The Marriage Divide, Marriage Penalties, and United States Welfare Policy

Introduction

Although American family life has changed a great deal over the last half century, marriage remains the primary anchor of family life for children in the United States. Today, 72 percent of children are being raised by married parents.¹ At the same time, the nation has witnessed a growing marriage divide where the share of children in working-class, poor, and minority communities who are exposed to family instability and single parenthood has grown, even as family life among educated and affluent homes has stabilized.² Single parenthood is about twice as high for children from families with less education and for black children, compared to children from college-educated families and children from white families.³ This form of family inequality is particularly troubling because it leaves many working-class and poor children “doubly disadvantaged”— navigating life with fewer socioeconomic resources and an absent parent.⁴

This research brief, which is based on a report, entitled “Marriage Penalties in Means-Tested Tax and Transfer Programs: Issues and Options,” that I coauthored with Jerry Regier and Chris Gersten, explores the relationship between this marriage divide and social welfare policy.⁵ It details the ways in w hich marriage penalties in social welfare policy, which can make marriage less financially advantageous for couples with children, now fall especially hard on working-class families. This report seeks to answer these questions: Are marriage penalties linked to less marriage among lower-income families? What, if anything, can policymakers do to minimize marriage penalties facing lower-income families?

Download the full research brief.

Notes

1. Flood, S., King, M., Rodgers, R., Ruggles, S., & Warren, J. R. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, Current Population Survey: Version 7.0 [dataset]. Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS, 2020. https://doi.org/10.18128/D030.V7.0 ; W. Bradford Wilcox and Alysse ElHage, “A decade in review: The surprisingly good news about American family life—for kids,” USA Today, December 29, 2019.

2. Cherlin, A. (2009). The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today. New York, NY: Random House; W. Bradford Wilcox and Wendy Wang, “The marriage divide: How and why working-class families are more fragile today,” American Enterprise Institute, September 25, 2017.

3. Wilcox, W. B., Dew, J. P., & VanDenBerghe, B. (2019) 2019 State of Our Unions: iFidelity: Interactive Technology and Relationship Faithfulness, Charlottesville, VA: National Marriage Project, Wheatley Institution, and Brigham Young University, School of Family Life.

4. McLanahan, S. (2004). Diverging destinies: How children are faring under the second demographic transition. Demography 41, 607–627.

5. Wilcox, W. B., Gersten, C., & Regier, J. (2019). Marriage Penalties in Means-Tested Tax and Transfer Programs: Issues and Options, OFA Report 2019-01, Washington, DC: Office of Family Assistance, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved from: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ofa/resource/marriage-penalties-inmeans-tested-tax-and-transfer-programs