The problem with all this talk about two-parent ‘privilege’
September 27, 2023
A new book by economist Melissa Kearney makes a readily apparent but still-provocative argument: Children raised by two married parents do better than children raised by single parents. The difference, Kearney argues, isn’t just financial (although the money matters a lot); the “two-parent privilege,” as her book calls it, is also about parental time investment and familial stability. The problem with the point she makes — and with the firestorm of discussion it’s touched off on the left and the right — is that there are many things that are statistically better for us, but if those things are not available or accessible, knowing that they’re better is, at best, a moot point.
Kearney bills herself as a moderate, but her argument is being taken up by a great many conservatives who argue that her findings, which are robustly supported by the data, demonstrate that liberal mores around family formation have destroyed the nuclear family and left children worse off. The answer, they say, is for liberals to own up to their wrongdoing and for all of us to start promoting marriage.
