Let them eat precepts

Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institutions says that a principal cause of inequality and poverty is the failure of the poor to marry and form stable families, leading to adverse consequences for their children. This failure occurs because these parents are irresponsible:

The most shocking failure of individual responsibility is the decline of marriage and rise of nonmarital births. Brookings data show that if the same share of adults were married today as in 1970, poverty would be reduced by more than a quarter. And yet young women who have a high school degree or less education increasingly do not marry, and about 40 percent of their babies are born outside marriage, quadrupling the chance that they and their babies will live in poverty. Children from single-parent families have, on average, more developmental problems, including lower educational achievement, than children of married parents. This perpetuates poverty and lack of mobility into the next generation. 

Yes, the nation needs its safety net, but improvements in personal responsibility would have a greater and more lasting impact on poverty and opportunity. This is the message that our presidential candidates, media and educational institutions should emphasize — not the misleading focus on the lack of opportunity in America.

Heather MacDonald, writing in the City Journal, agrees and thinks that single moms should be called on it:

It is time, therefore, to tackle the problem of out-of-wedlock births head-on. And that means remoralizing the discourse around child-bearing. When DeParle [in The New York Times] profiles a 21-year-old mother of two as a victim of welfare reform because she is allegedly forced to live with an ill-tempered boyfriend now that her welfare payments have run out, conservatives can legitimately ask what has become a taboo question: “Why didn’t you think of that before you had the children?”

So, there is something to this. Social skills, self discipline, and the ability to exercise self-control are critical skills for educational success, economic success, and avoidance of criminal behavior. These traits also contribute to delaying childbearing and, I will speculate, finding and keeping a spouse. Maybe it will help if elites start lecturing the poor about having children out of wedlock. It's unlikely that it will be news to a poor kid that his or her betters think that its necessary to have a job and a spouse before having children, but frequent reminders might help. A tiny bit. 

However, cultural norms are just one factor affecting children's acquisition of self-discipline. Poor kids are less likely to receive supportive parenting -- so how about placing visiting nurses in communities to counsel young parents on how to provide a nurturing environment for their children? Good pre-schools help kids get a taste for learning and skills at how to comply with positive group norms -- so how about providing pre-schools in every neighborhood in the country? We can best shape character by cultivating environments where children get morally authoritative yet supportive parenting and good early preparation for schooling. 

So, yes, children's personality and character, shaped by family environments, are important determinants of how will those children will do. And, yes, parents who make poor choices are part of the problem. Let's definitely re-moralize the discourse around families and children. And when we do that, let's ask ourselves whether lecturing parents about their irresponsibility actually benefits the children. The irresponsibility of parents may be a relevant reason to oppose welfare payments to those parents. It is not a relevant moral reason to oppose investments in early childhood development.

 

Comments

[Brendan Saloner]

I agree with your proposal, or at least, it seems like one important piece of the puzzle. This is a complicated topic. Just to mention some other important research from Gibson-Davis, Edin, and McLanahan (2005), who find that actually low-income unmarried couples are most typically strongly connected and intend to get married after the birth of an out of wedlock child. But, "We find that some of the difference between parents’ expectations and behavior may be because of the overstatement of intentions at the time of the birth. Most of the discrepancy, however, results from parents’ perceived social and economic barriers to marriage. Specifically, unmarried parents have a long list of financial and relationship prerequisites they believe must be met in order for them to wed."

How would you feel about a government program that provided couples with the resources to get married and the skills to navigate complex relationships? (this was a big piece of a marriage agenda under the last President, but has not been as embraced now)

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00218.x/abstract;jsessionid=7C528271DFDAFF4D4A25ECD7234E0085.d04t03?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=

[Bill Gardner]

As usual, you are better informed than I am!

Does marriage have a higher set of perceived financial pre-requisites than cohabitation? Anyway, would be great to have an RCT of a means-tested endowment for marriage.

[Will]

I really like the nurses going out to young parents plan. High effect, low cost. Givewell.org is a charity ranking organization that deems this type of program one of the most high yield charities EVER: http://www.givewell.org/united-states/top-charities/nfp

I think the expansion of this program could easily be funded through the new mechanism of social impact bonds: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14663564

Sorry for just link-mongering...

[Bill Gardner]

Will,
I agree and am glad to see the links.