11 Reasons Why Two Parents Are Better Than One

If we don't lower the share of kids growing up in single parent homes, we might as well all go home

There’s a massive outcome gap between children growing up in two parent vs. single parent homes. The differences are so large, and the attempts to help kids in single parent homes so limited in their impact, that if we don’t reduce the share of children in single family homes, we are not going to make a dent in many of our social problems.

This was my takeaway from my reading of economist Melissa Kearney’s influential new book The Two-Parent Privilege. As she wrote:

Based on the overwhelming evidence at hand, I can say with the utmost confidence that the decline in marriage and the corresponding rise in the children raised in one-parent homes has contributed to the economic insecurity of American families, has widened the gap in opportunities and outcomes for children from different backgrounds, and today poses economic and social challenges that we cannot afford to ignore - but may not be able to reverse.

Here are 11 things I took away from her important book.

1. There has been a big decline in the share of children living in with married parents (page 7).

In 1980, 77% of children lived with two parents. By 2019, this was down to 63%.

2. The decline in the share of children living with married parents is greatest among those without a college degree (page 7).

This decline in children living in two parent families isn’t the same across the board. It’s much greater in for children of women without college degrees.

In 2019, 84% of children of mothers with college degrees lived in two parent families. But that was only 60% of children whose mothers only graduated from high school, and 57% for those whose mothers didn’t finish high school.

3. The share of single parent households is higher among Blacks and Hispanics, and lower among Asians and Whites (page 31).

There’s a racial disparity as well. The share of children living with married parents in 2019 was:

• 88% for Asians

• 77% for Whites

• 62% for Hispanics

• 38% for Blacks

4. Growth in single parent households is mostly the result in a rise in never married mothers - not the divorce rate or growth in people living together without getting married (page 24).

Although divorce is higher than it was in say 1950, divorce rates are not the reason for the growing number of single parent homes today. (Divorce rates are actually down from the 1980s). The main factor is growth in out of wedlock births.

As Kearney says, “The rise in unpartnered-mother households has been driven by an increase in the share of mothers who are never married - not by a rise in divorce rates or in unmarried cohabitating couples.”

5. Divorce hurts the long term outcomes of children from the marriage (page 54).

Kearney cites research from MIT economist Jonathan Gruber on this, “Gruber found this legal change led to more divorces and had the effect of worsening outcomes for children; namely, as a result of increased incidence of parental divorce, children would up having lower levels of education, lower levels of income, and more martial churn themselves….The results of Gruber’s analysis are consistent with a negative effect of divorce on children’s long-term outcomes.”

6. Unmarried fathers are more likely to be involved with their children if the parents were previously married than if the children were born out of wedlock (page 34).

It matters whether a child in a single family home had parents that were once married or were never married. Kearney writes, “Children whose parents were previously married are more likely to have current involvement with the father, as compared to children whose parents were unmarried at the time of their birth.”

7. A lack of money and other resources hurts children in from single parent homes (page 122).

One of the key challenges facing single parent homes is a lack of resources, including but not limited to money. Married families typically have more money, which means they can spend more on activities for their children, such as sports and arts programs or other forms of early childhood education and enrichment.

Low income parents not only lack money, but this lack of money causes toxic financial stress that adversely affects their ability to be a good parent.

The different in poverty rates is stark. Children in single parent homes have a poverty rate of 46% compared to only 6% of those who have married parents.

Married parents also have more time to invest in their children, and can take advantage of being able to specialize in what they each do in the household.

8. Not all of the gap between the outcomes between children from two-parent vs. one-parent families can be attributed to money (page 45).

Money is important, but more money alone would not close the gap between two parent and single parent families. Kearney writes, “Even if policy makers dramatically scale up government support and shrink income gaps between one- and two-parent families, there would still be meaningful differences in children’s experiences and outcomes.”

9. Boys particularly suffer from being raised in single mother homes (page 134).

While boys are falling behind in areas like education relative to girls, this gap is larger for boys raised in single-parent homes. This is especially a challenge for Black boys. Kearney writes, “This gender gap in outcomes has been linked to the heightened disadvantage boys face when growing up without a father figure in the home. Careful scholarship has demonstrated that it’s not just having a dad in the house that is helpful to boys. For Black boys in particular, having a larger share of Black dads present in neighborhood family homes is associated with better lifetime outcomes for Black boys and smaller racial gaps in outcomes.”

10. A decline in the economic fortunes of men without a college degree has reduced their marriageability (Chapter 3).

One factor in the decline in marriage is a reduction in the appeal of men without a college degree as husbands due to their declining economic success rates. This decline in economic success is partially a result of trade, such as with China, and investments in automation. This is exacerbated by an increase in women’s financial prospects, which reduces their own need for a man as a financial provider.

11. Increasing the earnings of men without a college degree will not raise marriage rates (page 93).

Although a decline in the economic fortunes of men without a college degree has reduced marriage rates. Raising their incomes may not necessarily increase marriage rates.

Kearney and colleagues studied what happened in areas where oil and gas fracking raised male incomes. They found that this did not raise marriage rates, or change rates of divorce or cohabitation.

This seems to be because of changed social attitudes that make the choice not to marry sticky even when economic conditions change in the short term. Kearney and her collaborators found evidence of this effect through additional studies.

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As Kearney sums it all up:

Children who have the benefit of two parents in their home tend to have more highly resourced, enriching, stable childhoods, and they consequently do better in school and have fewer behavioral challenges. They go on to complete more years of education, earn more in the workforce, and have a greater likelihood of being married. Of course, these are not the only measures of a successful life, but they are useful metrics of achievement and well-being. The data are clear: family matters.