I take it really personally as a sociologist when other sociologists take data and use it for to blame specific groups of people for specific social problems. The real world isn't like that. After ranting and raving this morning about and article I read in the WSJ I decided to try to use reason to pick apart the arguement presented. I don't think it's more useful than action, but it's something (maybe).
My Response to “The Real Pregnancy Crisis” by W. Bradford Wilcox
My writing is in bold while Dr. Wilcox’s word are taken from his Wall Street Journal Article Published Friday May 18, 2009.
Dr Wilcox – your brand of Sociology embarrasses me both as a sociologist interested in thorough analysis and as a human being with an interest in fairness.
Earlier this month, Bristol Palin turned herself into a poster child for the nation's continuing effort to prevent teenage pregnancies. She made the rounds on the morning TV show circuit and spoke at town hall meetings to drive home the point that other teens shouldn't make the same mistake she did. Ms. Palin's campaign could not have come at a better time. According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. -- after witnessing a 14-year decline in teenage childbearing from 1991 to 2005 -- saw the number rise from 2005 to 2007. In 2007, the latest year for which data are available, about 450,000 adolescents gave birth.
The recent uptick in teenage childbearing has public-health experts, scholars and government leaders concerned. "Let's hope this sobering news on teen births serves as a wake-up call to policymakers, parents and practitioners," said Sarah Brown, CEO of The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, "that all our efforts to convince young people to delay pregnancy and parenthood need to be more intense, more creative and based more on what we know works."
But the nation's intense focus on teenage childbearing has obscured a more fundamental problem in childbearing trends. Last week, the CDC reported that about 40% of American children were born out of wedlock in 2007, more than triple the 11% who were in 1970. This means that more than 1.7 million children were born outside of marriage in 2007. Moreover, the vast majority of these babies -- 60%, to be precise -- were born not to teenagers but to women in their 20s (only 23% of nonmarital births were to teens). Furthermore, the CDC reports that nonmarital childbearing has been rising much faster among adults than among teenagers.
None of this should come as a surprise, given that a 2003 Gallup Survey found that 64% of young adults age 18 to 29 thought that having a baby out of wedlock was "morally acceptable."
The author clearly means for the reader to be outraged. This data simply means that most young people don’t think it’s immoral to have a child if you haven’t been recognized by the state as married.
But a number of academics and advocates who track family issues are more than willing to provide intellectual cover to contemporary young adults' laissez-faire approach to childbearing and marriage.
The definition of laissez-faire from Webster’s: a philosophy or practice characterized by a usually deliberate abstention from direction or interference especially with individual freedom of choice and action. I’m afraid that finding it acceptable to bear children regardless of marital status does not meet this definition.
For instance, Stephanie Coontz, the director of research at the Council on Contemporary Families, wrote on the New York Times "Room for Debate" blog that "policymakers and researchers need to discard one-size-fits-all generalizations about the causes, consequences, risks and benefits of different family forms. Average outcomes from married and single parenting hide huge variations" in child well-being. Likewise, Silvia Henriquez, the executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, urged readers to resist the temptation to "present single motherhood as a problem in itself."
Ultimately, though, the arguments put forward by Ms. Coontz, Ms. Henriquez and other academics and advocates do not have science on their side.
Let’s have a chat about confounding variables. Let’s say you’re a sociologist and you’re interested in studying a particular community’s habits. You get data from the gas company that energy use skyrockets on Wednesday nights. You do interviews with community members and ask them what they do on Wednesdays. Most respond that they bake cakes Wednesday nights for the community potluck that happens Thursday afternoon. You conclude that the cake is responsible for the increased energy output (since everyone has a gas stove). Well – you’re wrong in this case. The cake is the confounding variable.
All the data you’ve collected shows that when there’s cake, there’s more energy output. The cause of the increased energy output is not the cake itself, but the use of the oven. The use of the oven is the real cause, it’s just that cake-making correlates so well that it makes it challenging for anyone but a thorough researcher to find the root cause. This may seem like a small difference but when applied to research like Dr. Wilcox’s it has serious implications and causes serious problems. Let’s apply this confounding variable concept.
