g., from towns with fracking booms, but these failed to be associated with an increased rate of marriage or a reduction in single motherhood. This she attributes to unidentified “social factors” which lie outside the reach of the data – and beyond the scope of issues she was willing to address.

She does, however, go on to discuss the reducing willingness of women to have children, especially when young. Undoubtedly this is a key contributory factor, though I wonder to what extent male reluctance is also involved. That fathers are routinely denied contact with their children by either belligerent mothers or hostile family courts is now well-known by young men and must surely influence their own willingness to father children.

Again I must observe (though the author does not) that it is feminism more than any other factor which has driven the career-first ethos among young women. It has also been feminism that has energetically, and successfully, steered the family courts and associated legislation in a direction which facilitates the eradication of fathers. Among the working class, and increasingly much of the middle class, these feminist-driven socioeconomic changes have been bad for men, women and children, and have resulted in increasing inequality. Unfortunately, there are still too many people, of both sexes, who have failed to understand this and still regard feminism as synonymous with all that is lovely.

Early on, Kearnery raises the question: “is it really the case that close to 40% of births in the US are to men who would not bring any positive resources (on net) into the home? Is it likely to be true that roughly 70% of births to non-college educate mothers are fathered by men with no positive resources to contribute to a family environment?” It is not clear to me that she ever answers this question. Perhaps in the context of earnings her answer is supposed to be implicit (and in the affirmative). But this is too limited an interpretation of “resources”. Kearney makes clear in her own life that the “resources” a father brings is more than just cash. She writes, “I have a lot of resources to draw on, including a spouse who is a devoted dad to our children and a partner to me”.

From that perspective the mothers’ judgment regarding the “marriageability” of the fathers is, one could argue, rather unenlightened. The mothers’ focus on financial issues alone, to the exclusion of “mere fatherhood”, carries some culpability – as does feminism, yet again, for promoting the empirical falsity that fathers are unnecessary and often undesirable.

Whilst Kearney proposes remedially measures which appear reasonable to a degree, the “social factors” which prevent reversibility of the “marriageable men hypothesis” now create the principle barrier against returning to children being raised overwhelmingly by both biological parents. And what the solution may be regarding eradication of these “social factor” barriers is not addressed and yet this is probably even more difficult than the financial issues. It is worth noting here that J.D.Unwin’s anthropological analysis unambiguously predicts that such situations are irreversible, leading to civilisational extinction.

Extracts from the book are as follows…

Disadvantage to children

“…a child born in a two-parent household with a family income of $50,000 has, on average, better outcomes than a child born in a single-parent household earning the same income.”

“…studies consistently indicate that children in stepfamilies tend to exhibit social and behavioural problems on a similar scale to children in single-parent homes, and more so than children living with continuously married biological parents.”

“Researchers found that family structure was a key determinant of the gender gap in behavioural outcomes, more so than early school environment…By eighth grade the gender gap in school suspension was close to 25% among children raised by single mothers, versus 10% among children from two biological parent families.”

“The absence of dads from many Black families disadvantages not only the children in those families but also the other boys growing up in the neighbourhood.”

Men’s Decline in Relative Earnings Drives Decline in Marriage, Increases in Divorce and Increases in Single Mother Families

Referring to the impact of China joining the WTO on the economies of manufacturing towns in the USA, specifically the degrading of working class men’s incomes, Kearney writes: “This external change – not to the types of men who live in a place, but to the economic reality of the place – allowed the economists to investigate statistically whether a change in men’s economic prospects can cause a change in marriage rates. The answer was yes.”

“Men without college degrees have seen their earnings stagnate and employment rates fall. Women, meanwhile, have experienced increases in average earnings regardless of their education level. This change has stripped many men of their traditional roles as breadwinner for the family and, in simple terms, made them less desirable marriage partners.”

“The study found that the decline in US manufacturing jobs led to a decrease in wages, a decrease in employment, a decrease in marriage rates, and an increase in wage inequality.” Kearney goes on to state that the effects also included increased single motherhood and increased poverty (for both black and white women).

“The decrease in men’s earnings relative to women’s earnings has also led to a reduction in marriage.” (my emphasis).

“…the earnings of wives tend not to exceed that of their husbands, and when they do, there is an increased incidence of divorce.”

Kearney observes that, as regards working class earnings, it is the intersection of being both Black and male that maximises the disadvantage, whilst being Black does not affect earnings or mobility rates for girls: “In tracing the Black-White gap in intergenerational mobility rates for girls the researchers found that it was generally non-existent: Black and White girls who grew up with the same levels of parental income experienced similar levels of earnings as adults…In a similar comparison of Black and White men raised in households with similar incomes the researchers found that Black men had substantially lower wages (and employment rates) than White men as they aged into adulthood.”

