138. The Two Parent Privilege with Melissa Kearney

The Two Parent Privilege with Melissa Kearney

♪ [up-tempo opening music] ♪

>>[KEVIN DEYOUNG, HOST]
Greetings and salutations.

Welcome back to “Life & Books & Everything.”

I'm Kevin DeYoung, Senior Pastor

at Christ Covenant Church
in Matthews, North Carolina.

And I am joined today
by my special guest, Melissa Kearney.

And we're going to talk about her new book
called “The Two-Parent Privilege.”

Melissa has a very august resume here.

She's Professor of Economics
at the University of Maryland;

director of a number of
different research groups;

and a nonresident,
senior fellow at Brookings;

and a scholar in a number of different
labs and affiliations and journals

and lots of good academic work that she's done.

She did her undergraduate at
Princeton, PhD in Economics at MIT.

Melissa, thank you for coming on
here to talk about your new book.

>>[MELISSA KEARNEY, GUEST]
Happy to be here.

Thanks so much for having me.

>>[DEYOUNG] So this is a book about parents,

and it's a book where you're using your
expertise as a trained academic economist.

But you also write personally.

You say at the beginning and
at the end, in particular,

that you're a mom and an economist,
and that's in the correct order.

That's what's most important.

And you have three kids.
So tell us about your family.

>>[KEARNEY] Okay. It's exactly right.
I'm a trained economist,

but I think the greatest thing I do
is be a mom to my three kids,

a boy and two girls, and I'm raising them
with my husband in suburban Maryland.

>>[DEYOUNG] And how did you
get to the University of Maryland?

And are you a big “Terps”
[Terrapins] sports fan?

>>[KEARNEY, chuckling] I mean,
I admit that I spend most of my time

over in the economics department,

but I do cheer for the Terps
every now and then,

and I'm delighted when they do well.

I have been at the University
of Maryland for 17 years now;

moved down to DC from the Boston area
probably 19 years ago;

went to Brookings on a two-year fellowship,
did some dedicated research there

on topics that I've been working on
for over two decades

(U.S. inequality, poverty,
child and family well-being);

and then took a tenure track job
at Maryland where I've been ever since,

and I enjoy teaching the undergrads there
and training PhD students there

and working as part of a really
intellectually vibrant economics department.

>>[DEYOUNG]
And how did you get interested in this topic,

which I know is part of broader interest.

You just mentioned
inequality and other things,

but this area having to do
with families and parents?

>>[KEARNEY] Since I was an undergrad,

I've really been interested in the economic
and social lives of women and children.

I really have sort of always had an interest

in questions about how society works or
doesn't work well for certain groups of people

with a particular interest in less
economically advantaged groups.

And so those are the questions
that brought me to economics, actually.

Let me just say, because
a lot of people, I think,

think about economics as finance
or stock picking and that kind of thing,

which is nothing to do with
the kind of economics I do.

You know, as an undergrad, I was interested
in questions of society and public policy,

took a bunch of those classes,

but loved the sort of rigor and theory
and empirical work of economics.

And so I used those tools of economics
to ask these questions.

How did I become interested
in questions about women and families?

I suppose it has to do with, you know,

like many of us being interested in the
world around us the way we grew up.

And so it was, you know,
I grew up in New Jersey in the ‘80s,

very cognizant of the fact that I had
educational opportunities,

economic opportunities that my mom and
my grandma and their sisters didn't have.

And so were my grandma's sisters didn't have.

And so those kinds of questions really
were at the forefront of my mind.

And then I spent a summer in college —

this was really a very salient
experience for me —

I spent a summer in college

working at a welfare-to-work center
in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

And you know, got to know and work with
women who were my age at the time,

probably between 17 and 22,
and they were all moms receiving welfare,

and they had to go to this training program
in order to keep their benefits.

But that summer just, you know,
really sort of cemented my interest

in thinking about how policies
and economic conditions

affect the decisions and well-being
of women and families.

And so that's been
a common thread of my research

throughout my time as
an academic economist.

>>[DEYOUNG] So I'm not an expert
in these things. I'm a pastor.

My PhD is in history,
but I like reading these things.

And so I was interested to read not only you
citing Sarah McLanahan a number of times,

but you had her at Princeton.

So tell us about her influence,

and anyone who's read in
this area of marriage and family

knows that she's done lots of really
important empirical research.

What role did she play in your
intellectual formation or interest in this?

>>[KEARNEY] Sarah McClanahan
really was a pioneer in this field.

She created or launched what was called
“The Fragile Family Survey”

that you know, interviewed and collected data

on unmarried parents at the time of their
child's birth and tracked them over time.

And so it's really a credit to Sarah McClanahan

that we have as much information as we do

on these particularly vulnerable families:
unmarried parents, mostly low-income.

And so she really trained
a lot of students in this field.

I am actually not— I don't consider
myself a direct trainee of Sarah.

She was a sociologist,

but I did have the great fortune
of taking her Sociology of Poverty class

when I was an undergrad,
even though I was an economics major.

And it was in her class that I was really
introduced to this topic of family structure

as it relates to poverty and child well-being.

I think that was really formative

because economists sort of pose
questions in different ways.