For instance, Sara McLanahan at Princeton University and her colleagues have found that boys who are raised by single mothers are twice as likely to end up in prison by age 32, that girls who are born outside of marriage are three times as likely to have a teenage pregnancy, and that teens born outside of marriage are about twice as likely to drop out of high school, compared with their peers who are raised in intact, married families.
First of all, from Dr. Wilcox presentation of McLananhan’s study it seems she might be comparing apples to oranges. “Born outside of marriage” doesn’t mean a child was not raised in a household with a married couple. A child might be born to a couple who get married a year later – in which of the categories above would this fit? I’m confused about what’s really being compared here.
Secondly, I’ve already found about 4 confounding variables. Poverty is the most important. A single mother has less income that a couple who combine incomes. Imagine a single mother who has to work multiple jobs, lives in a community where violence reigns and can’t take time off to intervene between her son and peer pressure to join a gang – she’s too busy working to put food on the table. So the mother is the cake. Much like a cake – who can’t make itself, the social factors that make single mothering difficult are the problem, not the mother.
Also – because of the lack of clarity, the data are impossible to read clearly. Perhaps if Dr. Wilcox found clear data and controlled for income he might find a real root cause of some social problems named above.
Moreover, we should take cold comfort from the fact that many of these nonmarital births are, in Ms. Henriquez's words, to "women [who] may be living with a partner." It is true that most of the recent growth in nonmarital childbearing has been driven by births to cohabiting couples. But cohabiting couples are notoriously unstable, in large part because their relationships are not anchored by the legal, social and moral commitments associated with marriage. One study by Pamela Smock at the University of Michigan and Wendy Manning at Bowling Green State University found that 50% of children born to cohabiting parents saw their parents part by age 5, compared with only 15% of children born to married parents.
Dan Hurley writes for the New York Times that “In 2003, for example, the most recent year for which data is available, there were 7.5 marriages per 1,000 people and 3.8 divorces, according to the National Center for Health Statistics” This isn’t a perfect measure by any means because it doesn’t track particular couples over time. It does however show that divorce is prevalent in the US. I think this makes it pretty clear that the “legal, social and moral commitments associated with marriage” are not quite as solid as Dr. Wilcox proclaims. Also it causes me to question Dr. Manning’s study. Was it particular to a certain region of the country – since it is contradicted by a wealth of national data? I need more information!
And as both parents and scholars know, such instability is hard on young children. Not surprisingly, a growing body of research on cohabitation and child well-being indicates that kids who spend time in cohabiting unions are significantly more likely to experience emotional problems, school failure and physical and sexual abuse than children in intact, married homes -- in part because they are much more likely to be exposed to a revolving series of romantic partners, usually unrelated adult males, who do not have their best interests at heart.
This seems like a rant unsupported by data. I’d like to see some citations. I don’t doubt that parental separation can be hard on children (though in abusive situations – which one out of every four women will likely experience in her lifetime - separation may be the best choice).
So what is driving the upward spike in nonmarital childbearing? Some groups, such as the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, have been focusing on contraceptive failures among young adults. It is true that most nonmarital pregnancies are unintended. But the percentage of unmarried, sexually active women who have been using contraception has increased significantly over the past four decades, according to a study by the National Center for Health Statistics.
Here are three more likely explanations: First, young Americans have been postponing marriage, but they are not postponing sex and cohabitation. Indeed, my own research indicates that cohabiting couples are much more likely to get pregnant than couples who do not live together. Second, working-class and poor men have seen their real wages fall since the early 1970s, which makes them less attractive as husbands to their girlfriends and to the mothers of their children. This also helps explain why nonmarital childbearing is concentrated among blacks, Latinos, and working-class and poor whites.
Wow. This approach assumes that women only marry men for reasons of financial stability. Let’s not assume that’s true without more careful research. Nonmarital childbearing is concentrated among minority and poor communities (which gives props to our earlier discussion about confounding variables). Is Dr. Wilcox really making the argument that minorities and the poor don’t marry because they’re poor? I’d like to see the data that proves this theory!
