Cultural and societal attitudes have recently shaped and modified the idea of the family to reflect a “modern” perception of how a household of individuals can look.
There has been the growth in divorce over the past 50 years; an increase in out-of-wedlock births; a drastic drop in the number of individuals marrying. The percentage of households composed of single mothers, cohabiting couples, or stepfamilies has grown over the year, ultimately establishing a variety of distinct family structures that exist today.
Regardless of the personal opinions one may have regarding these familial shifts, the result has been divergent levels of economic wellbeing for each of these family types.
The prevailing family structure that has continuously out-performed any other is the married-couple family. Whether it is earnings, employment, or other socioeconomic determinants, the married-couple household is given primacy over all other family structures by economists and sociologists.
Household earnings are one basic determinant of economic well-being on the micro-level. Since the concept of “earnings” is vague, it is often measured by hourly wages, after-tax net income, or some variation of these. Regardless of the measure, there is a consistent pattern for the performance of different family structures.
In all cases, married couples have a greater household income than any other family structure. Cohabiting couples tend to have household incomes less than married-couple households but greater than single mother households (Snyder and McLaughlin, 2006). Higher education and two sources of income often accompany married couples, explaining this general trend. By comparing specific members’ contributions to the household – that is, those of the primary or secondary earner – these differences still exist.
Married men usually perform better economically than their unmarried counterparts. For example, married men make, on average, nearly 30 percent more than non-married men in hourly wages (Chun and Lee, 2001). Among married men with children, those who are in stepfamilies make about 15 percent less per hour than fathers from families with both biological parents married (Akashi-Ronquest, 2009). In fact, this difference in wages grows over time.
For 20-24-year-old men, those married earn between 11-14 percent more than single men, and married white men 55- 64 years old make 19.5 percent more than all divorced, separated, and widowed men and 32 per cent more than all unmarried men (Akerloff, 1998; Bartlett and Callahan, 1984). Clearly, among men, these economic outcomes vary by family structure.
When analyzing differences among women, certain considerations need to be made. A significant portion of married women do not work full-time. It can be understood, then, that married women may have, on average, a lower individual income or hourly wage than unmarried women providing for themselves and possible children in the household.
Looking at the family income-to-needs ratio, however, allows for a better comparison among the family structures for women. The income-to-needs ratio is a measure that expresses a family’s income as a proportion of the official federal poverty line for a family of that size. A family with income exactly at the poverty line, for example, is at 100 percent of poverty and has an income-to-needs ratio of 1.00. Continuously, married women had a median income-to-needs ratio of 3.87 between 1992 and1994, nearly double that of divorced women who remained single (1.95). From 1992 -1994, the median family income of divorced women who did not remarry or begin cohabiting was less than half that of their continuously married counterparts (Smock, et. al., 1999). Once again, the perceptible difference in earnings among family types emerges.
There has always been a strong correlation between employment and family structure for men. Young, married men ages 20 – 24 are more likely to be in the labor force, employed, and working a full-time job (Akerloff, 1998). Even more surprising is where cohabiting couples fall into this mix. Cohabiting men and women tend to have less stable job histories than single and married individuals (Clarkberg, 1999). Now what could be the cause of this instability within the cohabiting household?
Arguably, these cohabiting individuals’ uncertainty towards the commitment level within the household leads to some indecision about life choices, like employment. In marriage, there is an inherent pooling of risks because of its nature as an explicit, binding commitment, but, for cohabitors, although there is commitment at some level, the commitment comes piecemeal (Waite and Lehrer, 2003; Abroms and Goldscheider, 2002). For married couples, the commitment to each other allows for a greater ability to best decide how work is divided, both at home and in the workforce, regardless of who is performing these tasks.
Seeing this picture of how family structure and different levels of economic well-being correlate raises the question as to how and why this happens. Apparent explanations come forward first, such as married individuals are usually older and have more education than single and cohabiting individuals. In most studies, however, these types of variables are controlled for and the distinctions still arise. There is clear economic achievement by married-couple households above all other family structures.
The married-couple household provides the best environment where economic along with personal and intellectual growth can occur to benefit both the individuals in the family and the society where they live. The constant argument as to why two different people may not succeed equally in life is because they are not given the same opportunities. Yet, all these opportunities for development start with the family unit.
The argument made here is not a critique of all households with unmarried individuals living within them. For future generations to come, however, we must take it upon ourselves to create the optimal environment where we can be successful and offer our children the opportunities to foster and grow – not only in the necessary talents to live economically fruitful lives in this world, but also in being good Christians and witnesses for all to look to on how to live “the good life.”
This article is meant to shed light upon the positive outcomes that are associated with marriage. Certainly, there is a wealth of literature describing this topic in full, and I merely highlight a relatively small sample. In my next article, I will discuss findings on the negative economic outcomes correlated with divorce, cohabitation, and single parenthood.
Andrew Kidd is a senior RA in Dillon Hall. Contact him at akidd@nd.edu.
