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Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 308 -- The Disintegrating Family.

What The Welfare State Hath Wrought-

The Washington Post offers a provokative piece today titled "Marriage Is for White People."

Some excerpts:

The marriage rate for African Americans has been dropping since the 1960s, and today, we have the lowest marriage rate of any racial group in the United States. In 2001, according to the U.S. Census, 43.3 percent of black men and 41.9 percent of black women in America had never been married, in contrast to 27.4 percent and 20.7 percent respectively for whites. African American women are the least likely in our society to marry. In the period between 1970 and 2001, the overall marriage rate in the United States declined by 17 percent; but for blacks, it fell by 34 percent.

When the state usurps the basic human functions and responsibilities families ought to perform, families disintegrate.

And:

In 1960, 67 percent of black families were headed by a husband and wife, compared to 90.9 percent for whites. By 2000, the figure for white families had dropped to 79.8 percent. Births to unwed white mothers were 22.5 percent in 2001, compared to 2.3 percent in 1960.

Some interesting and not-all-that-great data.

So I checked some Census data myself, and found this chart to be rather interesting (.pdf) (click for a larger table):

In terms of marriage endurance, there are very real differences between and among racial groups. But the expansion of the welfare state clearly has had a deleterious effect on all marriages and families, not just those of African-Americans.

And the deterioration of the family is not just a moral or ethical or Biblical issue. It's a poverty issue. One of the more consistently proven contributing factors to poverty is having children out of wedlock. It's not just correlation there, it's empirically-proven causation.

Meanwhile, married people are happier than unwed folks.

Marriage is worth protecting, promoting, and preserving, in other words, and it's unfortunate that so many people seem so uninterested in marriage these days:

Of course, unlike some, I am not willing to declare that we're in any sort of crisis mode. I just hope we never trend down the European path, where marriage is marginalized behind a wall of state-run bureaucracy.

But, if we are to avoid becoming a state>family society, the trend isn't all that great:

Makes Charles Murray's plan to replace the welfare state all that more intriguing (although serious discussion of it could never go anywhere in this political climate).

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Some Sanity (& Uncommon Wisdom) On Deficits.

Posted by Will Franklin · 26 March 2006 08:02 PM

Comments

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