Third, the meaning of marriage in the U. S. has changed over the past 40 years. As sociologist Andrew Cherlin has noted, marriage used to be the "foundation" for adulthood, sex, intimacy and childbearing. Now, marriage is viewed by many Americans as a "capstone" that signals that a couple has arrived -- financially, professionally and emotionally.
This also helps to explain why college-educated mothers are bucking the trend toward having children out of wedlock. It is easier for these women to attain the level of achievement that the newer, luxury model of marriage before childbearing requires. Only 7% of college-educated women are having children out of wedlock, compared with more than 50% of women with a high-school degree or less, according to a recent Child Trends study.
Again – confounding variables abound. So let’s talk about the oven rather than the cake. It’s clear that poor people are not getting access to the same resources as middle class or wealthy people (college is the land of the wealthy and middle class for the most part – and let’s remember that less than 30% of folks in the US have bachelors degrees – check out the American Community Survey at the Census website for more info). That’s the problem – that’s the oven. Poor people and especially poor women don’t have access to (among other things) affordable birth control, inexpensive abortions, free childcare services, money, free time, college and a million and one other things.
So the next time you hear a college-educated academic or advocate talking about marriage and motherhood, do as they do, not as they say.
Questions still abound: If marriage is the key – then why doesn’t Dr. Wilcox include gay couples? That’s a perfect way to test for the ‘mother effect.’ Is single mothering the problem or do these same factors occur with single father? If not – might it be that being a woman (and especially a poor woman of color) comes with specific challenges like those brought on by poverty?
Dr. Wilcox’s article was really upsetting because it primarily blames poor women of color for many of society’s ills. The mothers are the cake. A society in which a mother has to work three jobs, can’t afford birth control, doesn’t have access to healthcare, doesn’t have free or low-cost childcare, is more likely to be sexual assaulted than go to college, might be in an abusive relationships without resources to support her in leaving, can’t pay for college and can’t find safe affordable housing (among other tings) is the oven.
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It's always great to see true sociological analysis of phenomena. It's so frustrating when nuanced and complex articles are misrepresented in the mainstream media like you presented above. Thanks for taking the time to really unpack the racism, classism, sexism, and other problems with this article. Very nice.
I agree that the article you critiqued is deeply flawed. I should point out that there is actual good research done that does much of what you suggest (for example, controlling for socioeconomic factors), and it still finds that there's a significant drawback to growing up in a 1-parent vs. 2-parent household, even after controlling for race, social class, and income. Of course, that isn't really surprising, two parents are usually going to do a better job than one caring for a child.
I've heard "Growing up with a single parent: what hurts, what helps" by Sara McLanahan & Gary D. Sandefur mentioned as a good book on the subject (it also doesn't conclude that the problem can be solved by telling teenagers to stop popping out babies, gosh darn it).
Great analysis.
I'm actually surprised to hear that 36% of young adults think having a child out of wedlock ISN'T morally acceptable. I wonder how many of those people actually support abortion rights and easy access to birth control?
Forgot to add - AND same-sex marriage... Not that supporting all those things makes that viewpoint much more acceptable, just slightly less contradictory.
Shooting at a newspaper or magazine article for not having citations is like shooting fish in a barrel. The publication format is not written for an academic journal, so that criticism is always a gimme.
And why did he not go into more detail? That another gimme given he was writing with a word limit. How much can you write with less than 1100 words to do it?
Also Mr. Wilcox refers the reader to Dr. McLanahan, who published her findings into books and journal articles. A google search can find excerpts of Dr. McLanahan's work, and if you are currently enrolled in university classes you should be able to access the journals through your schools library journal portal and read the whole works.
From what I see, Dr. McLanahan goes over her methods and analysis where appropraiote(Google Books does omit key pages so cheapskates like me can't get the good stuff for free)so you can actually see how possible spuriousness is handled. If you were truly interested, you could buy her books or get them from a library and learn in exquisite detail how she worked her database rather just assuming confounds were not controlled for.
