Family instability being a symptom rather than a cause seems unlikely, given that (1) rates have skyrocketed even as the country has gotten richer; and (2) poor countries manage to have high levels of family stability regardless. If you look at the Brookings chart I linked above, the share of kids living with a single parent in the second to bottom income quantile dropped 15 points from 1979 to today. That seems to coincide with Gen X growing up with post-1960 socially liberal values that emphasize individualism and self gratification over old fashioned values like duty, conformity, and obligation. There’s a whole bunch of negative social indicators, from non-marital birth rates to crime, that started trending sharply upwards in the 1960s and 1970s.
No doubt these communities are dysfunctional for other reasons (some of them also cultural); but that’s my point. Social liberalism hits these communities the hardest. Now not only do they have to deal with limited economic opportunities, but are deprived of the social infrastructure that allows communities to face adverse circumstances.
Family instability being a symptom rather than a cause seems unlikely, given that (1) rates have skyrocketed even as the country has gotten richer; and (2) poor countries manage to have high levels of family stability regardless. If you look at the Brookings chart I linked above, the share of kids living with a single parent in the second to bottom income quantile dropped 15 points from 1979 to today. That seems to coincide with Gen X growing up with post-1960 socially liberal values that emphasize individualism and self gratification over old fashioned values like duty, conformity, and obligation. There’s a whole bunch of negative social indicators, from non-marital birth rates to crime, that started trending sharply upwards in the 1960s and 1970s.
No doubt these communities are dysfunctional for other reasons (some of them also cultural); but that’s my point. Social liberalism hits these communities the hardest. Now not only do they have to deal with limited economic opportunities, but are deprived of the social infrastructure that allows communities to face adverse circumstances.