Professor Nicholas Wolfinger - Marriage, Divorce, Family Stability in the USA (MH Podcast #12) (2021-10-28) #

0:00:03 okay
0:00:06 all right everyone welcome to another
0:00:08 episode of the m page podcast it's been
0:00:10 a long time since i've uh i've done one
0:00:12 of those but uh today we're joined with
0:00:14 a very esteemed guest his name is
0:00:16 professor nicholas wolfinger he's
0:00:18 american researcher and academic and
0:00:19 educator
0:00:21 he's a professor of the department of
0:00:22 family and consumer studies
0:00:24 and the professor of sociology at the
0:00:26 university of utah
0:00:28 his research is focused
0:00:30 mainly on sociology of family religion
0:00:33 uh and social demography and
0:00:35 a lot of the discussions have been
0:00:37 happening online recently uh dr
0:00:39 wolfinger have been relating to
0:00:41 your areas of research so we thought
0:00:43 we'd call you on and um
0:00:45 and ask your expert advice on this first
0:00:48 question i want to really ask you is
0:00:49 relation to
0:00:51 what kind of family structures
0:00:54 you have found in your extensive
0:00:56 research to be more stable
0:00:59 when i say stable i mean most unlikely
0:01:02 to end in divorce
0:01:04 so
0:01:04 what kind of trends have you seen in the
0:01:07 american demography
0:01:09 so i am great fun at weddings for just
0:01:12 this reason
0:01:13 yes and
0:01:15 what i typically do at a wedding when
0:01:17 someone finds out what i do and what i
0:01:20 study
0:01:21 is i go down the list and then i cherry
0:01:24 pick all the attributes that a any given
0:01:27 couple has that predicts stability
0:01:30 and so here i can tell you all the kinds
0:01:32 of people who are less likely to divorce
0:01:36 people with a four-year college degree
0:01:39 people who don't marry
0:01:41 very young who that is wait until their
0:01:44 late twenties
0:01:45 they're more likely to stay together
0:01:48 um
0:01:49 people who are not from divorced
0:01:51 families
0:01:53 people who are active in their religious
0:01:56 face
0:01:57 and as i indicated earlier it doesn't
0:02:00 matter what faith just so long as they
0:02:03 actively participate and regularly
0:02:06 attend
0:02:07 services
0:02:09 um
0:02:11 so in the united states people who live
0:02:13 together before they get married are
0:02:15 more likely to get divorced
0:02:17 but that varies some uh in europe i
0:02:20 think
0:02:21 the best of my
0:02:22 memory great britain is the same way
0:02:24 [Music]
0:02:27 people who have a lot of pre-marital sex
0:02:31 partners before marriage are more likely
0:02:33 to get divorced people who have a child
0:02:36 before they're married are more likely
0:02:38 to get divorced
0:02:40 there is even a genetic component to
0:02:43 divorce
0:02:45 that is part but by no means all
0:02:48 of the transmission of divorce between
0:02:51 generations happens genetically this is
0:02:54 a study that's been replicated
0:02:56 more than once based on
0:02:59 uh research with twins
0:03:01 what is this so uh
0:03:03 just
0:03:03 expand this point a little bit more
0:03:05 please so
0:03:06 what the genetic components is quite
0:03:08 interesting
0:03:09 so i can't go much further than that
0:03:11 just because
0:03:13 i am not a geneticist nor if i care to
0:03:16 learn
0:03:17 um
0:03:19 so i don't know i can't talk about the
0:03:22 science all i know is that
0:03:25 uh we've long sciences you know for at
0:03:28 least 80 years have known that if your
0:03:31 parents get divorced you're more likely
0:03:33 to get divorced that's a very well
0:03:35 established finding you know
0:03:38 gender differential in that and so much
0:03:40 as
0:03:41 is a woman who's more likely so for
0:03:43 example is a woman who has been divorced
0:03:45 before
0:03:46 more likely to be divorced than a man
0:03:49 who's been divorced before okay i had
0:03:51 actually been talking about what your
0:03:52 parents have done
0:03:54 yeah uh but uh and so in that context
0:03:58 there's no gender difference and now
0:04:00 you're talking about in second marriages
0:04:02 you're absolutely right second marriages
0:04:04 have higher divorce rates
0:04:07 and to the best of my knowledge there's
0:04:09 no gender difference
0:04:11 intrinsic gender difference part of it
