- The Observer,
- Sunday March 25, 2001
The consequences of these trends are now being evaluated. And serious social science research, dominated in this area by the Americans, is giving the thumbs down to the experiment.
The marriage sceptics have held almost all of the intellectual and political high ground since the 1960s. For them, family structure is simply one more aspect of 'lifestyle choice', and marriage holds no particular status. But differences of opinion are starting to emerge. A White Paper on the family was due to be published early this year. But owing to disagreement it has been shelved until after the election.
Much of the discussion in Britain has been dominated by emotion rather than by evidence. Most children, whatever their family background, grow up as well-adjusted members of society. Everyone can point to lone parents or cohabiting couples who have charming and successful children. But it is just not good enough to point to individual examples. To put together a serious argument, we need to look at how the outcomes of different family structures compare on average, across lots of individual cases.
A simple analogy shows very clearly why this has to be done. Driving with a safety belt does not guarantee protection in the event of an accident and in some cases may be even be a disadvantage because it may trap the driver inside the car. But usually it is safer to drive wearing a safety belt than not.
Other examples spring readily to mind. The common theme is that most of the time, the outcomes are happy ones. But the probability of an unhappy one rises in certain circumstances. This is exactly the case with family structure. Marriage remains a valuable institution, for the individuals concerned, for their children, and for society as a whole. The empirical evidence is now overwhelmingly in support of all three of these propositions.
It is now clear that children brought up in a stable, two-parent family as a rule do better than in other family types. This is true for almost every indicator used to measure their personal development. Family break-up often damages children, even when it makes one or both of their parents happier. To give just one example, boys living with both natural parents are less likely to commit crime than if they are brought up by a lone parent or in a step-family. Here are some of the ways in which research shows marriage to be beneficial.
On average, married people are physically healthier and have lower mortality rates than single, cohabiting, divorced or separated people. They live more regular and secure lives, and engage in less substance abuse and other harmful activities. They suffer from less anxiety, depression, and other mental ailments. These findings apply to both sexes. In 1972, the American Jesse Barnard claimed that 'marriage may be hazardous to women's health'. It is true that men gain most from marriage, but the modern evidence indicates that in general, women benefit. Married women engage in fewer risky forms of behaviour than single or divorced women, and they receive more financial and emotional support than other women. They are less likely to become disabled in old age or enter a nursing home, they live longer and are less likely to commit suicide. They also report higher levels of emotional satisfaction with their primary partner than cohabiting or other women. And serious violence among married couples is uncommon, while violence of all kinds is much less frequent than among cohabiting couples.
Both physical and sexual abuse are much less frequent for children who live with their married, biological parents than in other kinds of family set-up. By far the riskiest situation for a child is to live in a step-family. And marriages are on average more stable than cohabiting unions. This applies whether or not children are present. The instability of cohabiting unions is to be expected since many of them involve no lifelong commitment and the option of breaking up is consciously preserved.
Married men work harder, earn more and are more likely to have a job than other men. Their stable families create a network of reciprocal obligations between generations, siblings and spouses. Despite the growth of nursing homes and social services, care for old or sick adults in our society is mainly the responsibility of close relatives. Friends and neighbours hardly figure. Modern family trends mean that millions of extra men and women in the future will have no close relative prepared to care for them in sickness or old age. On every measure of achievement and emotional condition, children living with their married parents usually do better than other children. This applies to both adopted and biological children. The children of lone parents on average perform less well on all measures than those with married parents. Part of this gap is explained by the fact that lone parents as a group are relatively poor, but much of it is due to other disadvantages associated with lone parenthood.
Although divorce can be beneficial to children in the case of severe parental conflict, it frequently damages children emotionally and harms their future life chances. The conventional view at one time was that parents should normally stick together for the sake of the children even if one or both of them was unhappy. For decades this view was criticised by therapeutic professionals who claimed that children are better off if unhappy parents separate
But the traditional view was usually right. Only in high conflict families - a distinct minority of cases - is divorce on average better for the children. The worst situation for children is to be in a continuing high-conflict marriage or in a low-conflict marriage that ends in divorce. Another debilitating aspect of marriage break up, and of lone parenthood in general, is its impact on family finances. Lone parenthood is a powerful cause of poverty. The stereotype, of course, is the 19-year-old semi-literate mother of two children by separate fathers living in a tower block. Most lone parents are not of this type, but it is universally true that lone parenthood greatly increases the chances of a family ending up in poverty.
All these various findings refer to averages and may not apply in individual cases. Thus, some cohabiting unions are very successful, some divorces may be good for the children, and many lone parents and step-families bring up their children well. But despite these caveats, the scientific evidence in favour of marriage as an institution is now overwhelming. There can be no doubt that, generally, marriage is superior to other family types.
None of this implies a holier-than-thou morality. What goes on behind the net curtains to preserve marriage is not our concern. Support for marriage is based on its practical benefits to both individuals and society. Nor does it imply turning back the clock to the Victorian patriarchs. Relationships within marriage have altered - for the better.
The changed role of women in the labour market has far more implications for personal relationships within marriage than it does for the institution itself. Labour market changes have happened in all Western European countries, yet divorce rates there are much lower than in the UK.
What is needed is a series of measures, each fairly minor in its own way, to nudge the system of family structure back towards a 'tipping point', where the popularity and stability of marriage once again becomes self-reinforcing. Small changes in themselves may seem insignificant, but the Long March begins with the first small step.
• Bob Rowthorn is professor of economics at Cambridge University and co-author of The Law and Economics of Marriage and Divorce , to be published by CUP later this year. Paul Ormerod, a director of Volterra Consulting, is author of Butterfly Economics
