Children of married parents do better, but America is moving the other way • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by danielmarkbruce » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 6:25 PM UTC

ghusto wrote: post #362

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's a naive question. And it shows laziness given the answer can be found at google or chatgpt ( https://chat.openai.com/share/a1655efa-05e1-4ad0-97ca-62439d... ). Most people are aware of such things and can't quite figure how to explain it to someone who isn't, or can't figure out Google. Hence the stare.

Can't tell if you're serious. Literally everything on their is either not unique to marriage, or made _worse_ by marriage. I won't go through each nonsense reason in turn, but this one is pertinent: > Accountability and Conflict Resolution > > Resolution Mechanisms: Marriage often compels couples to work out their differences and disputes in a more committed manner, as there is more at stake. The opposite is true. Pe…

Serious.

>> Literally everything is not unique to marriage, or made _worse_ by marriage.

The words "literally" and"everything" have real meanings. Maybe go through "literally everything". The first two on the list, for example, and consider many different jurisdictions.

The cherry picked example is even wrong. In many jurisdictions couples are legally compelled to go to marriage counseling or similar. Australia has it for couples with kids, several US states have it. So there are all the regular reasons to try to resolve things, plus added reasons.

The anecdote is nothing more than that. No one is claiming marriage is a cure all for all relationships. No one is claiming only marriages are durable relationships. But the idea that there is no practical reason to get married is absurd. Just making a loud, expensive, public announcement that "I'll do x" is known to make it more likely that you'll do x.

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

#372

Post by mvncleaninst » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

skissane wrote: post #304

mvncleaninst wrote: post #207

These types of articles are doing the opposite of what they're trying to do. How exactly is framing marriage in purely economic terms supposed to encourage marriage? How is reducing people down to an income stream, a college diploma, genitalia, etc going to encourage marriage? Take this for example: > not because they reject the concept of marriage, but because they do not see him as a reliable source of economic sec…

> It's really disgusting what they're doing here. They don't talk about whether you love the other person, or whether you complement each other... > The tone of this article: it reads like it was written by a sociopath The mediaeval Catholic philosopher/theologian Thomas Aquinas argued [0] that the primary purpose of marriage is for the good of children, by giving them certainty about their own paternity. A long way…

Oh wow, Aquinas opining about something he himself had never experienced. I'm sure this has some merit. Let's spend a couple hundred years trying to figure out what he meant, I'm sure we'll get somewhere

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

#373

Post by corethree » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 6:39 PM UTC

kelseyfrog wrote: post #360

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…

Women's perspective here: this is a very beta perspective on mating strategies. Easy pass. Curious though, have you thought about changing your perspective to increase your evolutionary fitness?

I'm a girl. This perspective is literally talking about the benefits to our gender.

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

#374

Post by sjducb » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

rcxdude wrote: post #339

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 su…

Leaning on friends to raise kids doesn’t really work. They’ll help out in an emergency, but they won’t babysit two days a week for free.

The real work is done by blood relatives, aunts, uncles and grandparents or paid help.

Mutual babysitting clubs are a form of paid help. I babysit for you and you babysit for me

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

#375

Post by tstrimple » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 6:56 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #150

ryandrake wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ages ago, I worked at a school for boys, and one could pretty much map negative trats of the parents to corresponding unsocial behaviours on the part of the child. My parents were both teachers, and it was a very commonly held belief among teachers that you could predict a kid's academic outcome reasonably well by simply learning about their parent(s) behaviors and home life. Kids' academic achievement has little t…

I strongly agree with this, but it is an inconvenient truth because everyone wants to search out good policy in the domain space to improve outcomes. That is unfortunately extremely challenging, as you can't fix broken parents. You end up having to design systems to clean up the mess after kids turn into adults, because there are limited mechanisms to encourage better behavior from suboptimal parents. (did a sustaine…

So maybe the path to success for a school is to game the rating system long enough to become a magnet school, then parents who care and can afford to will relocate to be in your school district. Now that the "good" parents have come to you, you're a "good school"!

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

#376

Post by laurencerowe » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 7:06 PM UTC

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #307

laurencerowe wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect this is a result of the tax system in the US which is structured in a way that strongly incentivises parents into marriage. Europe generally taxes incomes individually and offers parental leave to help when one of the parents is out of the workforce with a baby. In the US there's just the pooling of tax allowances. For dual income households in very high cost of living areas though you need to balance the b…

So in your view they're going from cohabiting to marriage to separated/divorced, rather than cohabiting to separated? In that case it seems more likely to me (non-US person) that cultural factors are pushing people towards marriage, rather than purely financial considerations.

