Why Economic Inequality Exists, Part V:
The Effects of Family Fragmentation (2 of 2)
Is America Becoming a Two Caste System?
We previously deluged you with social science demonstrating the tragic connection between family fragmentation and poverty. Well, we’re not stopping until you cry, “uncle.” Family scholars have identified non-marital childbearing as — by far — the single most important factor explaining the growth in child poverty over the last few decades. Just how big of a factor? Researcher Glenn Stanton writes:
Isabel Sawhill, a senior scholar at the center-left Brookings Institute, boldly and correctly proclaimed some years ago that ‘the proliferation of single-parent households accounts for virtually all of the increase in child poverty since the early 1970s.’ Virtually all of the increase!
The trend away from marriage gave birth to a phrase coined decades ago to describe the demographics of poverty: “the feminization of poverty.” It reflects the sad truth that 68 percent of poor families with children are headed by a single parent — and, overwhelmingly, among those families — a single mother. 
And unwed childbearing isn’t the only reason for this. Both non-marital childbearing and divorce have devastating financial consequences for children:
When parents fail to marry and stay married, children are more likely to experience deep and persistent poverty, even after controlling for race and family background. The majority of children who grow up outside of intact married families experience at least one year of dire poverty (family incomes less than half the official poverty threshold).
Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, among others, has noted that America is now a two caste system, divided along the lines of marriage and education. Since children from single parent and step-family homes are likelier to fail and drop out of school, as well as to have a child outside of marriage themselves than children in intact families, we can make a convincing case that the dividing line is primarily marriage. It’s simple: Because marriage typically provides the conditions making success in school possible. Hence, the recurring and unrelenting cycle that sentences future generations to poverty.
Regarding America’s two class system, Rector observes:
In the high-income third of the population, children are raised by married parents with a college education; in the bottom-income third, children are raised by single parents with a high school degree or less.
Hence, economic inequality in America substantially is the product of poor individual choices and ill-advised government policies that have helped institutionalize a culture of non-marriage (more on that later). That that will sound harsh to many merely demonstrates the extent to which we’ve accepted the notion that waiting until marriage to have a baby is old-fashioned, unrealistic, or even ill-advised.
Yet, even though non-marital childbearing and divorce undeniably are causing income inequality in America, the issue of marriage has completely dropped off the radar screen. You won’t hear Bernie or AOC mention it — that would be, “blaming the victim.” And, as a thrice-married man, Trump is morally compromised and essentially handcuffed on the marriage issue.
Not that we deserve better. Our politicians’ silence reflects our own cowardice. We prefer not to be reminded of our moral failures, or to be considered “judgmental” for saying anything that might offend. In the meantime, kids be damned — half of whom will now spend part of their childhood in a broken home. Tough luck, kids. Many of our friends on the Left any nurture the delusion that the financial vulnerability of children has zero to do with mom or dad. Rather, it’s those greedy rich people and corporations who are at fault. 
Next, we’ll dig deeper into the government’s counterproductive responses to poverty, and discuss how the radical “Robinhood” solutions proposed by the Left will just spread the suffering even further.