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Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

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Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#331

Post by boppo1 »

withinboredom wrote: post #296
corethree wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes hyper individuality is part of it. The other part of it is gender equality. For most of human civilization genders were not equal so both sexes evolved traits that are also unequal. The most glaring trait responsible for lack of marriage is female hypergamy. Previously women being of generally unequal/lower status then men and overall a smaller pool of candidates (no online dating) would be forced to be more egal…

There are a metric shit ton of assumptions in here that I’m not sure are true. The truth of the matter is that women tend to work together and men… not so much. Once you see the whole picture, I can see how you can see the world through such a perverse lens. Sadly, I’m about to hop off the train, but if someone replies that they are interested, I’ll provide a writup that will surprise you.

> writeup

please; I'm always keen on counterpoints to /r9k/ ideology

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#332

Post by lapcat »

rayiner wrote: post #321
redserk wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you able to back this up? American individualism has existed for multiple generations, well before the rise of acceptance for atheism/agnosticism/“Nones”.

Americans have always had an individualist streak, fueled by Protestant Christianity, the cultural influence of Appalachia, and cultural diversity. The communitarian parts of Christianity held that somewhat in check. But as even that falls away, america has become hyper-individualized and morality has become almost completely personalized.

> the cultural influence of Appalachia

That's an incredible stretch.

There are a number of other factors worth mentioning:

- The philosophy of John Locke, who greatly influenced the founders

- The US is a very new country, compared to those in Europe and Asia. The only preexisting culture was the Native Americans, and you (should) know what happened to them...

- The US is a nation of immigrants who left (sometimes voluntarily, sometimes involuntarily) their previous countries and cultures.

- The US is geographically very large and open. Even within the nation of immigrants, there was a huge amount of migration to populate "the west".

- The US has a very weak central government, by design of the Constitution, and it never had a state church. There's no centralizing cultural force.

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#333

Post by em-bee »

fisttrain wrote: post #236
em-bee wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it appears that some people disagree with my comment. but i do not understand why. am i misunderstanding what conservatism is? or do people disagree with the idea of equality between men and women? or with the idea that valuing family more would be better?

[flagged]

ok, fair enough. would it help to elaborate on the points?

let me try:

by more family values i mean: value family more. that implies better financial support and less taxes for having children, parental leave, counseling and other measures that help parents stay together. but also raising the image of being a parent in society in general.

religious conservatism refers to older family values where the woman submits to man among other things as is mentioned in other comments in this subthread.

equality between men and women means equal value and station. a lot has improved in that area, but it's not quite there yet. we also need to learn to respect each other equally, especially in a relationship. equal value and station doesn't just mean equal rights or equal pay for the same work, but also equal importance of their contribution, their wishes and their needs, regardless of who is doing what in a family.

the last claim that religions conservatism drives divorces, again is supported by other comments

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#335

Post by pb7 »

xctr94 wrote: post #324
throwaway2037 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

U.S., Denmark, Sweden, and Finland all have roughly the same divorce rates. Source: https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/divorce-rate-by-count...

You’re comparing against some of the highest rates in Europe; possibly because the Nordic countries value that same individuality that GP mentioned?

This comment is interesting because these are the same countries that are often used to show how “backwards” the US is due to their comparatively strong safety nets, etc. I guess when it comes to Europe, people can only pick and choose the best example for each discussion despite it varying wildly just like the US, is that right?

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#336

Post by rcxdude »

ls612 wrote: post #210
kleiba wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In contrast to your argument though, Europe has comparatively higher welfare across the board, but the US has the world's highest rate of children living in single-parent households.

In America single parents get more access to welfare programs than married ones so they are specifically incentivizing divorce. It isn’t a function of the welfare state level in general it’s this disparate incentive.

If that were the case wouldn't ypu see the correlation between long-term stability of the household and marriage to weaken? Since couples would be getting divorced but still living together if they were just doing it for the benefits.

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#337

Post by bryanlarsen »

pixl97 wrote: post #189
bryanlarsen wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an argument that should be increasing the number of dual parent households. If a family could be supported on a single income, then abandoning your family would have fewer consequences and thus seemingly more likely.

No, what you would expect to see is a drastic decrease number in the number of children born. People are choosing not to have families at all. In late 1960 we peaked with somewhere around 47% of households having children. It is now around 26% In 1990 the number of married couples in the US started to flatline even though the population is up 40% since then.

You're correct, but that's an orthogonal effect. The cost of raising children is definitely lowering the number of children.

But it also should put pressure on parents to stay together once the children are conceived.

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#338

Post by pb7 »

dangus wrote: post #182
mensetmanusman wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has the same fertility rate as Japan.

Sweden is a better example. Incredible parental support, high birth rates compared to the rest of Europe. (Personally, I don’t think high birth rates are a good thing. The long term survival of our species depends on curtailing global population. But that’s a different subject.)

How is it a better example? A better example to fit your narrative you mean.

Clearly parental support is not directly correlated with high birth rates.

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#339

Post by rcxdude »

It might be interesting to consider others who are involved in child-rearing as well. If the main predictor is having two parents stavly present, as opposed to marriage, it may be worth considering other ways in which this is accomplished. For example, by friends or family. I've considered becoming a parent and one thing that strongly factors in whether it would work is whether I would be able to have that kind of support network beyond my partner, as raising a kid even as two people seems like a lot of stress: but 4 people dividing the work of 4 kids is seems much easier. Traditionally family would be around to fulfill this kind of role, but both I and my partner live far from our relatives, so we would need to lean on our friends instead, and given how hard it is to make friends as an adult these days, let alone ones close enough to help with childcare, it seems that's an option which is available to few. Perhaps fixing that problem would also help with this one.

Re: Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way

#340

Post by pixl97 »

kbelder wrote: post #283
pixl97 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue I have with your take on this is one of, most likely, reverse causality. I may be making a bad guess, but if I had to I feel I would get the "If these women would just stay married like a traditional relationship demands, then all these problems go away" answer from you. Now, I'll also make an assumption that you are also going to have a hard time admitting that this is a multi-generational problem caused b…

Imagining the ridiculous responses you would like your opponent to make does give you an opportunity to win arguments in your mind. I don't imagine that kind of intellectual self-pleasuring is really convincing many other people, though.

Because of the nature of the issues that are occuring anyone over 30 typically isn't getting convinced. The people that are getting convinced are the younger generations of whoms general fertility rate is falling off a cliff.
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