The marriage gap describes observed economic and political disparities in the United States between those who are married and those who are single.
The evidence is unequivocal; children raised by married couples are healthier, do better at school, commit fewer crimes, go further in education, report higher levels of wellbeing.
As noted by W. Bradford Wilcox and Wendy Wang,A series of interlocking economic, policy, civic, and cultural changes since the 1960s in America combined to create a perfect family storm for poor and working-class Americans.12 On the economic front, the move to a postindustrial economy in the 1970s made it more difficult for poor and working-class men to find and hold stable, decent-paying jobs.13 See, for example, the increase in unemployment for less-educated but not college-educated men depicted in Figure 9.14 The losses that less-educated men have experienced since the 1970s in job stability and real income have rendered them less "marriageable," that is, less attractive as husbands—and more vulnerable to divorce.
Citing Cornell sociologist Daniel Lichter and colleagues, they note that "shifts in state-level employment trends and macroeconomic performance do not explain the majority of the decline of marriage in this period; indeed, the retreat from marriage continued in the 1990s even as the economy boomed across much of the country in this decade.
"[2] In the words of Lichter in colleagues, ""Our results call into question the appropriateness of monocausal economic explanations of declining marriage.
"[7] In fact, "The decline of marriage and rise of single parenthood in the late 1960s preceded the economic changes that undercut men's wages and job stability in the 1970s.
"[2][9] Second, "Working-class and poor Americans have fewer cultural and educational resources to successfully navigate the increasingly deinstitutionalized character of dating, childbearing, and marriage.
The legal scholar Amy Wax argues that the "moral deregulation" of matters related to sex, parenthood, marriage, and divorce proved more difficult for poor and working-class Americans to navigate than for more educated and affluent Americans because the latter group was and remains more likely to approach these matters with a disciplined, long-term perspective.
"[2][10] "Today's ethos of freedom and choice when it comes to dating, childbearing, and marriage is more difficult for working-class and poor Americans to navigate.
[11] The end result has been that key norms, values, and virtues— from fidelity to attitudes about teen pregnancy—that sustain a strong marriage culture are now generally weaker in poor and working-class communities.