Specifically on the "unmarried adults who decide to live together do it for a much shorter duration than in Europe." quoted in the parent comment.

I think there are cultural reasons why Americans are more likely to get married too, but don't discount the financial incentives since they are pretty substantial for new parents. Remember this is a country with no right to paid maternity leave!

Take an example of an unmarried couple in San Francisco earning the median salary for the city of roughly $100,000/year each. As they both earn the same amount and get their health insurance through their respective employers so getting married has no immediate financial impact on them.

They then decide to have a baby and one of them wants to take a year off to be with their young baby. They need health insurance but if they are unmarried and go on their partners health plan then that part of the health benefit is not tax deductible for their partner. If they get married they will pay maybe $12,000/year less in tax by filing jointly. ($7k federal tax, $3k state tax, $2k from deductible health benefits though maybe one partner would qualify for medicare.)

So I think the financial considerations are a big part of why Americans choose to get married more than Europeans. As someone who moved here as an adult I find it so weird that it's talked about so much! Having children in a stable unmarried partnership is completely unremarkable for my friends and family in Europe.

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

#377

Post by lotsofpulp » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 7:17 PM UTC

lapcat wrote: post #332

rayiner wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vo…

Surely, the biggest factor is women’s financial freedom.

Even in the Asian countries lauded for collectivism, I would bet it is women’s civil rights and financial freedom that is changing the situation from collectivist to individualist.

Which makes sense to me since it is probably easier to keep a society collectivist if half the population has little choice.

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

#378

Post by snowpid » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 7:30 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #310

ergl wrote: post #297

As someone from Europe, I can't understand the inability of mainstream US culture and media to disentangle marriage from long term stable relationships. Take this paragraph from the article: > More women are deciding to have children and also remain single. Almost half of all babies born in the U.S. were born to unmarried women in 2019, a dramatic increase since 1960, when only 5% of births were to unmarried mothers.…

"In my opinion looking into what's driving that difference between couples in the US and Europe would be worth a discussion on its own." The problem is especially acute in the underclass, and American underclass differs a lot from European underclass. For example, a lot of the Western European poor are Muslims (in countries that keep the relevant statistics, Muslim immigrants and their descendants tend to score below…

no knowledge about this topic: Arent Black people also religious?

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

#379

Post by anon291 » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 8:16 PM UTC

ghusto wrote: post #367

anon291 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marriage is a formal process that provides a standard framework in which two families get to know one another. The problem with American relationships is that it deals with two people. A marriage is the full joining of two full families. By marrying my wife, I made my uncle related to my wife's uncle, so they better kind of get along. Indeed I have a vested interest in them getting along because it benefits my childr…

Bingo! First actual answer to the question. I hadn't thought of the extended family benefit, and that's maybe a good one. Though I will say from all I can tell, our families have had the same level of mingling that they would have had we got married. Could be wrong though. But yes, many western cultures don't really have close extended families, so even this point is mostly null. I have an inkling as to why people ge…

> I hadn't thought of the extended family benefit, and that's maybe a good one. Though I will say from all I can tell, our families have had the same level of mingling that they would have had we got married. Could be wrong though.

But maybe if marriage were more prevalent culturally, they would have?

> But yes, many western cultures don't really have close extended families, so even this point is mostly null.

Western culture is also rife with divorce, which creates a culture in which extended family doesn't actually want to meet, since divorce is like 50/50. Of course, in subcultures in America, like Mormons, certain Asian cultures, traditional Catholics, Orthodox Jews, Amish, etc, there is quite a bit of extended family, and these cultures heavily discourage divorce.

So it's pretty hard to detangle causation and correlation? Does extended family prevent divorce? or do intact nuclear families cause extended families? Or is it a feedback loop, that reinforces another? In that case, what is the most prudent action any individual can take to put the process in the right direction?

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

#380

Post by lazide » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 9:12 PM UTC

coryfklein wrote: post #366

MandieD wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong, socially-enforced taboos against alcohol and tobacco consumption are probably a major driver of the longevity difference.

Having been raised Mormon and participating in the church and culture until my mid-20's, there are sooo many aspects of the religion that affect life across so many dimensions. I'm sure abstinence from drugs is benificial, but probably only account for a fraction of the effect. Other things I'd consider: * Longevity is associated with community, something the church is very good at * Even elderly individuals are requ…

The magical beliefs are in many ways the cement.