Marriage greatly reduces the chance of poverty

[Tennis]

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...s-poverty-risk

The problem with the progressive approach to poverty is that it denies the importance of culture and character to household prosperity — especially when it comes to marriage. This isn’t to say that a tough job market and bad public policy are irrelevant to explaining why some Millennials are in poverty, but life choices substantially affect the odds of ending up poor.

Powered by Wendy Wang of the Institute for Family Studies and I recently co-authored a report, The Millennial Success Sequence, which demonstrates and quantifies the extent to which early life choices correlate with personal affluence. Though young people take a variety of paths into adulthood — arranging school, work, and family in a dizzying array of combinations — one path stood out as most likely to be linked to financial success for young adults. Brookings scholars Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill have identified the “success sequence,” through which young adults who follow three steps — getting at least a high-school degree, then working full time, and then marrying before having any children, in that order — are very unlikely to become poor.

In fact, 97 percent of Millennials who have followed the success sequence are not in poverty by the time they reach the ages of 28 to 34. Sequence-following Millennials are also markedly more likely to flourish financially than their peers taking different paths; 89 percent of 28- to 34-year-olds who have followed the sequence stand at the middle or upper end of the income distribution, compared with just 59 percent of Millennials who missed one or two steps in the sequence. The formula even works for young adults who have faced heavier odds, such as Millennials who grew up poor, or black Millennials; despite questions regarding socioeconomic privilege, our research suggests that the success sequence is associated with better outcomes for everyone.

For instance, only 9 percent of black Millennials who have followed the three steps of the sequence, or who are on track with the sequence (which means they have at least a high-school degree and worked full time in their twenties, but have not yet married or had children) are poor, compared with a 37 percent rate of poverty for blacks who have skipped one or two steps. Likewise, only 9 percent of young men and women from lower-income families who follow the sequence are poor in their late twenties and early thirties; by comparison, 31 percent of their peers from low-income families who missed one or two steps are now poor.

Millennials who have a baby outside of marriage — even in a cohabiting union — are likelier to end up as single parents or paying child support, both of which increase the odds of poverty. Even more significantly, it appears that marriage in itself reduces Millennials’ chances of being poor. Why? Young men and (especially) women who put “marriage before the baby carriage” get access to the financial benefits of a partnership — income pooling, economies of scale, support from kinship networks — with fewer of the risks of an unmarried partnership, including breakups. By contrast, Millennials who have a baby outside of marriage — even in a cohabiting union — are likelier to end up as single parents or paying child support, both of which increase the odds of poverty. One study found that cohabiting parents were three times more likely to break up than were married parents by the time their first child turned five — 39 percent of cohabiting parents broke up, versus 13 percent of married parents in the first five years of their child’s life.

The stability associated with marriage, then, tends to give Millennials and their children much more financial security. If young adults make bad choices about education, work, and family, all the jobs and policies in the world will not give them an equal shot at realizing the American Dream as their peers who follow the sequence to success.

Hard hitting article which makes a lot of sense. Certainly it is a lot better financially when you have 2 stable salaries or even 2 people working in partnership. Imagine being in the dating scene for decades? Could certainly get expensive. Even worse is if you end up in the situation where you have to raise a child alone. Way better to choose stability.

[LoLcano]

Tell that to all the people who lost half of their wealth in divorce !

[Deleted]

Tell that to all the people who lost half of their wealth in divorce !

Yes, and in turn both of them had 50/50. Most likely not really poor at that point in time.

[Templar 331]

Tennisace, the creator of "single shaming."

[Heladys]

Correlation != Causation

Junk "science" as usual from the OP.

[namecraft]

"Does marriage reduce the chance of poverty?"

well the topic title says so, so I say yes. Hope I win this.

[slime]

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...s-poverty-risk



Hard hitting article which makes a lot of sense. Certainly it is a lot better financially when you have 2 stable salaries or even 2 people working in partnership. Imagine being in the dating scene for decades? Could certainly get expensive. Even worse is if you end up in the situation where you have to raise a child alone. Way better to choose stability.

For the man right? Because this new world is making everything equal between the sexes...

[Deleted]

And divorce greatly increases the chance of poverty for men.

[lonely zergling]

If two people have two incomes and choose to live together that descreases the chance of poverty :O? No way!

[Tarshamy]

Poor people can't afford a wedding ceremony.

[Deleted]

Tenisace. Didn't even need to look at who the OP was to know this was another of his lunatic marriage threads.

Don't mock him yo. This was one of the top stories in Canada, you can't deny proper research!

[Tennis]

Tell that to all the people who lost half of their wealth in divorce !

They didn't lose half their wealth though. They kept their wealth and their spouse kept their wealth.

[Ebalina]

They didn't lose half their wealth though. They kept their wealth and their spouse kept their wealth.

Tell that to all the men who had to pay allymony(is this the word?).
To house sitting wife with no prospects that just decided to divorce you for no reason then having nothing to do with her spare time.

[Tennis]

Tennisace, the creator of "single shaming."

Rather, they are promoting marriage which in turns reduces the chance of poverty. Seems like a noble cause.

[Deleted]

I think this is the classic correlation =/= causation trap.

Yes, people on average who are married are less likely to be poor, however that is mostly because of a host of other factors (2 income, higher education, generally older, more stable people, better social skills etc etc).

The only logical connection I see where marriage-->chance to be poor is the fact that if one of the people loses their job they have a larger support network to fall back on and being married reduces the chance of mental illness.

Having said that, what this article implies is that there should be more policies aimed towards benefits for married people, which is completely asinine since the people that will be getting married anyways are the people that are the least in need of government assistance.

[Faenskap]

1st page and already we're on about all the people (men) who lose "half their wealth" in a divorce, as if they all married a female hobo who became paralysed from neck down into the 2nd day of marriage

[Dziubla]

Poll: Does marriage reduce the chance of poverty?

To a great extent
To some extent
To a little extent
Not sure


Not biased poll at all. Where's my "It doesn't?". Oh, it's tennistroll thread, what did I expect.

[Tennis]

Tell that to all the men who had to pay allymony(is this the word?).
To house sitting wife with no prospects that just decided to divorce you for no reason then having nothing to do with her spare time.

Ok so what? That's fair. She contributed to half so she deserves half.

[Deleted]

Ok so what? That's fair. She contributed to half so she deserves half.

Tennisace, what is your gender? If you are male, why are you not married yet?

[Tennis]

Tennisace, what is your gender? If you are male, why are you not married yet?

Irrelevant. That should not affect anything here.