0:04:13 has to do with step kids
0:04:17 you know create challenges part of it
0:04:19 has to do simply with the fact that
0:04:21 people who've already been married once
0:04:22 are shown that they're divorcers
0:04:25 they're willing to get divorced and so
0:04:28 yeah if they end their first marriage
0:04:30 they're
0:04:30 willing to end their second marriage
0:04:33 there was really unusual demographic
0:04:35 anomaly that i came across and i think
0:04:37 you mentioned it once in one of your
0:04:38 works
0:04:39 which is a woman who has been divorced
0:04:43 two times is more likely to be divorced
0:04:46 again than a woman say who has been
0:04:48 divorced three times
0:04:50 what do you think the reason is for
0:04:52 something like that oh uh oh i see what
0:04:54 you're saying you're actually you're
0:04:56 that's different that's different
0:04:58 research so that's not divorce what i
0:05:00 found that concerns how many premarital
0:05:03 sex partners you have right right okay
0:05:06 and so yes it is really curious so uh
0:05:10 in general
0:05:12 uh the people with lowest divorce rates
0:05:14 are those who get married as virgins or
0:05:17 only with one partner
0:05:19 some of the highest divorce rates are
0:05:21 people who have two partners two
0:05:24 partners raises the divorce rate more
0:05:26 than having three four five or six
0:05:29 um
0:05:33 i'm sorry what this is this a gender
0:05:35 specific realization right so no this
0:05:38 yes it is so this that finding is only
0:05:41 based on women just because of
0:05:43 limitations of that data set
0:05:46 and what
0:05:47 what do you think the reason for
0:05:48 something like that would be you
0:05:50 um
0:05:51 so why the two partners
0:05:54 yeah i just found it quite unusual that
0:05:56 you know it's because you'd expect if
0:05:57 there's a correlation
0:05:59 that the more you go higher that the
0:06:01 more
0:06:02 right
0:06:03 so i don't have i'm much better at
0:06:05 describing trends than actually
0:06:07 explaining them i
0:06:09 a lot of the time just describe a trend
0:06:11 and then step back and leave
0:06:14 leave the rest for others but here's
0:06:15 what i think is going on
0:06:18 if you have
0:06:20 two partners lifetime you probably
0:06:23 married one of them
0:06:25 that means
0:06:26 you have
0:06:28 one other partner than your spouse
0:06:30 so i think that's a comparison when you
0:06:32 compare in your own mind that's a
0:06:34 comparison that looms large
0:06:37 but if you've had three four five six
0:06:39 partners
0:06:40 most of them are less significant
0:06:44 right i think it's just a compara if you
0:06:46 have only two part two exact two and
0:06:48 exactly two partners it's just a
0:06:50 comparison that's overemphasized
0:06:54 that second partner is the one that got
0:06:56 away
0:06:57 what i want to focus as well on is you
0:06:59 mentioned
0:07:00 religiosity contributing to kind of
0:07:03 stability of family
0:07:06 why do you think that is the case okay
0:07:09 so this was the topic
0:07:11 of my 2016 book with brad wilcox at the
0:07:15 university of virginia
0:07:18 and
0:07:20 one
0:07:21 early finding
0:07:23 that had been reported
0:07:25 was big gender differences by
0:07:28 religious faith
0:07:30 uh some faiths
0:07:32 um
0:07:33 getting divorced more than others but
0:07:35 then later studies came along and
0:07:38 showed that it's not that there's
0:07:40 differences big differences by faith
0:07:42 it's by participation by involvement
0:07:45 and this is in the u.s context right in
0:07:47 the us yes and so we found the same
0:07:49 thing
0:07:50 uh people who attend services regularly
0:07:52 have are more likely to get married less
0:07:55 likely to have children before marriage
0:07:57 have happier relationships whether or
0:08:00 not they're married and are less likely
0:08:02 to get divorced and it doesn't matter
0:08:05 what faith
0:08:08 you're a member of it just depends upon
0:08:10 how much you live that faith how active
0:08:13 you are in it
0:08:15 i want to ask a question on that because
0:08:16 you make the point that it doesn't
0:08:17 matter what faith
0:08:19 have there been
0:08:20 faith
0:08:21 faith specific studies
0:08:23 to contra contrast for example one faith
