Social Class and Changing Families in an Unequal America by Marcia J. Carlson Paula England

Author:Marcia J. Carlson, Paula England [Marcia J. Carlson, Paula England]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780804770897
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Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2011-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

SOURCE : Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (weighted by national sampling weights).

Some analysts have argued that social norms about marriage and single motherhood have changed dramatically during the past few decades, with marriage becoming less of a valued status and single motherhood becoming more acceptable. Other researchers have argued that distrust of the opposite sex has increased dramatically among men as well as women. To examine whether the parents in our study held views that were consistent with these arguments, we asked several questions about the benefits of marriage, the efficacy of single motherhood, and the trustworthiness of the opposite sex.

As shown in Table 5.3, nearly two-thirds of the unmarried mothers and over three-quarters of the unmarried fathers agreed with the statement that “it is better for children if their parents are married.” Although most unmarried parents placed a high value on marriage, they were not as positive as married parents. More important perhaps, a very high proportion of unmarried mothers—80 percent of cohabiting mothers and 88 percent of single mothers—agreed with the statement that “a mother living alone can raise a child just as well as a married mother.” Mothers’ responses to the two questions about marriage and single motherhood were strongly associated with marital status, with married mothers reporting more support for marriage and less support for single motherhood than unmarried mothers. Fathers’ responses to the questions about marriage and single motherhood showed a similar marital status gap, with fathers being more positive about marriage and less positive about single motherhood than mothers. These responses indicate that although most unmarried parents believe that marriage is the ideal setting for raising children, they also believe that a single mother can do the job alone. The fact that parents hold both views at the same time is consistent with the argument that marriage is an ideal but not a necessity. Cherlin argues (2005), for example, that marriage has become a “capstone rather than a normative life transition.” And Edin and her colleagues (Edin and Kefalas 2005; Gibson, Edin, and McLanahan 2007) argue that couples are reluctant to marry until they have reached an imaginary “marriage bar,” which they associate with a middle-class lifestyle and view as essential for maintaining a stable marriage.

TABLE 5.3

Parents’ attitudes toward marriage at birth of their child (percent)

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