Article:The state of our unions
From ChildfreeWiki
It seems, as we knew all along, those who are married with children are less happy than those who are married without children.
You can read the entire article here: http://marriage.rutgers.edu/Publications/SOOU/TEXTSOOU2006.htm
The State of Our Unions The Social Health of Marriage in America 2006 Essay: Life Without Children Barbara Dafoe Whitehead David Popenoe
© Copyright 2006
Introduction
Raising children has never been easy. For today’s parents, however, it has become a conspicuous source of anxiety and distress. A recent crop of books and articles give voice to this complaint. Likewise in recent surveys, parents report lower levels of marital happiness than nonparents.
Why is this happening? Are parents merely whining? Or is there an objective reason for their distress?
“Life Without Children,” this year’s essay, points to an objective reason for parental discontent. It is a dramatic, but until now largely unacknowledged, change in the pattern of our adult lives.
Within living memory, the larger share of the adult lives of most Americans consisted of years spent with minor children in the household. Today, however, due to later age of marriage, lower fertility, and expanded life expectancy, the larger share of the adult lives of most Americans consists of the years spent without minor children in the household. This change is particularly striking in the lives of women.
As a National Marriage Project’s analysis of Census Bureau data shows, women are now entering their active childrearing years at older ages than in the past and ending child-rearing years at younger ages. In 1970, 73.6 percent of women, ages 25-29, had already entered their childrearing years and were living with at least one minor child of their own. By 2000, the share had dropped to 48.7 percent. In 1970, 27.4 percent of women, ages 50-54, had at least one minor child of their own in the household. By 2000, the share of such women had fallen to 15.4 percent.
A growing percentage of women today are not having any children. In 2004, almost one out of five women in their early forties was childless. In 1976, it was one out of ten.
For an increasing segment of the adult population, therefore, life with children is receding as a defining experience of adult life. The popular culture has been quick to pick up on this new pattern. It portrays the years of life devoted to child rearing as less satisfying as compared to the years before and after child rearing. The society, too, is more oriented to the work and play of adults than to the care and nurture of children. Consequently, many parents feel out of synch with the larger adult world.
The State of Our Unions also includes good news and bad news on the marriage front. The good news: for the college-educated minority of the American population, marriage appears to have gotten stronger in recent years. The bad news: For everyone else, marriage continues to get weaker. The “marriage gap” is generating a society of greater inequality,” the report notes. “America is becoming a nation divided not only by education and income levels but by unequal family structures.”
David Popenoe Barbara Dafoe Whitehead
July, 2006