0:08:26 with another in the united states or is
0:08:28 this
0:08:32 you know the biggest difference as i
0:08:34 mentioned in our
0:08:36 pre-recording chat is that members of
0:08:39 some faiths on average are must more
0:08:42 involved in their faiths than others
0:08:44 uh catholicism we see the united states
0:08:47 is the classic faith where many people
0:08:50 are
0:08:51 nominal catholics
0:08:52 right they say they're catholics
0:08:55 uh maybe they attend uh
0:08:58 you know church once a year on christmas
0:09:00 eve but
0:09:02 they're not too involved whereas
0:09:05 um say
0:09:06 mormons tend to be very involved
0:09:09 right that's the real difference it's
0:09:11 something woman's have a stickier
0:09:13 marriage like are more mormons more
0:09:15 likely to have stable marriages oh yes
0:09:17 and just because they mormons tend to be
0:09:20 very involved with their face
0:09:22 and so that's what matters you've been
0:09:24 considering the polygyny or the
0:09:26 polygamous element that they have
0:09:28 uh that's a very tiny percentage of
0:09:30 people you know the mainstream mormon
0:09:33 church has renounced polygamy for over a
0:09:35 hundred years that's just small uh
0:09:37 splinter groups or sex
0:09:40 um and
0:09:41 they
0:09:42 um those people don't talk about the
0:09:45 relationships because what they're doing
0:09:46 is in the
0:09:47 gray area of what's legal right i
0:09:50 understand
0:09:51 and um
0:09:53 on this point have you have you also
0:09:55 looked at
0:09:56 within a religious framework um what can
0:09:58 loosely be referred to as
0:10:00 liberal kind of religious people or and
0:10:03 or
0:10:04 conservative religious people or
0:10:06 generally liberals and conservatives and
0:10:08 whether or not there's a differential in
0:10:09 terms of stability or family between the
0:10:11 two
0:10:13 so in the united states if we just
0:10:15 contrast
0:10:16 liberals and conservatives we see that
0:10:19 conservatives are much uh are more
0:10:21 likely to have happy relationships
0:10:24 however and here's the however
0:10:27 that's entirely explained by the fact by
0:10:30 two attributes of conservatives
0:10:32 here one they're much more likely to be
0:10:35 involved than their religious faiths
0:10:38 and two
0:10:39 um
0:10:41 race is strongly correlated with
0:10:43 politics here
0:10:44 african-american
0:10:46 uh
0:10:47 are very unlikely to be conservatives
0:10:50 and
0:10:51 have higher divorce rates and less happy
0:10:53 relationships so once we control for
0:10:56 those two differences
0:10:57 religious faith and race there's no
0:11:01 difference between conservative and
0:11:03 religious here
0:11:05 okay and on that point then is it what
0:11:08 about have you have you looked at
0:11:09 egalitarian type of relationships versus
0:11:11 what's referred to as complementarian
0:11:13 type of relationships and seeing
0:11:15 differences between those two and and
0:11:17 what kind of differences have you found
0:11:19 so i don't do that work um
0:11:22 there has been a lot of research
0:11:25 in the united states
0:11:27 um my understanding is that of that work
0:11:31 is it's produced a lot of different
0:11:33 findings you know met very much how you
0:11:36 measure both the complementarity part
0:11:39 the egalitarian part and you know what
0:11:42 outcome you measure
0:11:45 um so uh there's
0:11:48 i don't it's produced a lot of different
0:11:50 findings
0:11:52 um you know that are specific to the
0:11:54 measures and in general i prefer
0:11:57 looking at things like matt just did
0:11:59 they stay married did they get married
0:12:01 because there's less measurement error i
0:12:03 can be more certain about
0:12:06 what it means does that make sense yes
0:12:09 it does um
0:12:10 obviously because you have problems with
0:12:12 defining the thing in the first place i
0:12:13 mean what is complementarity what is
0:12:15 galaxy exactly exactly
0:12:18 and um
0:12:19 can i add one thing
0:12:22 so one thing that does predict a happy
0:12:24 relationship is simply agreement on its
0:12:28 terms
0:12:29 right right so you know if you agree
0:12:32 we're in a conservative
0:12:34 we have in a traditional relationship
0:12:36 and we're going to be governed by these
0:12:38 rules and we both agree
