New Research

• Post by: Nicole M. King
• December 11, 2023

Married Parents Matter In recent years, elites, the media, and popular research outlets have touted the opinion that marriage is on the way out. Children are resilient, goes the narrative, and it is far better for children to grow up on a conflict-free home. As a society, we have “outgrown” the institution of marriage. Recent surveys show that between 2006 and 2020, the share of adults who believe it is important for parents who become pregnant to get married fell from 76% to 60%, as did the share of Americans who believe that divorce is unacceptable. But new research from the Institute for Family Studies casts a dubious light on such opinions. In their report “Do Two Parents Matter More Than Ever?” researchers Brad Wilcox, Wendy Wang, Spencer James, and Thomas Murray acknowledge the recent dialogue around the relevance of marriage. Rather, they assert, “marriage and a stable two-parent family appear to matter more than ever for children on a range of outcomes.” They point to existing research demonstrating that the children of married parents do better academically, and misbehave less in school, than do the children of divorced, separated, or never-married peers. Next, the researchers turn to panel data from the 1979 and 1997 cohorts of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY), to examine what effect, if any, married parenthood has on children’s later success. And far from being irrelevant, the team finds “that family structure’s association with key outcomes for young men and women is growing.” When examining the variables of college graduation and achieving middle or high income, for example, the researchers found that intact, married parenthood made a huge difference. Among Boomers who were born in the late 1950s and early 1960s, 24% of those with married mothers and fathers had a college education by their mid-20s, compared to 12% of those from non-intact families. Interestingly, the gap actually widened for Millennials. For