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National NewsConservative News
Time to Pass the Healthy Marriage Initiative
By Gary Palmer
Posted on: June 11, 2005
Only about nine percent of the nation's children lived in single-parent households in 1966 when President Lyndon Johnson issued a presidential proclamation declaring the third Sunday in June Father's Day. Today, it is 27 percent. The out-of-wedlock birth rate was almost eight percent that same year and, it too, has increased to 33 percent today.
What do these percentages mean in real numbers? It means 24 million children are living in homes without biological fathers 39 years after Johnson's proclamation, as a result of the breakdown of marriage and the growing acceptance of single parenthood.
Marriage, as an institution in the United States, has gone through a sharp decline over the last 39 years. For example, nearly two-thirds of all women aged 20 to 24 were married in 1965, but this number had fallen to 34 percent by 1993. Similarly, almost 90 percent of women aged 25 to 29 were married in 1965; by 1993, this number had shrunk to 58 percent. And as indicated above, as the marriage rate fell, the out-of-wedlock birth rate soared.
Marriage rates began to decline following the massive expansion of welfare programs in the 1960s and the advent of no-fault divorce in the 1970s. And as marriage rates declined, the rate of out-of-wedlock births exploded.
But there is good news.
Beginning in the mid-1990s, the 30-year rise in out-of-wedlock births stopped and has remained essentially flat over the last decade. Among blacks, the out-of-wedlock birth rate actually fell from 70.4 percent in 1994 to 68.9 percent in 1999. Among whites, the rate rose slightly from 25.5 percent to 26.8 percent, but the rate of increase was far slower than it had been in the period prior to welfare reform.
While many liberal feminists would disagree, the most likely factor in stemming the flood of out-of-wedlock births has been the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. What can't be disputed is the fact that since the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, the percentage of children living with single mothers has gone down and the percentage of children living with married parents has gone up.
This news is especially encouraging for black families. Between 1994 and 1999, the percentage of black children living with single mothers fell from 47.1 percent to 43.1 percent, while the percentage of black children living in married households rose from 34.8 percent to 38.9 percent. While these changes are small, they do represent a distinct reversal of the prevailing negative trends over the past four decades and appear to be proof that pro-marriage welfare policies can and do have a beneficial impact on family structure.
Moreover, there is evidence to support this conclusion. For instance, since the enactment of welfare reform:
" The poverty rate has fallen from 13.7 percent in 1996 to 11.7 percent in 2001. This means that in just five years 3.6 million people got out of poverty.
" The child poverty rate fell from 20.5 percent in 1996 to 16.3 percent in 2001, lifting 2.7 million children out of poverty.
" According to the Census Bureau, the poverty rate for blacks declined by almost one-fourth, from 39.9 percent in 1996 to 30.2 percent in 2001, its lowest point in U.S. history.
" The poverty rate for single-parent, female-headed families fell from 29.8 percent in 1996 to 24.3 percent in 2001, the lowest point in more than 40 years, lifting 1.1 million single mothers above the poverty line.
These statistics would be even better if it were not for liberals in the U.S. Senate that have held up the passage of the Healthy Marriage Initiative-the centerpiece of President George Bush's Welfare Reform legislation. For over three years, liberal senators have refused to allow this bill to get a vote even though the U.S. House has passed it with bipartisan support.
The Healthy Marriage Initiative would significantly expand incentives and opportunities for women to marry, rather than bear and raise their children out of wedlock. For women and children, the benefits of marriage would be enormous. Children whose mothers never marry are seven times more likely to live in poverty. Approximately 80 percent of long-term child poverty in the U.S. is the result of growing up in a single-parent household. Using data from the Princeton University Fragile Families and Child Well-being Survey, the Heritage Foundation estimates that some 70 percent of poor single mothers would be lifted out of poverty if they were married to their children's father.
Other research has found that marriage substantially reduces the risk of domestic violence against both mothers and their children. And every indicator of child well being-physical and emotional health, avoidance of high risk behavior such as drugs and alcohol, lower rates of teen pregnancy, higher academic outcomes, etc.-are all substantially improved by growing up in a married, two-parent family.
Given all the evidence that intact families are best for women and children, now is the time to pass the Healthy Marriage Initiative.
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