Quote:
Originally Posted by opendoor
Why isn't this social breakdown and its effects being felt in the most liberal countries like in Scandinavia? Compared to the United States, Scandinavian countries have lower marriage rates, a higher average age of first marriage, and a higher rate of children being born to unmarried parents. In fact, in Sweden nearly 55% of children are born out of wedlock compared to about 40% in the US. Yet those countries don't suffer from the wealth inequality and social immobility that people like to ascribe to the lower rates of traditional families in the US.
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From what I understand, while Scandinavia has lower rates of formal marriage than the U.S. or Canada, they have high rates of enduring common-law marriage. Kids may not grow up in a home with a legally married mom and dad, but the parents stay together long enough for the kids to grow up. They don't have the revolving-door of short-term relationships that characterize single-parent households in North America. And they don't have the relatively high birth rates among poor mothers that we have in North America.
I was reading a study on low-income households in American recently, and it seems that the poor today think they need to be more financially secure to get married than they do to have children. A woman who works at the department of motor vehicles has a boyfriend who works on and off in a drywalling crew. They don't think they're in any position to get married, but it's okay to have kids. Which sounds crazy to me. But apparently these are widely help beliefs. And after a few years, as buddy shows himself not especially responsible, she ditches him and he moves on. Marriage is for the rich, kids are for everybody. I honestly don't know how you change that belief, which is pretty much the opposite of how the educated and affluent approach things.