And so my work as an economist
over the past 20 plus years,

looking at inequality and poverty

has tended to focus on issues
other than family structure.

>>[DEYOUNG] Mm-hm.

[KEARNEY] But I was, like, teed up to
recognize the importance of that early on,

having been exposed to Sarah McLanahan
as a professor and her work from early on.

And so, actually, that's sort of
the confluence of those events,

me being an economist,
bringing an economist lens to the topic.

But knowing Sarah McClanahan's work
really well, I think has just kept me noticing.

Every time there's a study on inequality,
social mobility, kids outcomes,

you just see how important
family structure is in the data.

And so, I think, you know, it was she—

knowing her work, having her teach me
early on in my studies of these topics

has just sort of heightened my awareness

of the role of family structure in driving
these kinds of economic outcomes.

>>[DEYOUNG] Give you the lens to see
what maybe other people haven't seen

or didn't want to see.

We'll get to that in a moment.
But let's jump into your book.

So I'm talking to Melissa Kearney,
“The Two-Parent Privilege:

How Americans Stopped Getting
Married and Started Falling Behind.”

It just came out this fall,
published by University of Chicago Press.

So big-picture question,
What is the “two-parent privilege”?

[KEARNEY] The two-parent privilege,
as I'm using the term, refers to the fact

that having two parents in one's home
confers a lot of advantages to children.

This is VERY well established in the data
and in empirical research.

The reason I call it a privilege is because
not only is this a very advantageous situation,

but increasingly in this country,

this has become an advantageous situation

enjoyed disproportionately
by an already advantaged class.

And so it's really now
college-educated parents

who continue to raise their kids in
two-parent homes at very high rates.

Meanwhile, over the past 40 years,

the share of children being raised
in two-parent households,

among those who were born to parents
WITHOUT a four-year college degree

has decreased by a really sizable amount
and has just been a steady downward trend.

And so now, having a two-parent
family is yet another privilege

of the already most privileged
economic class in American society.

>>[DEYOUNG] So this is how you put it.

You have some great summaries
at the end and at the beginning,

but here's one in the preface.

You say, I've studied U.S. poverty,
inequality, family structure

for almost a quarter of a century.

I approached these issues as a hard-headed,
albeit soft-hearted MIT-trained economist.

Based on the overwhelming evidence at hand,
I can say with the utmost confidence

that the decline in marriage and
the corresponding rise in the share

of children being raised in one-parent homes

has contributed to the economic
insecurity of American families;

has widened gap in opportunities
and outcomes

for children from different backgrounds;

and today poses economic
and social challenges

that we cannot afford to ignore,
but may not be able to reverse.”

I found a quotation just again, Sarah
McClanahan and Isabel Sawhill say

(this is the 2015 journal “Future of Children”)

quote “Most scholars now agree

that children raised by two biological
parents in a stable marriage

do better than children and other family
forms across a wide range of outcomes.”

I want to dive into the data
that you give in just a moment,

but back up a little bit and talk about
Why is this so hard to talk about?

because it's very clear in reading your book

that you're trying very hard
to stick with the data

and not to make moral value judgments.

I'm a pastor, so I can't avoid, you know,
when I'm speaking from the Bible,

making some value judgments
that I think the Bible teaches.

But that's obviously not what you're doing,
and you're studiously trying to avoid that.

And yet, you talk at the beginning

about how these conversations
at academic conferences,

“I'm an economist, much more comfortable
talking about earned income tax credit

and other kind of policy.”

And when you talk about,
well, what about marriage?

It's the proverbial lead balloon.

What has your experience been?

Why is even talking about this so difficult,

probably, especially for someone
like you in academic atmosphere?

[KEARNEY, chuckling] That's right.

So I have had plenty of people
comment on my book.

This isn't hard for ME to talk about.

I talk about it with my church friends
all the time.

>>[DEYOUNG] Uh-huh. Right.

[KEARNEY But in academic settings,

it's difficult, and there's
a lot of reasons here.

I'm going to say most of them
are very, very well intentioned,

which is that most of us
don't want to sound like

we're blaming single mothers
for their difficult circumstances…

>>[DEYOUNG] Right.

[KEARNEY] …and the relative disadvantage
that their children suffers.

And I mean, I certainly don't want
to sound like I'm blaming mothers.

But also very sincerely, I mean this.
I'm NOT blaming the single mothers.

I'm recognizing that
this is a challenging situation.

Any of us who are parents would, I think,
readily recognize that parenting is difficult.

Doing it by oneself is, you know,
that much more difficult.

So there's a genuine empathy there.

But I think people get nervous about calling
attention to the relative disadvantage

that kids from single mother homes face

because it sounds like we're blaming
people who are in a very tough spot.

>>[DEYOUNG] Right.

[KEARNEY] Right? And I think we should
be very capable of recognizing

that single parents — the majority
of whom are still single moms —

single parents are in a very difficult spot,
and that puts their kids in a difficult spot.

And so we should be able to recognize that
and have an honest conversation about it.

The other reason I think as academics,
as economists interested in policy,

it becomes difficult for us to talk about

is because we don't have a very good answer

to the critical question of:
“Well, what do we do about it?”

