Bastardy: economics vs culture

Who or what is to blame for the breakdown of conventional families? 1960s culture, says Melanie Phillips. Thatcherism, replies Unity. But Matthew points out that this can’t be right, as the proportion of births outside marriage has risen in European countries untouched by Thatcherism.
But Matthew’s data don’t prove that culture is the problem. Instead, it could be that some common economic factors to Germany, the UK and Sweden explain the rise in births outside marriage, for example:
1. Unemployment. When a woman has a child outside marriage, she pays a cost - she has less chance of marrying a good catch. And when unemployment is high, there are fewer good catches around. The costs of single parenthood therefore fall as unemployment rises - as has been the case in many European countries since the early 70s - so we’d expect to see more of it. John Ermisch makes this point here (pdf).
2. Increased women’s employment. Before the 60s, women needed a husband to have a child, if only because she needed an income. Women’s  improving employment prospects mean this is no longer the case.
3. The hold-out problem. Another effect of women’s increased human capital is that they have become more fussy about whom they marry; why, a career woman might ask, should I marry someone who’ll hold me back? Many women therefore increasingly hold out for a good catch. And if he doesn‘t pitch up, they might choose single parenthood rather than have their body clock tick away. Single parenthood, then, is another effect of Sex and the City syndrome (pdf), whereby high-status women stay single.

These factors don’t mean there’s no role for cultural norms. It’s just that such norms are effect, as well as cause.  As single parenthood becomes more common for economic reasons, the social norm against it declines. And as this cost of single parenthood declines, so we get more of it.
I shalln't pretend there are any easy policy implications of this. There aren't.

Comments

[reason]

I'm absolutely sure that the exception was the post-war period, not the modern period. You are asking the question upside down.

[ad]

"the proportion of births outside marriage has risen in European countries untouched by Thatcherism."

Wasn't that proportion going up before Thatcher? It's an impressive cause that can have effects that precede it in time.

[Andrew Duffin]

Wouldn't welfarism be a simpler explanation?

If the state will support you with no questions asked, why go through all that awkward hassle of earning a living?

The rest follows.

[Dipper]

There are numerous studies of breeding strategies and "breeding economics" from the bird world which shed light on this issue. "Cuckoos, Cowbirds, and other Cheats", By N. R. Davies (T & A D Poyser) is an excellent example.

We are not birds, of course, but perhaps a visiting Martian would not think the distinction is as wide as we like to think.

[reason]

Andrew Duffin...
Don't you remember My Fair Lady - "I'm getting married in the morning"... unmarried parents is nothing new.

[reason]

Andrew Duffin...
it also fails to explain why teenage pregnancy in the USA is the highest in the Western world.

[Chris Williams]

The British state has been supporting single mothers for at least a couple of hundred years.

[Shuggy]

"Wouldn't welfarism be a simpler explanation?"

No - this would be the one you *prefer*. If welfarism was the problem, you'd have a hard time explaining the sociology of the family in the USA.

[Jennie]

I reckon it's more to do with the fact that domestic violence and rape within marriage are illegal as of 1974, coupled with the liberalisation of divorce laws in the sixties and beyond. Women are less likely to put up with shitty relationships for the sake of the child now.

[Shuggy]

"Women are less likely to put up with shitty relationships for the sake of the child now."

Agreed - but this isn't mutually exclusive from the point Chris made: women are less economically dependent and therefore don't *need* to put up with shitty relationships.

Plus, let's restore a little gender-balance here, sister. At least part of the reason the divorce rate has increased is down to the fact that some of us men - y'know, the minority of us that have never raped or beaten the mother of our children - aren't prepared to put up with shitty relationships either. As if men were the sole cause of shitty relationships. Honestly!

[Shuggy]

"The British state has been supporting single mothers for at least a couple of hundred years."

Just spotted this. Where did you do your history? I'd ask for my money back, if I were you. Pray describe the welfare state and what it's provision for single mothers was like back in 1808.