Oooh, this one is my favorite:
Wow. This approach assumes that women only marry men for reasons of financial stability. [emp added]
Actually, that reason was one of four Dr. Wilcox put forward, just off the top of his head, so jumping his shit for that is disingenuous at best.
In regards to laissez-faire; clearly what Mr. Wilcox is getting at is social norms and mores (as a sociologist, you should be familiar with these concepts) have become less restrictive over time in regards to pregnancy, cohabitation, and so forth.
Now while you may disagree with Dr. Wilcox about the benefits or implications of these less restrictive norms and mores, you cannot deny (with any plausibility) that the norms and mores have become less restrictive over the last 25, 50, or 100 years.
Therefore, our current norms and mores resemble more a "deliberate abstention from direction or interference especially with individual freedom of choice and action" posture on behalf of government or society. And to argue that our norms and mores are not "completely" laissez-faire is shallow, as you cannot have an pure lazzez-faire posture.
So jumping Dr. Wilcox usage of laissez-faire was inappropriate and on the petty petty side.
I'm just surprised that Dr. Wilcox so clearly disapproves of couples having children out of wedlock. He obviously believes that the only way to raise healthy children is if the mother and father are married. (I somehow doubt he is accounting for same-sex couples in this article.) This strikes me as a very antiquated (and ethnocentric) ideal.
Dr. Wilcox writes for and is associated with the Institute for American Values (as reported at the bottom of the WSJ article) which is an institution that seeks to intellectually renew marriage (whatever that means).
The organization seems to think that Americans are to selfish, and self orientated and this is hurting family units http://www.americanvalues.org/html/short_ans.html
That is not necessarily an antiquated position, nor is it ethnocentric. I think a lot of feminist, those that are immersed in feminist literature and social networks, online and off, our out of step ideologically with the rest of society with regards to marriage.
From what I have seen, they have mainly avoided the issue of gay marriage. There is an audio clip that I found fascinating, one of the speakers there was for gay marriage because with out it, gay partners would be living in a domestic partnership, and THAT (everything is showing up bolded, necessitating all caps) would undermine marriage more than if gay people were married.
"the lizzies" have been posting the same nonfunctional link on every recent community post. someone get rid of this?
Steven you wrote:
I think a lot of feminist, those that are immersed in feminist literature and social networks, online and off, our out of step ideologically with the rest of society with regards to marriage.
I don't understand your point. Lots of historical feminists have been "out of step" with the rest of society. This doesn't make the rest of society correct.
To the OP:
Thanks for posting this. As someone who is CONSTANTLY asked the question "When are you getting married?" because I have co-habitated with my partner going on nine years. We've outlasted friends who have been engaged, then married, now divorced.
Being in step or being out of step is not a matter of right or wrong, you can march to the beat of your own drum, or not, depending on the beat.
The point was kittycat said that Dr. Wilcox's ideas where antiquated and ethnocentric [read racist] and I don't think that is the case.
Post abound on this forum where women are constantly asked when are they getting married, especially when they have a kid in tow; I think that demonstrates the Dr. Wilcox's ideas are pretty mainstream.
Of course, as many feminist consider themselves "progressive" they see their ideas as more 'advanced' than societies (that is some self-serving self-labeling if I ever saw it, but I digress) so really, it is the feminist that are 'progressive' and the main stream that is current.
Ideas that are actually passed, like arranged marriages in the Western world, would be antiquated notions. Sure, they happen from time to time, but the notion is outmoded.
But y'all are out of step. Ya can be embarrassed about it or wear it as a badge of pride.
For clarification, I absolutely do NOT mean 'racist' when I say ethnocentric. The two words are not synonymous from an anthropological point of view. I do not appreciate you putting words in my mouth. Not all cultures have the same definition of a family unit as Dr. Wilcox does. The United States is a multi-cultural country, and his article does not reflect this.