On May 4, the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy heard testimony on the benefits of a healthy marriage. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Children and Families examined the issue on April 28 (see The Source, 4/30/04).
In a statement released by his office, Chair Rick Santorum (R-PA) said that marriage “is fundamentally different from any other relationship and the government should not shy away from promoting it,” adding, “At the same time, government should not implement policies that will trap anyone in an abusive relationship, or decrease support for single-parent families.”
Julie Baumgardner of First Things First in Chattanooga, Tennessee, said that social scientists have demonstrated that divorce, out-of-wedlock births, and absent fathers “contribute to poverty, poor achievement in school and throughout life, greater crime, greater drug abuse, lower mortality, poor health, and a litany of social ills.” She explained that First Things First is a community-based, grassroots initiative “dedicated to strengthening marriages and families through education, collaboration and mobilization.” Highlighting the success of the program, she stated, “The latest local research shows that since 1997 we have seen a 27.2 percent decrease in divorce filings and a 22.6 percent decrease in teen out-of-wedlock pregnancies. We have experienced a slight decrease in out-of-wedlock pregnancies in women age 20-44. We have seen a significant increase in father involvement in the lives of their children.” Ms. Baumgardner said that the government could strengthen marriage by encouraging couples that want to be married to take premarital education classes; by emphasizing the importance of healthy marriages in the Head Start, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and refugee resettlement programs; by eliminating the marriage tax penalty; and by sponsoring a media campaign to promote marriage.
Testifying on behalf of the Center for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development, Joseph Jones explained that responsible fatherhood and healthy marriage initiatives “are not either or propositions. They are complimentary to each other. Men who understand and are able to fulfill their roles as fathers will also be able to be good partners.” He said that a policy to promote healthy marriage must “accept these parents where they are,” adding, “I wish I could tell you that the traditional way of marriage, where people marry and have children, is the norm in my community, but that simply is not the case. But that doesn’t mean that a strategy to promote healthy marriages is not applicable to their situations. These families must be met where they are: living in challenged communities struggling to meet the demands of family formation.”
Kathryn Edin, an associate professor at Northwestern University, shared with the subcommittee the results of the Fragile Families Survey, which interviewed 162 low-income single mothers in Philadelphia and Camden, Pennsylvania. “We learned that in America’s inner urban core, romantic relationships often proceed at lightning speed and conception often occurs within a year of when the pair begins ‘kicking it,’” she stated, adding, “Pregnancy puts many still-new couple relationships into overdrive, as the would-be mother begins to scrutinize her mate like never before, wondering whether he will ‘get himself together’ find a job, settle down and become a family man in time.” Dr. Edin explained that poor women now set a high financial bar for marriage and are looking for a partner they can trust before they marry. “Their relationships with their children’s fathers are often fraught with violence and infidelity, drug and alcohol abuse, criminal activity and the threat of imprisonment…The social stigma of a failed marriage is far worse than an out-of-wedlock birth, so women feel they must wait several years after the birth of their child to insure that marriage will last.”
In examining marriage promotion proposals, Dr. Edin said that relationship skills alone “are unlikely to move many poor unmarried parents into stable marriages.” She said that Congress should focus efforts on reducing the teen childbearing rate and on increasing economic opportunity for low-income individuals. “Until poor young women and men have more access to jobs that lead to financial security until there is reason to hope for a rewarding life pathway outside of bearing and raising children the poor will continue to have children far sooner than most Americans think they should, and in far less than ideal circumstances,” she stated, adding, “An agenda aimed at enhancing relationship skills and improving access to economic resources, on the other hand, might help more new unmarried parents achieve their own stated goal; a healthy, lasting marital relationship.”
Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution said that nonmarriage, nonmarital births, and divorce “have caused a rapidly increasing percentage of the nation’s children to live in single-parent families.” He explained that this has increased the number of children living in poverty, stating, “In most years, children living with a single mother suffer from poverty rates that are five or six times the rates of children living with married parents…Children living with never-married single mothers have even higher poverty rates.” Citing 2001 Census Bureau data, Mr. Haskins argued that the greatest impacts on poverty reduction are increasing work effort and increasing marriage rates. He said that a government-sponsored marriage initiative should include efforts to reduce nonmarital births, policies that support both family planning and abstinence education, and programs to reduce divorce or promote healthy marriage among unmarried couples.
Testifying on behalf of the Center for Law and Social Policy, Theodora Ooms said that strengthening marriage and two-parent families “has the potential of being a genuinely non-partisan issue if we can keep the focus on the goal of promoting child well-being and if we keep our minds open about the many causes of non-marital childbearing and marriage break-up in our society.” Highlighting the “Marriage-Plus” perspective, she argued that any initiative to promote healthy marriage should have two overarching goals: to help more children grow up with their two biological, married parents in a healthy, stable relationship; and to help those parents for whom marriage is not a feasible or desirable option to be financially capable and to cooperate in raising their children. Ms. Ooms offered a number of suggestions for the subcommittee: marriage programs should not force or pressure women to enter into or remain in abusive marriages, marriage programs should aim to strengthen and promote marriage by improving low-income parents’ financial and educational situation; and policymakers should carefully evaluate the positive and negative consequences of marriage promotion programs.
Scott Stanley of the Center for Marital and Family Studies argued that programs promoting healthy marriage “could be expected to help reduce domestic violence by any of several means, such as (1) educating young people about the dangers of aggression, and how to avoid aggressive relationships and behaviors; (2) reducing the likelihood of ongoing violence in relationships where poorly managed conflict has spilled over to physically aggressive contact that is, nevertheless, not the type of domestic violence that is most dangerous and least likely to change; and (3) helping women at risk realize the need to leave or avoid relationships with the most serious and dangerous types of aggression.” He further explained that the healthy marriage concept “clearly implies that one outcome of good relationship education occurs when a woman in a dangerous relationship learns she has better options, while learning about steps she can take to increase safety for herself and any children involved.”
