marriage & poverty: maine

Marriage:Maine’s No. 1 Weapon

AgainstChildhood Poverty

How the Collapse of Marriage Hurts Childrenand Three Steps to Reverse the Damage

A Heritage Foundation Book of Charts • January 2012

Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society

Growth of Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing in Maine, 1929–2010

PERCENTAGE OF CHILDREN BORN OUT OF WEDLOCK

heritage.orgChart 1 • Marriage and Poverty in Maine

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

41.2%

Note: Initiated by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, the War on Poverty led to the creation of more than three dozen welfare programs to aid poor persons. Government has spent $16.7 trillion on means-tested aid to the poor since 1964.

Sources: U.S. Government, U.S. Census Bureau, and National Center for Health Statistics.

Throughout most of Maine’s history, out-of-wedlock childbear-ing was rare.

When the federal government’s War on Poverty began in 1964, only 4.1 percent of children in Maine were born out of wedlock. However, over the next four decades, the number rose rapidly. By 2010, 41.2 percent of births in Maine occurred outside of mar-riage.

Death of Marriage in Maine, 1929–2010

PERCENTAGE OF CHILDREN BORN TO MARRIED COUPLES

Note: In any given year, the sum of the out-of-wedlock birth rate (Chart 1) and the marital birth rate (Chart 2) equals 100 percent of all births.

Sources: U.S. Government, U.S. Census Bureau, and National Center for Health Statistics.


50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

58.8%

The marital birth rate — the percentage of all births that occur to married parents — is the flip side of the out-of-wedlock birth rate.

Through most of the 20th cen-tury, marital births were the norm in Maine. In 1964, more than 96 percent of births occurred to married couples.

However, in the mid-1960s, the marital birth rate began to fall steadily. By 2010, only 58.8 per-cent of births in Kansas occurred to married couples.

In Maine, Marriage Drops the Probability of Child Poverty by 87 Percent

The rapid rise in out-of-wedlock childbearing is a major cause of high levels of child poverty in Maine.

Some 39.1 percent of single mothers with children were poor compared to 5.1 percent of mar-ried couples with children.

Single-parent families with children are more than six times more likely to be poor than fami-lies in which the parents are mar-ried.

The higher poverty rate among single-mother families is due both to the lower education levels of the mothers and the lower income due to the absence of the father.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2007–2009 data.


PERCENTAGE OF FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN THAT ARE POOR

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Single-Parent, Female-Headed

Families

Married, Two-Parent Families

39.1%

5.1%

In Maine, One-Third of All Families with Children Are Not Married



67.5%

32.5%

Unmarried Families

Married Families

Overall, married couples head about two-thirds of families with children in Maine. One-third are single-parent families.

In Maine, 76 Percent of Poor Families with Children Are Not Married



23.8%

76.3%

Unmarried Families

Married Families

Among poor families with children in Maine, 76 percent are not married. By contrast, only one-quarter of poor families with children are headed by married couples.

In Maine, Few Unwed Births Occur to Teenagers

Out-of-wedlock births are often confused erroneously with teen births, but only 4.9 percent of out-of-wedlock births in Maine occur to girls under age 18.

By contrast, some 79 percent of out-of-wedlock births occur to young adult women between the ages of 18 and 29.

Note: Figures have been rounded.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008 NHS data.


PERCENTAGE OF OUT-OF-WEDLOCK BIRTHS BY AGE OF MOTHER

Age18–19:13.8%

Age20–24:41.4%

Age25–29:24.0%

Age30–54:15.9%

UnderAge 18:4.9%

Less-Educated Women in Maine Are More Likely to Give Birth Outside of Marriage

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008 NHS data. heritage.org Chart 7 • Marriage and Poverty in Maine

PERCENTAGE OF BIRTHS THAT ARE MARITAL OR OUT OF WEDLOCK

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

High School Dropout

(0–11Years)

High School Graduate

(12Years)

SomeCollege(13–15Years)

College Graduate

(16+Years)

65.2%

54.5%

37.7%

8.1%

34.8%

45.5%

62.3%

91.9%

Mother’s education level

Unmarried Mothers

Married Mothers

Unwed childbearing occurs most frequently among the women who will have the greatest difficulty supporting children by themselves: those with low levels of education.

