W. Bradford Wilcox and Joseph P. Price – University of Virginia / Brigham Young University
What does the family have to do with economic growth in a cross-national context?
Economics has its roots in the Greek word oikonomia, which means the “management of the household.” Yet economists across the ideological spectrum have paid little attention to the links between household family structure and the macroeconomic outcomes of nations, states, and societies. This is a major oversight because, as this paper will show, shifts in marriage and children’s family structure are important factors in nation’s rates of economic growth. Specifically, countries with higher levels of two-parent families, and lower levels of non marital childbearing, enjoy higher levels of economic growth.
Marcia J. Carlson – University of Wisconsin-Madison
Families Unequal: Socioeconomic Gradients in Family Patterns across the U.S. and Europe
Dramatic changes in marriage, divorce, cohabitation, and fertility behaviors over the past 50 years have been observed across a wide range of industrialized countries, sometimes referred to as the “second demographic transition” (Lesthaeghe and Neidert 2006). Yet, only within the past decade or so has there been growing awareness of the extent to which changes in family demography are unfolding unevenly by socioeconomic status, at least in the U.S. McLanahan (2004) first identified that differences by socioeconomic status (measured by maternal education) in a range of family behaviors were an important aspect of growing inequality (“diverging destinies”) among U.S. children. Less well understood is the extent to which these diverging family patterns by socioeconomic status are also occurring across European countries. In this chapter, I examine the extent to which socioeconomic gradients are observed with respect to a range of family behaviors (based on the extant literature) within North America and Europe.
Andrew J. Cherlin – Johns Hopkins University
Inequality Drives Family Formation
Cherlin’s chapter will focus on the connection between household income inequality in a labor market and family formation, particularly the chances of having a first child prior to marrying. It will specifically analyze availability in the labor market of jobs that a secondary school (high school) graduate can obtain that pay above poverty wages as a determinant of family formation. He will argue that local area income inequality is a marker for the lack of such jobs.
Nicholas Eberstadt – American Enterprise Institute
Family Structure and Male Labor Force Participation in Postwar America
This paper will document and detail the great postwar “flight from work” by US men, in particular men of prime working age (25-54). Work rates for prime age men are currently (2015) slightly lower than in 1940, at the tail end of the Great Depression–and the overwhelming majority of men not working are not unemployed, but rather entirely out of the labor force. The US collapse in prime male LFPRs has been more extreme than in Europe or Japan, begging questions about the role of social welfare policies on the one hand and slow long-term economic growth on the other. The decline of work and labor force participation for prime age men tracks with ethnic, educational, and nativity differences–also with geography–but also strongly correlates with marital status.The flight from work has also in large part been a flight from marriage and parental involvement. Nonworking men furthermore have less engagement with civil society than men without jobs who are seeking work (i.e. the unemployed). A potentially important factor in the long term decline of prime male LFPRs may be criminality and the explosive growth of the male at-large felon population–but much more data are needed to understand these dynamics.
Albert Esteve – Center for Demographic Studies
Family Forms and Social Inequality in Latin America
This chapter uses census microdata to offer an overview of Latin American families in their social and geographic diversity. First, it identifies the most salient features of Latin American family systems: early and stable age at union formation/childbearing and high levels of cohabitation, union dissolution, female headship and household complexity. Second, it shows differences by social groups (e.g. education, ethnicity, religion) and explore trends over time. Third, it explores heterogeneity within and across countries. The chapter concludes with a general discussion on the relationship between family forms and social inequality in Latin America.
Anna Garriga – Pompeu Fabra University
Single-Mother Families, Mother’s Educational Level, Children’s School Outcomes: A Study of 21 Countries
The increase of single motherhood and parental divorce has become of the most important social transformations experienced by Western societies in the last half century. This change has not been even across these societies; it has started later and moved slower in some places. Hence, there are substantial cross-national differences in the percentage of nontraditional living. It has been demonstrated that parental divorce and growing up in a single mother family have negative effects on children’s well-being, and several studies have tested to what extent these effects diverge between countries and over time. It was expected that these negative associations would be lower in countries and time-periods where nontraditional family forms are more common, where there is a greater acceptance of new family forms, and where there are generous policies for single mother families. Surprisingly, most studies that address the variation across countries and over time show that the effects of parental divorce and family structure on children’s well-being have been relatively constant. Some studies have even found that the impact of parental divorce has increased over time, contradicting most expectations that a reduction in stigma and an increase in father involvement might mitigate the effects.
Frances Goldscheider – University of Maryland
Class and the Gender Revolution
Recent (2015) issues of Population and Development Review by Esping-Anderson and Billari and by Goldscheider et al. have argued that the completion of the gender revolution (i.e., engaging men more thoroughly in the family) might strengthen unions and increase fertility. In response, in the same journal, Andrew Cherlin worries (2016) that there are many reasons in the global system of the 21st century to fear that this pattern will remain characteristic only of citizens of countries with strong state support for families, such as those in Scandinavia, and perhaps of the more educated in other societies, but not diffuse to the rest of the class structure in most countries. This paper will examine the bases for Cherlin’s concerns through a review of studies showing strong class differences in family patterns, together with those that show weaker differences in family patterns by class, and assess whether and which policies appear to be linked with larger vs. smaller differences.
Brienna Perrelli-Harris – University of Southampton
Universal or unique? Understanding diversity in partnership experiences across Europe
While research has demonstrated that families are becoming increasingly unequal in America, this is not necessarily the case in Europe. Country context is very important for understanding partnership patterns and subsequent outcomes. This chapter explores the diversity of partnership experiences throughout Europe, drawing on recent research on trends in partnership by education, social norms and discourses surrounding cohabitation, and legal policies that regulate cohabitation and marriage.
Lynn Prince Cooke – University of Bath
The Pathology of Patriarchy and Family Inequalities
Everyone in the world belongs to at least two families: the one in to which wewere born and the ones wecreate in adulthood. Underlying this shared global experience is a wealth of individual diversity in how family shapes us emotionally, physically, and economically throughout our lives and, in turn, the lives of our children. The first goal of this chapter is to present a holistic conceptual frame for comparing group inequalities in inputs, family processes, and outcomes. Crucially, the frame highlights that relative group differences over time and across countries are configured at the intersections of family, market, and state institutions.
Richard Reeves – Center on Children and Families
Where’s the glue? Policies to close the family gap
The “family gap” in formation, structure and stability is a policy concern for two principal reasons. First, because of the impact on contemporary poverty levels, especially for women. Second, because of the impact on the development, life chances and upward mobility of children. Policy interventions may influence both of these, but more often aim at one more than the other. Being clear about the specific goals is vital. I argue for policies of two kinds: prevention and mitigation. Preventing family instability involves policies to promote job security and wages, improve work incentives, expand available leave for both fathers & mothers and reduce unintended pregnancy rates. Mitigating family instability involved policies to improve parenting, early years education, education reform and asset-based welfare. I argue for a primarily “One Generation” approach, focused on children’s outcomes.
