How the Economy is Affected by our Unions - Wk #2

Divorce. Cohabitation. Births out of wedlock... 

What do these few words mean for us as a whole? For some it may mean liberation, freedom, love, safety, and happiness, for others however, these few words might trigger moral dilemmas and misery. 

- Morals and opinions aside -

What is divorce, cohabitation and 

births out of wedlock, doing for

our ECONOMY?

Much of what I talk about today can be found from the State of our Unions 2012; The National Marriage Project (NMP). The NMP at the University of Virginia, seeks to understand and investigate how the American society is affected by the creating, maintaining and dissolution of marriages. 

From a personal standpoint, I have seen divorce do a lot of damage. I have seen cohabitation bring a lot of unhappiness, and I have seen fatherless children in sorry circumstances. But my opinion, is simply that; my own. So, with my opinions aside, I set out to really understand what these things have in common when it specifically comes to our economy. 

My goal today is to inform about the economic downsides of some unions, and the economic upside of healthy marriages.

According to the NMP, the average woman who is unmarried and having children is a high-school graduate, twenty-something, white woman. And like most of her fellow young adults, she and the child's father are burdened by financial stress on many fronts.

"Many jobs have disappeared from their communities, health care is uncertain, and the costs of housing and higher education have shot up... Which means that today's children of Middle America are growing up without stable families to help them weather economic change, deregulation, and globalization." (State of our Unions, 2012)

The NMP continues to relate that the, "social opportunity for these children and their families, and the national cost to taxpayers when stable families fail to form - [is] about $112 billion annually, or more than $1 trillion per decade..." Wow. 

Economist Ben Scafidi suggests that even small increases in marriage rates would garner significant savings for taxpayers. Scafidi and his team calculated that, 

"if family fragmentation were reduced by just 1 percent, U.S. taxpayers would save an estimated $1.1 billion annually"

Penn State sociologist and international expert on children of divorced parents, Paul Amato, related that if children living in two-parent families went up to the level it was in the 60's, 70's and or even 80's, we would see hundreds of thousands of fewer children repeating grades, suspended from school, engaging in violence and delinquency, fewer children receiving therapy, fewer smokers, suicides and fewer children even thinking about suicides (2005). What a way to help the economy right there. 

Aside from just economic benefits that would bring, Amato is suggesting that the answer in helping our youth today is not more therapy, or stricter punishments, or more tax dollars, but perhaps in having strong marital unions that foster a loving and stable environment for our children. 

If we were to look at how divorce affects the economy system,"one researcher determined that a single divorce costs state and federal governments about $30,000, based on such factors as the increased use of food stamps and public housing as well as increased bankruptcies and juvenile delinquency" (The NMP).

What can we do? How can we help?

Families - with stable, married parents - actually helps our economy in more ways than we can guess. "Married couples create more economic assets on average than do otherwise similar singles or cohabiting couples" (The NMP). Married couples are also more likely to save and invest which can help them weather the financial storms of life and provide a safety net for their families (Hirshl et al, 2003) 

Our economy is affected by our unions. For better or for worse.

And I would encourage each of us to find way to advocate for strong, healthy marriages, that "promote the general welfare" (U.S. Constitution), of not only our economics, but our nation, and the center of our nation: the family. 

From personal experience, I have watched how stable married families can be an incredible safety net for members of the family, in either the immediate family or the extended family. I have seen how rewarding it is to work hard as a family through the hard times, and to trust in the stability of family.  

Married and family life is hard. No matter how much we wish all people could get along and be happy, it doesn't always seem to be the case. But please, if you and your spouse are contemplating divorce or you can't seem to get along anymore, you can advocate for your family by finding the help, resources and skills that you need that will improve your relationship with your spouse and bring your family together as a whole. A family is only as strong and as loving as the union its bound under.  

I too advocate for happy, stable families, where children are able to thrive, emotionally, physically, cognitively, and even spiritually. 

So, talk about marriage. Encourage marriage. Encourage strong healthy connections. Encourage that stable environment where children can thrive. And may we all be a little more aware of the impact our actions have on society and economics, for big or for small.  

REFERENCES:

The National Marriage Project : The State of our Unions, 2012, University of Virginia 

Scafidi, Taxpayer Costs of Divorce

Paul R. Amato, “The Impact of Family Formation Change on the Cognitive, Social, and Emotional Well-Being of the Next Generation,” The Future of Children 15, no. 2 (Fall 2005): 88–89;

Thomas A. Hirschl, Joyce Altobelli, and Mark R. Rank, “Does Marriage Increase the Odds of Affluence? Exploring the Life Course Probabilities,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 65 (2003): 927– 38; Joseph Lupton and James P. Smith, “Marriage, Assets and Savings,” in Shoshana A. Grossbard-Schectman, ed., Marriage and the Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003): 129–52

The Preamble, Constitution of United States of America, 1789