Nationwide, among women who are high school dropouts, about two-thirds of all births occur outside marriage. Among women who have only a high school diploma, more than half of all births occur outside marriage. By contrast, among women with at least a college degree, only 8 per-cent of births are out-of-wedlock.

Note: Specific data on out-of-wedlock births and maternal education is not available in Maine. However, the pattern varies little between states. Maine data will be very similar to the national data presented in this chart.

Both Marriage and Education Are Highly Effective in Reducing Child Poverty in Maine



0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

High School Dropout

High School Graduate

SomeCollege

College Graduate

57.9%

25.7%

41.9%

8.8%

33.9%

4.9%

11.6%

1.3%

Note: Virtually none of the heads of families in the chart who are high school dropouts are minor teenagers.

The poverty rate of married couples with children is dramati-cally lower than the rate for house-holds headed by single parents. This is true even when the married couple is compared to single par-ents with the same education level.

For example, in Maine, the poverty rate for a single mother who has only a high school diploma is 41.9 percent, but the poverty rate for a married couple family headed by an individual who, similarly, has only a high school degree is far lower at 8.8 percent.

On average, marriage drops the poverty rate by 77 percent among families with the same education level.

PERCENTAGE OF FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN THAT ARE POOR

Poverty Rate of Families by Education and Marital Status of the Head of Household

Single Married

Racial Composition of All Births and Out-of-Wedlock Births in Maine

ALL BIRTHS OUT-OF-WEDLOCK BIRTHS



Note: Figures have been rounded.

92.9% White Non-Hispanic

Asian/Other

Black Non-HispanicHispanic

2.8%1.6%2.7%

93.3%

2.7%1.9%2.1%

In Maine in 2008, some 92.9 percent of all births occurred to non-Hispanic whites, 2.7 percent occurred to non-Hispanic blacks, and 1.6 percent occurred to His-panics.

The pattern for non-marital births was nearly identical. Some 93.3 percent of all non-marital births were to non-Hispanic whites, 2.1 percent were to black non-Hispanic women, and 1.9 percent were to Hispanics.

Unwed Birth Rates Vary Little by Race in Maine



PERCENT OF BIRTHS THAT ARE OUT OF WEDLOCK

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

All Races White Non-

Hispanic

Hispanic BlackNon-

Hispanic

39.7% 39.9%

45.7%

31.7%

8.3%

In 2008, 39.7 percent of births in Maine occurred outside mar-riage. Out-of-wedlock childbear-ing varied little by race. This uni-form pattern is unusual.

Among whites, four in every ten births were to unmarried women (39.9 percent). This was the second highest white non-marital birth rate in the nation, and far higher than the national average of 28.6 percent.

Among Hispanics, 45.7 percent of births were out-of-wedlock. The rate among non-Hispanic blacks was around three in ten (31.7 percent), far lower than the national average.

Three Steps to Reduce Child Poverty through Marriage

1) Provide information on the benefits of marriage in reducing child poverty and improving child well-being.

2) Reduce anti-marriage penalties in means-tested welfare programs.

3) Promote life-goal-planning, marriage-strengthening, and divorce-reduction programs to increase healthy marriages and reduce divorce and separation.

Marriage is a highly effective institution which greatly decreases parental and child poverty while improving long-term outcomes for children. Conversely, the absence of marriage greatly increases welfare costs and imposes added burdens on taxpayers.

Unfortunately, almost no information on these topics is available in low-income communities. This information deficit should be corrected in the following manner:

• Explain the benefits of marriage in middle and high schools with a high proportion of at-risk youth;

• Create public education campaigns in low-income communities on the benefits of marriage; and,

• Require federally funded birth control clinics to provide information on the benefits of marriage and the skills needed to develop stable families to interested low-income clients.

The Family & Religion Initiative is one of 10 Transformational Initiatives making up The Heritage Foundation’s Leadership for America campaign. For more products and information related to this initiative or to learn more about the Leadership for America campaign, please visit heritage.org.

The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institution—a think tank—whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited gov-ernment, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

Our vision is to build an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish. As conservatives, we believe the values and ideas that motivated our Founding Fathers are worth conserving. As policy entrepreneurs, we believe the most effective solutions are consistent with those ideas and values.

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