Economist Melissa Kearney discussed her new book, ‘The Two-Parent Privilege,’ on why two married parents provide the best economic futures for children.
It’s no surprise that households have changed in the United States in recent decades. As marriage rates have declined, only 63 percent of children in the U.S. are now raised in homes with married parents. That number is even lower among the children of parents who don’t have a four-year college degree, one economist says.
But bringing awareness to the advantages of married families has become an «ideological battle,» University of Maryland economics professor Melissa Kearney told Fox News Digital.
In her new book, «The Two-Parent Privilege,» she analyzed research from dozens of economists, sociologists and psychologists on the class gap, and found married parents to be a common denominator affecting a child’s success.
Married parents tend to have more time, energy, and resources available to bring to their children, she said. Children who are raised by parents who are in a stable, long-term relationship are more likely to graduate high school, to graduate college, and to have higher earnings as adults. The opposite is true for children who don’t grow up in these households.
«So kids who grow up in a one-parent household are more likely to grow up in poverty. They’re less likely to finish high school, they’re less likely to go to college, they’re more likely to get suspended from school or be involved with the criminal justice system,» Kearney said.
This has less to do with parenting styles and more to do with the constraint on household resources, parental time, and supervision available to just one parent, she clarified.
While this information shouldn’t be controversial, Kearney says just talking about the benefits married parents bring to children has unfortunately become politicized.
«And I think this is part of the problem as to why I don’t think we do more to really focus on efforts to strengthen families and two-parent families, because it has become a very politicized issue.
