Politicians push marriage, but that’s not what would help children, By Eduardo Porter, March 22, 2016, New York Times: “Should the government push poor people to marry? The urge to do so has a long pedigree, dating perhaps as far back as 1965. When serving as a Labor Department official in the Johnson administration, Daniel Patrick Moynihan — who was later a top adviser to President Richard M. Nixon and ultimately one of the most influential Democrats in Congress as a senator from New York — argued that the surge in African-American families headed by single mothers was condemning many black children to fail in school and in life…”
Tag: Marriage
Family Structure and Parenting
Single parent or poverty? Study looks at which affects good parenting most, By Stephanie Hanes, January 28, 2015, Christian Science Monitor: “Income level, rather than family structure, has the greatest impact on whether parents read to their children, eat dinner together, or engage in any number of positive parenting practices, according to a new report put out today by the nonpartisan Council on Contemporary Families. For years, studies have suggested that single parents lag behind married couples when it comes to providing children the sort of enrichment activities that child development experts say have long-term impact on kids’ emotional and cognitive health, such as monitoring media access and facilitating participation in extracurricular activities. But it turns out that those differences all but disappear when income disparities are taken away, according to today’s report…”
Census Report on Births Out of Wedlock
- More than 3 in 5 new young mothers unwed in 2011, Census says, By Frank Bass, May 1, 2013, Bloomberg News: “More than 60 percent of new mothers in their early 20s aren’t married, the U.S. government said today in a report that underscores concern about the well-being of the nation’s young children. The total number of births to unwed mothers increased to 36 percent in 2011 from 31 percent in 2005, the earliest year for which data are available, the U.S. Census Bureau said in the report. The bureau said 4.1 million women reported that they had given birth in the year covered by the survey…”
- Single motherhood in U.S. increases sharply, By Carol Morello, May 1, 2013, Washington Post: “More than six out of 10 women who give birth in their early 20s are unmarried, the Census Bureau said Wednesday in a report that shows sharp discrepancies in single mothers related to income, education and race. Census demographers said that single motherhood, while on a steady uptick since the 1940s, has accelerated in recent years…”