0:12:40 that work you know that works because
0:12:41 there's agreement
0:12:43 yeah
0:12:44 you know the same with agreement about a
0:12:46 less traditional relationship
0:12:49 yeah but yeah
0:12:50 i was i was actually looking at some uh
0:12:53 i mean do you think the fact that uh
0:12:56 the reason why is maybe
0:12:58 uh some egalitarian marriages are
0:13:00 becoming more successful maybe in recent
0:13:02 times i'm not sure if you've seen some
0:13:03 data in the uk
0:13:05 or in europe but there's some data that
0:13:06 maybe come brings about that kind of
0:13:09 assumption may be because of the cost of
0:13:12 divorce
0:13:14 is there anything that you've done
0:13:15 on the cost of the horse for example not
0:13:17 just monetary costs but the fact that if
0:13:20 one gets divorced that um you know the
0:13:23 courts may rule
0:13:24 against
0:13:26 for example the father in the custody of
0:13:28 battle have you looked at those kinds of
0:13:29 socio-economic variables no a couple of
0:13:32 things there first of all divorce is at
0:13:34 has
0:13:35 peaked at least in america around 1980
0:13:38 and has been declining for about 40
0:13:40 years what
0:13:42 um
0:13:44 so it's always impossible to know
0:13:46 exactly why
0:13:48 uh
0:13:49 it's there's been a lot less divorce but
0:13:52 one reason certainly is by 1980 it was
0:13:56 becoming more clear
0:13:57 what living in a high divorce society
0:14:00 was like
0:14:03 um and we backed off a little bit
0:14:05 what causes what are these top reasons
0:14:08 in america
0:14:09 uh what are the top reasons that people
0:14:11 get divorced why do people get divorced
0:14:13 alone
0:14:14 so
0:14:15 marrying too young
0:14:16 is a big one
0:14:17 and that's one reason why there's less
0:14:19 divorce nowadays because people are
0:14:21 waiting until they're older
0:14:24 um
0:14:25 another thing that's uh part of a big
0:14:28 part of the story in the united states
0:14:30 and i to the best of my understanding in
0:14:32 the uk as well
0:14:34 is that you go back 40 years ago and
0:14:36 there was no difference
0:14:38 in marriage and divorce by whether
0:14:40 people had completed a college education
0:14:44 now there's a huge difference
0:14:46 whereas
0:14:47 people who have four-year college
0:14:49 degrees are much more likely to get
0:14:51 married and stay married
0:14:54 okay so is that is that correlation
0:14:56 between education and divorce the more
0:14:57 educated
0:14:59 father
0:15:00 is is that what you're saying is yeah
0:15:01 the more i say the less divorce yeah
0:15:03 yeah yeah okay
0:15:06 um are there any other trends on divorce
0:15:08 what about infidelity for example is
0:15:09 there anything on that
0:15:10 um so i've actually written about this
0:15:14 um and there's a piece you know a piece
0:15:16 i can send you the link to on the family
0:15:18 studies blog
0:15:20 uh so
0:15:23 it's
0:15:25 the family started to tell us what
0:15:27 that's about because some people might
0:15:28 want to go
0:15:29 this is the institute for family studies
0:15:31 is just
0:15:32 a research institute based out of the
0:15:34 university of virginia and run by my
0:15:37 collaborator and co-author w bradford
0:15:40 wilcox and they have a very large
0:15:44 um
0:15:45 well-funded blog
0:15:47 where they produce a lot of research
0:15:49 briefs about the family so a lot of my
0:15:53 short research briefs end up there
0:15:55 right um and so some of the stuff like
0:15:58 this stuff about the number of sex
0:16:00 partners and divorce
0:16:02 ended up there
0:16:03 and you were talking about infidelity
0:16:05 you were about to make a point about it
0:16:06 yes thank you um
0:16:09 so there's
0:16:11 not a
0:16:12 uh it's not a huge trend and the data
0:16:15 are a little ambigu ambiguous but they
0:16:18 do seem to point to a future of less
0:16:21 infidelity because the people who cheat
0:16:23 the most seem to be
0:16:26 boomers
0:16:27 who've been married for 20 or 30 years
0:16:30 and got bored
0:16:32 so just not only just people from a
0:16:34 certain generation having reached a
0:16:37 certain point in their lives those two
0:16:39 things combined seems to have produced
0:16:42 more infidelity but you know for younger
0:16:44 people less so