The Irreversibility of the Phenomenon: the “Social Factor”

“The ‘reverse marriageable men’ hypothesis, which predicted that improvements in the economic circumstances of men would lead to an increase in marriage and a reduction in the share of births outside marriage, was not what the data showed.”

Why? Kearney writes, “One possibility was (and is) that the social norms surrounding childbearing and marriage have changed enough that men and women didn’t feel the need to get married, or the desire to get married, even if the man had a well-paying job and the couple had a baby together.”

The author confirms that social norms do indeed influence marriage rates and single motherhood rates. “Wilson and I proceeded to examine whether the response to the sudden economic shock was different in places where nonmarital childbearing was more and less common. It was. In places where very few births occurred outside marriage before the start of fracking, the local fracking boom led to a sizeable increase in births only to married women, not to unmarried women. In places where a sizeable share of births occurred to unmarried women before the fracking boom, the economic boom led to relatively equal increases in births to unmarried and married women.”

As further confirmation that there is a social, and hence cultural, factor at work beyond the purely financial, Kearney observes, “Asian men with and without high school degrees experienced very small increases in median earnings over this 40-year period; yet they experienced relatively small declines in marriage.”

“While economic forces have been a key driver of the decline in marriage – and the corresponding increase in single-mother homes – it seems that we are now in a new social paradigm, where nonmarriage is common outside the college-educated class. This development has not been good for children.”

The author concludes, “…in a time when an increasing share of kids are born to unmarried parents, there may be no going back – at least not through economic changes alone.”

Women’s Attitudes to Birth And Fathers

Kearney includes a brief nod to what is actually the true nub of the problem: “They (the researchers) observed that some of the fathers in the programs had highly conflicted or disengaged relationships with their children’s mothers, and in some cases that mothers would serve as “gatekeepers”, restricting a father’s access to his child. The researchers suggested that programs may need to focus on helping parents improve their relationships with one another, whether amorous or not, in order to be able to help dads have more positive engagement with their children.” Easy to say.

The author includes a chapter on decreasing birth rates…

“Each (birth) decade stamped women with a different experience, and our study found that each successive cohort was less inclined toward having children – and not because of economic or policy factors that were in play at the time…Our analysis investigated the role of changes in public policies and economic conditions on changes in birth rates. Neither of those sets of explanations could explain much of the decline at all…It seems there has been an attitudinal shift away from the desire to become a mother at a young age, especially as a teen.”

“…the body of evidence led us to conclude that the source of decline in US births is likely something more fundamental – a set of shifts in priorities and experience across successive cohorts of young adults, as opposed to any readily identifiable economic or policy factor…”

Kearney’s Suggested Corrective Policies

“The conventional mores in the US today are to treat matters of family and family formation with a dedicated agnosticism, avowing any suggestion that one type of family might be somehow preferable to another family type.” This is the political denial that has been the norm for a least four decades.

“The decline in the two-parent family relates in part to the struggles of men, which is in turn contributing to the struggles of boys. This cycle is in desperate need of interruption: the US needs to raise boys who are fit to be reliable marriage partners and nurturing, supportive fathers…Helping children in this country will require helping dads.”

“Bolstering the well-being of children requires recognising the important role of fathers in children’s lives and boosting support to both mothers and fathers.”

In terms of policy, the author advises that we should “Start with an acknowledgement that in most cases, two-parent, stable families are very beneficial for children…we can and should explore ways to boost the prevalence of (healthy) two-parent families…At the same time, we can collectively work to strengthen alternative family structures, so that more children in families in which the parents do not live together have the benefit of positive support and engagement from two parents.” The latter provision aligns with the suggestion from Richard Reeves that (in my paraphrasing) we should accept that widespread parental separation is here to stay and concentrate upon bolstering greater involvement of fathers in their children’s lives after separation – essentially a default of equal shared care. Again, easy to say, but neither author has tackled the barriers in the way of that objective, not least half a century of legislation, vested interests and entrenched political and ideological opposition.

Kearney also cautions that we should not “Accept a new reality where the two-parent family is a thing of the past for less educated, lower-income Americans”.

“Increasing the share of children born to married parents and strengthening families will require improving the economic situation of many men in this country, especially those without a four-year college degree.” Unfortunately, the author has demonstrated that this, whilst necessary, is not sufficient. There appears to be changes in mindset which are not influenced by economic factors. It is not even clear whether it is the change in young women (towards careers rather than family) or the change in young men (away from fatherhood for fear of being subsequently rejected) which is the dominant factor.

“We need to foster a societal expectation that fathers be present in their children’s lives and support them financially and emotionally…it might mean revisiting fatherhood rights and child support enforcement regimes.” Yes, indeed, but it is far from clear how this can be achieved in the teeth of the widespread social, political and ideological factors which are opposed to it.