The changing face of marriage
In a Pew Research Report released yesterday, over two thousand Americans were asked about their views on marriage and parenting. Men and women's opinions ran in close accordance, according to the 91-page report: "the group differences in public opinion on these matters tend to be correlated with age, religion, race and ethnicity, as well as with the choices that people have made in their own marital and parenting lives. There are some, but not many, differences by gender" (p 10). Two possible keys to a successful marriage have starkly changed in respondents' ratings since similar questions on the 1990 World Values Survey (1990): "children" have dropped from 65% to 41% whereas "sharing household chores" has jumped from 47% to 62%. The group described by the Pew report as "the Ozzie and Harriets" (married, never-divorced parents) was more likely to be white, educated, well-off, and Catholic than other parents -- and made up only 35% of the parents surveyed.
Gender differences did appear on a couple of questions in the Pew Survey. Slightly more men than women reported ever cohabitating without marriage (39% to 33%). Men were more likely to think it was bad for children to not have a father involved in their lives. Women were more likely to think divorce was preferable to an unhappy marriage. Both men and women gave women a slight edge over men in the likelihood of being happy without marriage.
My parents were "Ozzie and Harriets", and honestly, I'm more surprised by how common it is than by how rare. I've mentioned more than once the "liberal bubble" that I'm usually quite happy to operate in. It does, however, leave me extremely out of touch with the way things actually work on most of the planet. For example, my immediate interpretation of the "unmarried women have a better chance at happiness" result is that people are reluctant to admit the politically incorrect view that women might want to get married. However, the longer I think about it, the less likely that interpretation seems.
Gender differences did appear on a couple of questions in the Pew Survey. Slightly more men than women reported ever cohabitating without marriage (39% to 33%). Men were more likely to think it was bad for children to not have a father involved in their lives. Women were more likely to think divorce was preferable to an unhappy marriage. Both men and women gave women a slight edge over men in the likelihood of being happy without marriage.
My parents were "Ozzie and Harriets", and honestly, I'm more surprised by how common it is than by how rare. I've mentioned more than once the "liberal bubble" that I'm usually quite happy to operate in. It does, however, leave me extremely out of touch with the way things actually work on most of the planet. For example, my immediate interpretation of the "unmarried women have a better chance at happiness" result is that people are reluctant to admit the politically incorrect view that women might want to get married. However, the longer I think about it, the less likely that interpretation seems.