0:16:46 um another thing i point out is that for
0:16:50 you know there are now
0:16:51 and this isn't a this isn't a super
0:16:53 popular option but there's now much more
0:16:55 of an infrastructure for having a
0:16:58 non-monogamous relationship i mean
0:17:00 polyamory is a word we know and it
0:17:04 wasn't a thing
0:17:06 until 20 years ago now there's in any
0:17:08 large city in america there's
0:17:11 groups
0:17:12 and books
0:17:14 and communities to
0:17:16 sustain people who choose to be
0:17:18 non-monogamous in their marriages that's
0:17:20 uncommon though most people
0:17:22 want marriage
0:17:24 as traditionally defined but to the
0:17:26 extent that there has been a small
0:17:28 growth in non-monogamous relationships
0:17:31 you know that will undercut the rate of
0:17:33 adultery
0:17:34 and
0:17:35 you know or cheating adultery you know
0:17:37 tradition yeah
0:17:39 i wanted to ask um because i know we're
0:17:41 kind of tight on time
0:17:43 and
0:17:44 so i want to ask you a few more
0:17:46 questions one of them was relation to
0:17:48 hypergamy and homogamy
0:17:50 um
0:17:52 the the studies i've looked at
0:17:54 seemed to indicate that hypergam i think
0:17:56 one of them was actually instituted by
0:17:57 the um
0:17:58 published by the the institute that you
0:18:00 mentioned
0:18:01 um
0:18:02 that hypergamy is a very stubborn thing
0:18:04 and that it continues that women tend to
0:18:08 for example um
0:18:09 marry across and up dominance
0:18:11 hierarchies
0:18:13 um
0:18:14 how do we understand this trend
0:18:17 so uh i find hypergamy is not as strong
0:18:20 of force as homogamy holography that is
0:18:23 marrying people like yourself
0:18:26 right
0:18:27 so in fact uh
0:18:29 homogamy based on education has risen a
0:18:33 lot in the last 30 years in the united
0:18:36 states it used to be fairly common that
0:18:37 men married women who had less education
0:18:41 no longer
0:18:43 now increasingly
0:18:45 there is homogamy that based on
0:18:48 education in other words people with
0:18:50 college degrees marry other people with
0:18:52 college degrees
0:18:54 one thing to note here and this is some
0:18:56 of the best news in the field
0:18:59 is that heterogamy that is marrying
0:19:01 outside your group on race in the united
0:19:05 states has increased a lot
0:19:07 by a hundredfold whites marry blacks
0:19:10 more
0:19:11 blacks marry
0:19:13 whites marry mexican americans asian
0:19:15 that's increased a lot in this country
0:19:18 and that you know we i celebrate as good
0:19:20 news as
0:19:22 uh you know a lessening of racial
0:19:25 barriers
0:19:26 and uh on this point i'm not sure if you
0:19:29 are aware of this um
0:19:31 there are some uh groups online like the
0:19:33 red pill movement and the so-called
0:19:35 manual sphere and stuff many of which i
0:19:38 have to tell you actually use your
0:19:39 information oh yes yeah
0:19:41 they're they're you know uh they're free
0:19:43 to and in fact
0:19:45 uh i actually did a podcast
0:19:49 uh with a guy who calls himself angry
0:19:51 mgtow in other words mgtow is men going
0:19:54 their own way
0:19:56 and uh you know i
0:19:58 i did a good interview he you know he
0:20:01 asked good questions and i answered them
0:20:03 uh
0:20:04 but yes so these people uh this movement
0:20:06 does exist but uh
0:20:09 uh
0:20:11 have you heard about uh what's often
0:20:13 called rule 32
0:20:16 in this culture
0:20:18 this is
0:20:20 if if it exists there is porn of it
0:20:22 online
0:20:24 so my the broader point is if any
0:20:27 conceivable movement exists
0:20:30 you know or any anyone has an idea it's
0:20:33 online
0:20:34 and so they're just uh
0:20:37 first of all there are i think there's
0:20:39 this is a tiny number of people
0:20:41 yeah
0:20:42 uh second i think to the extent i think
0:20:45 their cultural moment has sort of passed
0:20:48 and that's something i was hearing a lot
0:20:50 more about three years ago than i am now
0:20:54 it's uh i'm
0:20:57 i don't know if that corresponds to the
0:21:00 rejection of trump in this country or
0:21:02 many other things but yeah they're there
0:21:05 but i think they'll always be there just
0:21:08 but i
0:21:10 they seem less salient than they were a
0:21:12 couple years ago
0:21:13 and
