A once sacred institution, marriage is quickly disappearing
from the young adult population. One especially scary statistic is the fact
that almost half of new mothers (40%) are unmarried. Marriage used to be an
institution to help create family structure that fosters a parent–child
relationship, but this is rapidly being replaced by single parent structures.
Furthermore, this issue has led to a lot of poverty; in fact, when this trend
started (in the 1970s) the poverty rate was 20% lower than what it is now.
Having a family structure is essential in order to prevent the creation of an
environment that contributes to poverty.
Thus, the question remains: what public policy decisions can
be made in order to nurture the restoration of marriage? The decline of
marriage is most likely linked to the fact for the people who have limited
economic prospects find themselves unable to be married because they do not
believe they have the capacity to support a household. Further, unwise
decisions due to a lack of education may also be a contributing factor in this
case, and may lead to the many unplanned pregnancies that contribute to single
parent family structures. Many believe that in terms of economic policy, little
can be done at this point– the social connotations of unplanned pregnancies and
single parent structures. Thus, there are two sides to the issue: conservatives
believe that this issue is too far gone and has become something cultural that
cannot be helped, while liberals believe there are ways to ameliorate the issue
through education and economic policy.
– Ali Haq
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