While divorce has become more accepted by society and a declining share of Americans think stable family life for kids is more likely when married parents raise them together, a new report suggests that intact families are more important than ever for children.
“Do Two Parents Matter More Than Ever?” a report released Wednesday by the Institute for Family Studies, contradicts the theory that family structure and divorce have little effect on whether a child flourishes or flounders.
Instead, the report says that recent research suggests that “an intact family is increasingly tied to the financial, social and emotional welfare of children — and family instability is more strongly linked to worse outcomes for kids than it used to be.”
Wendy Wang, research director for the institute and one of the study authors, told the Deseret News that the researchers “feel a need to address the misconception that in today’s society, marriage doesn’t really matter for kids anymore.”
When kids get more attention from both parents, one outcome is more college graduation, she says. Another is making it to middle- or high-income.
“We have known for a long time that children are more likely to flourish when they are raised by their married parents,” said Brad Wilcox, a report co-author and professor of sociology at the University of Virginia who also directs the National Marriage Project there and is a fellow at the institute. “What’s so striking about this new research is that it suggests the value of being raised in an intact, two-parent home is actually increasing for our children.”
Wilcox suggests a couple of reasons why that might be the case: “This may be because married dads are more engaged than they used to be or because married families have relatively more money than single-parent families. But whatever the reason, I find it surprising that we are seeing more evidence that marriage matters more than ever for America’s kids,” he wrote in an email to the Deseret News.
The researchers do note that not all marriages are equal in terms of how divorce might impact children. For instance, the report says that the separation of high-conflict parents may be a relief. But when low-conflict parents separate, that isn’t the case.
Comparing millennials and boomers
The report looked at outcomes for those born at the tail end of the baby boom, so folks who were born between 1957 and 1963, compared to the oldest millennials, who were born between 1980 and 1984. For data, the researchers used the 1979 and 1997 cohorts of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth. The boomer group included 12,686 men and women, starting when they were age 14-22 and following them to 2020 panel interviews. The 8,984 millennials were 12-16 at the beginning in 1997 and had reached their late 30s during their 2020 panel interviews.
Wang said they compared the two groups at the same life stage. Asked if the two groups could have had different income opportunities based on factors like changing labor needs (such as the rise in technology and its opportunities), she said they were compared to their own age groups based on their relative economic performance: “How are you doing compared to the rest of your generation?” So top third, middle third, lower third of income for boomers. And the same among the millennials.
What the comparison found
The researchers wrote that some of the difference could be selection: 75% of boomers grew up in intact families, compared to 52% of millennials.
However, after controlling for factors including race, gender, parental education and a general knowledge score known as an AFQT score, they found that being raised in an intact family boosted the boomers’ odds of graduating from college by 78%. But it boosted the odds for millennials by 163%. The difference was “significant” in research terms, Wang said.
For income, 77% of millennials from intact families reached middle or higher income status by their mid-30s, compared to 57% of those growing up in other family structures. For boomers, the gap was a bit smaller — 71% who grew up in intact families versus 55% who did not. That finding suggested to the study authors that the impact of being raised by one’s married parents has mattered more as time went on.
The researchers wrote that after controlling for socioeconomic factors, boomers in the late ’90s had a 37% advantage in intact families. And that for millennials that advantage grew to 77%, compared to nonintact families.
The report also points out political differences in how marriage is viewed, citing the most recent American Family Survey, which was conducted last year by YouGov for the Deseret News and BYU’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. It found that only 30% of liberal college-educated adults agree children are better off if they have two married parents, while for conservatives, that view is held by 91%.
“But because a majority of college-educated Americans lean left, the drift among more well-educated men and women in the United States has been towards the view that marriage is not important for children,” the report says.
Interestingly, college-educated adults have been more likely than other groups to marry.
Other study authors are Spencer James, an associate professor of family life at Brigham Young University and an institute fellow, and Thomas Murray, a research associate from the institute.