0:21:15 some of the things that they do talk
0:21:16 about some of the you can say the
0:21:17 pillars of their movement or the crux of
0:21:19 what they're trying to say
0:21:20 uh seem to revolve around some of these
0:21:22 concepts which you're an expert in in
0:21:24 terms of academia were things like
0:21:26 homogamy and hypergamy and they seem to
0:21:28 from my reading uh
0:21:30 you could say reduce and so it's a you
0:21:32 know reductionist approach to high or
0:21:34 hypergamy because at least that's how
0:21:36 i've seen it that um and then from that
0:21:39 kind of
0:21:40 give advice to young men of how to get
0:21:42 married all you've got to do is make
0:21:43 money i mean from your research due i
0:21:45 mean it's yeah it's quite relatable
0:21:47 um be a high value man by by by making
0:21:50 money in this way from from your kind of
0:21:52 research do you think that this is uh to
0:21:55 what extent do you think that this is
0:21:57 good advice i mean
0:21:59 you know fundamentally people with more
0:22:03 more money are more likely to get
0:22:04 married um
0:22:06 i don't know
0:22:07 all you do that's that is as you point
0:22:09 out totally all you need is money is of
0:22:12 course totally reductionist but it helps
0:22:15 part of the reason you know
0:22:18 part of the logic underlying that is
0:22:20 that
0:22:21 it
0:22:22 in nowadays
0:22:24 uh men feel like they can't get married
0:22:28 until they're able to
0:22:30 provide you know support a family
0:22:33 yeah and you know 50 years ago people
0:22:36 would
0:22:37 you know before starting careers would
0:22:39 get married right out of school whether
0:22:41 it was
0:22:42 secondary school or higher education
0:22:44 they would get married now they wait
0:22:48 um i didn't think those make those
0:22:51 fear types wanted to get married
0:22:53 no i mean
0:22:54 the red pill movement is more than
0:22:57 they've got different kind of the mgtow
0:22:59 not want to get married because the men
0:23:00 go in their own way but there are some
0:23:02 of them who who do want to get married
0:23:04 some of them you know part of the red
0:23:05 pill movement who give men advice on how
0:23:08 to get married
0:23:09 uh there's different kinds of uh advice
0:23:12 that they give to young men and so on
0:23:13 and you know how to ensure that you're
0:23:17 more attractive to women and so on and
0:23:20 but you know a lot of it is based on
0:23:22 this demographic data and that's why i
0:23:24 thought it would be would be important
0:23:26 to kind of ask on the flip side um
0:23:29 there's obviously many feminist
0:23:31 theorists as well
0:23:32 who may use demographic data to try or
0:23:35 may even try and undermine dare i say
0:23:37 some demographic data because like some
0:23:40 of the things that you're saying
0:23:40 obviously
0:23:41 uh indicate that um
0:23:44 or egalitarian marriages you mentioned
0:23:46 in the beginning are not as successful
0:23:49 you could put it in this crude way as
0:23:51 um
0:23:52 quote unquote complementarian marriages
0:23:54 um how have you responded to that kind
0:23:57 of discourse
0:23:59 you know
0:24:00 i really haven't gotten that many
0:24:03 critics i mean part of it is what you
0:24:05 alluded to there's a lot of
0:24:07 you know the devil is in the details
0:24:10 when we talk about complementary versus
0:24:12 egalitarian
0:24:14 um
0:24:15 and you know that can be defined a lot
0:24:17 of different ways
0:24:19 um
0:24:20 so
0:24:21 certainly there have you know i
0:24:23 occasionally have been attacked from i
0:24:25 guess which i'd call
0:24:27 the anti-marriage feminist strain
0:24:30 yes um but you know my response to that
0:24:34 is
0:24:35 you know you're not living in the real
0:24:37 world and the real world is that most
0:24:40 people want to be married
0:24:43 and you know if they don't want to be
0:24:45 married most people want you know still
0:24:47 want
0:24:48 stable monogamous relationships
0:24:52 you know it's a funny phenomenon in
0:24:55 higher education especially but also
0:24:57 just in many elite circles where
0:25:00 you know people
0:25:02 uh
0:25:03 you know academics will denounce the
0:25:05 bourgeois institution of marriage when
0:25:08 they are married
0:25:10 or what when they're living with
