The Council on Contemporary Families and Cohen’s Family Inequality Blog Site
Moms, Marriage, and Poverty
Promoting Marriage among Single Mothers: An Ineffective Weapon in the War on Poverty
Kristi Williams on October 29, 2015
The rapid rise in nonmarital fertility is arguably the most significant demographic trend of the past two decades. The
proportion of births to unmarried women grew 46 percent over the past 20 years so that more than four in ten births
now occur to unmarried women. Nonmarital fertility is quickly becoming a dominant pathway to family formation,
especially among the disadvantaged. This is worrisome because decades of research show that children raised in singleparent homes fare worse on a wide range of outcomes (e.g. poverty, educational attainment, nonmarital and teen
childbearing) than children raised by two biological parents. The poverty rates of single parent households are
particularly striking. According to recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 46 percent of children in
single mother households were living in poverty in 2013 compared to 11 percent of children living with two married
parents.
How can we improve the lives of the growing numbers of unmarried mothers and their children? So far, a dominant
approach has been to encourage their mothers to marry. At first glance, the logic makes sense. If growing up in a twoparent home is best for children, then adding a second parent to a single-mother home should at least partially address
the problem. The 1996 welfare reform legislation and its subsequent reauthorization institutionalized this focus on
marriage by allowing states to spend welfare funds on a range of marriage promotion efforts.
The flaw in this argument is the assumption that all marriages are equally beneficial. In fact, however, the pool of
potential marriage partners for single mothers in impoverished communities does not include many men with good
prospects for becoming stable and helpful partners. Single mothers are especially likely to marry men who have children
from other partnerships, who have few economic resources, who lack a high-school diploma, or who have been
incarcerated or have substance abuse problems. The new unions that single mothers form tend to have low levels
of relationship quality and high rates of instability.A nationally representative study of more than 7,000 women found
that approximately 64 percent of the single mothers who married were divorced by the time they reached age 35-44.
More importantly, single mothers who marry and later divorce are worse off economically than single mothers who
never marry. Even marriages that endure appear to offer few health benefits to single mothers unless they are to the
biological father of their first child.
The hope of the marriage promotion campaign was that marriages in low-income communities could be made more
stable and beneficial through skills training and support. Although one program in Oklahoma City slightly increased
relationship stability, the most rigorous evaluation of the programs in eight cities found that, overall, they created no
long-term improvements in new unwed parents’ relationship quality, marriage rates, or children’s economic wellbeing,
and they actually resulted in modestdecreases in fathers’ financial support and parental involvement.
Marriage may matter among single mothers, but only a little, and only in very specific and relatively rare circumstances.
Our recent research adds to the growing body of evidence that promoting marriage is not the answer to the problems
facing single mothers and their children. Analyzing more than 30 years of data on a nationally representative cohort of
women and their children, we found no physical or psychological advantages for the majority of adolescents born to a
single mother whose mothers later married. We did find a modest physical health advantage among the minority of
youth whose single mother later married and stayed married to their biological father, compared to those whose
mothers remained unmarried. However, such unions are exceedingly rare. Only 16 percent of low income unwed
mothers in the Fragile Families and Child Well Being study were married to the child’s biological father five years after
the child’s birth. Marriage may matter, but only a little, and only in very specific and relatively rare circumstances.
There is growing consensus among researchers that it would be more beneficial to convince women to delay
childbirth rather than to promote marriage. But even this seemingly uncontroversial policy is more complicated than
it sounds. For African-Americans in the U.S., later ages at birth are associated with higher rates of neonatal mortality,
perhaps because the stress of chronic disadvantage and racial discrimination accelerates biological aging for this group.
More recent evidence from Britain indicates that delaying births to the early 20s offers few advantages for children’s
later educational and socioeconomic attainment and our ongoing researchsuggests that such delays may even pose long
term health risks for African-American women. Ultimately, attempts to influence highly personal decisions such as
fertility timing and context will likely have limited success, especially in a context in which early or nonmarital fertility is
sometimes adaptive compared to the alternatives.
A more promising approach is to focus on reducing unintended or mistimedbirths. Approximately 79 percent of
births to unpartnered women under the age of 25 are unintended, and these appear to have the most negative
consequences for women. Our research suggests that, among African-American women, nonmarital childbearing is
associated with negative mental health outcomes only among those who did not expect to have a nonmarital
birth. Unlike broader efforts to convince women to delay childbirth or to marry, reducing unintended births does not
require changing attitudes or preferences. Instead, it involves providing women most likely to be negatively affected by
a nonmarital or early birth (i.e., those who do not intend to have one) with the resources and knowledge to carry out
their intentions. These include comprehensive and early sex education and expansive and affordable access to birth
control and family planning services.
International comparisons indicate that single mothers and their children fare substantially better in countries with
supportive social and economic family policies.
If the goal of marriage promotion efforts was truly to lower poverty rates and improve the well-being of unmarried
parents and their children, then it is time to take a different approach toward this goal. Fortunately, numerous
models of success exist. International comparisons indicate that single mothers and their children fare substantially
better in countries with supportive social and economic family policies. A recent cross-national comparison indicates
that the 51 percent poverty rate of U.S. single parent households is nearly twice the average in 16 high income
comparison countries, even though U.S. single parent households have higher rates of employment. Another
recent study identifies three family policies associated with substantially lower poverty rates among single parent
households: (1) family allowances (direct payments to parents of dependent children), (2) paid parental leave, and (3)
publicly funded childcare for children under age 3. For example, in countries like the U.S. with the least generous family
transfer policies among the 20 high-income countries included in the study, single parent households are more than
twice as likely to be in poverty than in countries with the most generous policies. Paid parental leave and publicly funded
childcare for children under age three appear especially advantageous in reducing poverty among single mothers,
largely by increasing their employment rates—a primary goal of the 1996 welfare reform legislation. Such policies
benefit all families and are likely to be more effective than marriage promotion in reducing poverty and improving the
lives of the growing number of single mothers and their children.
Kristi Williams is in the sociology department at The Ohio State University. She studies the influence of personal
relationships on health and well-being.
Also, visit Phil Cohen’s Family Inequality blog site for these posts. Follow Cohen’s leads.
 “How about we stop moralizing and end child poverty tomorrow?” September 27, 2015
https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2015/09/27/how-about-we-stop-moralizing-and-end-child-povertytomorrow/
 “Blame the poor, “We tried generosity and it just doesn’t work” edition” December 7, 2013
https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2013/12/07/generosity-doesnt-work/
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“Poverty, Single Mothers, and Mobility” February 27, 2012
https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/poverty-single-mothers-and-mobility/
“To Prevent Poverty, Reduce the Penalty for Single –Motherhood” December 2, 2013
https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/to-prevent-poverty-reduce-the-penalty-for-singlemotherhood/