0:25:12 partners in relationships that look
0:25:15 exactly like marriage
0:25:17 exactly i want to ask you a couple more
0:25:18 questions uh maybe this is the
0:25:19 penultimate one before we end
0:25:22 um what i want to ask is
0:25:24 there's a lot of data coming out
0:25:25 recently especially
0:25:27 from people like warren farrell who've
0:25:29 written the boy crisis
0:25:31 and others who who emphasize how
0:25:34 important stable families are
0:25:36 what they seem to be doing in their work
0:25:38 is they look at like
0:25:40 the amount of kind of delinquency if you
0:25:42 want to use that kind of word or
0:25:43 criminal activity for example that
0:25:45 happens in society and they've
0:25:48 correlated that kind of trend
0:25:50 with uh single people being raised in a
0:25:53 single mother household obviously
0:25:54 obviously exceptions to this rule that
0:25:56 we're not generalizing but to what
0:25:58 extent can it be said
0:26:00 that single parent households
0:26:02 or people living or children living or
0:26:04 growing up in single-parent households
0:26:05 especially if
0:26:07 their mothers
0:26:09 can contribute to this kind of um
0:26:12 kind of criminality future criminality
0:26:13 or something so what extent is their
0:26:14 predictor so that that's a good question
0:26:17 and uh
0:26:19 let me answer it a couple of different
0:26:21 ways
0:26:22 the first is to point out that yes that
0:26:24 research is all correct
0:26:27 in that people who aren't from two
0:26:30 parent families
0:26:31 um
0:26:33 uh have the kids have higher rates of
0:26:35 delinquency they're less likely to
0:26:37 finish
0:26:38 high school in a timely fashion less
0:26:40 likely to college in short you can you
0:26:43 know predict almost any outcome with
0:26:45 that variable
0:26:46 now let me give you some numbers um and
0:26:50 these are numbers produced
0:26:52 you know decades ago by sarah mcclanahan
0:26:56 at princeton university who's one of the
0:26:58 leading scholars in this area that i
0:27:00 still quote
0:27:01 uh is being instructed sarah showed way
0:27:05 back when that
0:27:07 31
0:27:09 of kids from
0:27:11 uh whose parents work together don't
0:27:14 graduate from high school on time
0:27:16 compared to just 13 percent of kids
0:27:19 whose parents
0:27:21 do graduate from high school all the
0:27:22 time keep that in mind 31
0:27:25 13. now let me show you why there's two
0:27:28 ways of looking at that
0:27:30 if your cup is half empty you point to
0:27:33 31 being
0:27:35 two and a half times 13
0:27:37 and you can legitimately say that kids
0:27:39 from
0:27:40 non-attack families are much more likely
0:27:43 to have trouble in school
0:27:45 now suppose your cup is half full you
0:27:47 point out
0:27:49 also truthfully that over two-thirds of
0:27:51 kids from
0:27:53 non-attack families still graduate from
0:27:55 school on time and a small minority of
0:27:58 kids from intact families don't
0:28:00 right so it's a factor but it's hot far
0:28:04 from being dispositive
0:28:06 let me also uh
0:28:09 tell you another of sarah's findings
0:28:12 she found
0:28:14 also that that gap in high school
0:28:16 completion
0:28:17 half of it was explained by economics
0:28:20 that is single parent families are often
0:28:22 poor
0:28:23 if they weren't poor that 1331 gap would
0:28:27 be cut in half
0:28:29 so
0:28:30 family you know family structure matters
0:28:32 but a lot of other things matter too
0:28:35 what farron i think mentioned on this uh
0:28:38 which i thought i don't know what to
0:28:39 make of it and ask you this is i think
0:28:42 he compared single parent families
0:28:45 a single parent male families versus
0:28:47 single-parent female families and
0:28:49 concluded that
0:28:50 single-parent male families are more
0:28:52 likely to be successful
0:28:54 but so-called successful based on the
0:28:56 parameters that we've spoken about i
0:28:57 think that's
0:28:59 yes
0:29:00 i think you know there was a a really
0:29:02 thorough evaluation of that study about
0:29:06 that concept about 20 years ago
0:29:08 right where the researchers did hundreds
0:29:10 of comparisons yes uh between male
0:29:14 families female families
0:29:16 and they found overall found little
0:29:18 difference so i see
0:29:20 there's some cherry picking going on
0:29:23 if you ask me to you know so i think
0:29:25 that's the best answer however if you
0:29:27 ask me in a vacuum
0:29:29 uh my guess is that the fathers
0:29:33 you know might produce better
0:29:35 results for their kids but the reason is
0:29:37 just
0:29:38 uh custody is rare
0:29:41 do you think economics has something to
0:29:43 do because the man yeah oh absolutely
0:29:45 father custody is true i think you know
0:29:47 fathers only get custody you know in
0:29:50 this country at least or
0:29:52 usually only get custody when the the
0:29:54 real problems with the the mother
0:29:57 yes yes
0:29:58 you know the father is a is a super
0:30:00 parent right
0:30:02 in general
0:30:04 i think it's better to say you know it
0:30:06 make it's much more supported by today
0:30:08 this is just just a little difference
0:30:10 right right
0:30:12 that's that's these are really good uh
0:30:13 trends what what kind of things i mean
0:30:16 putting aside the red pill is the last
0:30:17 question i'll ask you today i saw that
0:30:19 movie
0:30:21 documentary as well
0:30:23 yeah yeah but putting aside
0:30:25 the kind of advice that they would kind
0:30:27 of give or maybe feminists would give
0:30:28 what would be the advice that you would
0:30:29 give
0:30:31 in general advice based on the the
0:30:33 trends that you have seen
0:30:35 on what kind of things that may be
0:30:37 within our control that we can control
0:30:40 in order to have stable families if
0:30:42 that's what we want okay
0:30:44 so don't marry too early
0:30:47 you know wait till your your late 20s is
0:30:50 one
0:30:52 um you know in general
0:30:54 homogamy predicts
0:30:56 marital stability so marry someone
0:30:58 exactly like you
0:31:01 i mean you know in many ways as possible
0:31:03 now of course a lot of this is outside
0:31:05 our control right you know we don't
0:31:08 you know we don't uh go down a list like
0:31:11 this and choosing our you know
0:31:13 you know the people we meet
0:31:16 but in general yeah marry someone like
0:31:18 you
0:31:19 i i joked in terms of
0:31:22 heterogamy based on religion
0:31:25 it's hard to marry someone you know is
0:31:27 going to hell
0:31:29 [Laughter]
0:31:33 a good point to be honest with you and
0:31:35 and then you have the complications of
0:31:36 the children and how they're going to be
0:31:37 raised yeah so yeah i i've you know i've
0:31:40 joked like this too so how do you have
0:31:42 to just decide how they're going to be
0:31:45 raised you let them pick your own faith
0:31:47 do you send them to
0:31:49 you know
0:31:50 uh church one week and mosque the next
0:31:53 week do you right you know
0:31:56 exactly
0:31:57 and especially for ends in divorce a lot
0:31:59 of it is outside the control
0:32:01 namely as you've mentioned of the man
0:32:03 because if he's not getting custody for
0:32:05 obvious reasons then it will be out of
0:32:07 his control although some things are
0:32:08 still in his control right he can still
0:32:10 contribute to the material upkeep of his
0:32:13 children he can still be involved he can
0:32:15 still
0:32:16 try to avoid conflict because one of the
0:32:19 most
0:32:20 you know
0:32:21 replicated findings is that conflict is
0:32:24 bad for kids i've seen that in your book
0:32:26 and your book is called understanding um
0:32:28 the divorce cycle isn't it yes yeah
0:32:29 that's yeah my first book might you know
0:32:32 more recently you know i've had books
0:32:34 the most recent book is soul mates
0:32:37 religion sex love and marriage
0:32:40 um among african americans and latinos
0:32:42 and really everyone in the united states
0:32:46 um
0:32:48 uh i lost my train of thought but that's
0:32:50 okay well thank you so much for all that
0:32:53 you've presented in terms of uh
0:32:55 information
0:32:56 i think a lot of people will see from
0:32:57 this obviously that the issue is more
0:33:00 complicated than being able to reduce it
0:33:02 in a few variables
0:33:04 about that
0:33:05 as you've mentioned there are some
0:33:07 positive trends moving forward and we
0:33:09 hope to be able to
0:33:11 keep stable families in society thank
0:33:14 you very much uh professor offinger
0:33:16 thank you so much rahul it's been a