>>[DEYOUNG] Yes.

>>[KEARNEY] Right? So if we talk instead

about the fact that our tax code
is not progressive enough

or we're not raising enough revenue

to cover expenses of things
we feel like we might need to pay for,

like more early childhood education
or more public subsidies of childcare,

it's pretty easy for us to sit in a room

and come up with ways to make
the tax code more progressive

or design transfer programs
to reach more people.

It becomes a lot harder for us,
and it takes us out of our real comfort zone

when it comes to things like:

How do we affect very personal
decisions people are making

about how to form their families
and raise their children?

>>[DEYOUNG] Right. Yeah.

It's very personal, and it's almost impossible

for any of us to talk about this or hear it
without thinking of how I grew up,

how I'm raising my kids.

Do I have kids, all these personal things?
I think that's why it's so difficult.

There was a survey.
I found these a couple years ago.

It's an online survey,
whatever they're worth.

I don't know the scientific methodology here,

but it said, more than
70% of participants believed

that a single parent can do
just as good a job as two parents.

60% of women (quote) “agreed that children
do best with multiple adults invested,

but two married parents
are not necessary.”

Christina Cross, a few years ago,
in The New York Times,” had an article,
“The Myth of the Two-Parent Home.”

And even as I say those,
I feel myself wanting to say,

“Uh, yeah, we're not just all the things
you just said, Melissa.”

We’re not saying that, you know,

the single mom
is to blame for all these problems,

You know, where's the dad?

The dad is, you know,
for any number of reasons —

and we're going to get to talking about
boys and dads and just a bit —

But I think that just underscores those
surveys for whatever they're worth.

I imagine people getting that phone call
or online, being asked that question

and thinking, “Well, I don't want to say

that married couples
are better than anyone else.

Of course. Any number of people.

And one of the myths — and I'd love
for you to expound on this here —

one of the myths you talk about
several times in the book,

is that people have the idea,

“Well, sure, people aren't married

and kids aren't being raised
as much in married families.

But it's just kind of European style,
laissez-faire relationships.

And it's the same thing.

It's just people haven't gone through
the formal structures of getting married.”

Is that true?

>>[KEARNEY] Let me answer that

and then come back to address
the earlier points that you made,

specifically about some of the reactions.

So that is completely NOT true,
which is really important

because, again, since I'm taking
an economist lens to this issue,

what really matters
in the way I describe, frame, model,

and then empirically study marriage
is the resources coming into a household.

TIME 16:09

So if you had two parents
who were together the whole time

committed to sharing their resources,
which is their income, their time,

their energy to raising kids together
throughout a kid's childhood,

In my version (economic version)
of this story, it shouldn't matter,

but at a very practical level,

that's NOT what unmarried parents are doing.

40% of kids in this country are
now born to unmarried parents.

52% of kids born to moms
without a four-year college degree

are born to unmarried parents.

70% of children born to Black moms
in this country, unmarried parents.

These parents aren't married
at the time of the child's birth.

And as a practical matter,

very few of them will be together
cohabiting, raising their kids together

by the time this child is 5 years old,
let alone 14 years old.

This is one of the things we see in the data

that Sarah McClanahan collected
with her colleagues.

And so, at a practical level, marriage --

and then, you know, there's a whole bunch
of theories as to why this is true --

but marriage just provides
an institutional framework, essentially,

that keeps parents together in this
arrangement raising their kids together.

And so we can't be blasé about
these really high number of kids

being raised in an unmarried-parent home,
being born to unmarried parents,

because, again, just very
what does that mean, practically?

It means that most of them
will grow up in a one-parent home.

Okay, let me talk specifically

just to respond to the reactions
or critics that you raise.

You know, 70% of adults say it's fine for kids
to be raised in a single-mother home.

Well, that could mean very many things.

First, of course, there are lots of children

who are raised by single moms
who do phenomenally well.

And there are plenty of single moms
who have enough income

or, you know, a village around them
such that they can raise their kids

in ways that are enriching home environments,

and the kids can do very well.

I'm focused on averages and large trends.

And so we can all recognize the heroic efforts

that some single moms go to

to make sure their kids are just
as successful as anyone else's children.

But that doesn't mean that on average,

two parents in a home don't have
an easier time than one parent.

And again, what we see
in the data very clearly

is that in a typical situation, two-parent
homes deliver more benefits to kids

and kids are more likely
to stay out of poverty,

graduate high school, graduate college,

achieve these markers of, you know,
just sort of basic markers of success,

setting aside personal, you know,
qualities that we want in our children.

The Christina Cross
New York Times, you know, piece

that said the myth of the two-parent family,
what she was arguing really is that—

and she and I come to
different conclusions—

what she was arguing is that
if you look at Black families,

the benefit of marriage wouldn't
be as great as for White families,

and so she's like, “marriage
doesn't solve our problems.”

And here's how I think about this.

And I've done extensive research on this

and I've written academic paper,
and I described this in the book.

The way we should think about
the benefits of marriage to a child

depends on what the second parent
would bring into the home.

So if the second parent is not stably
employed or has low income

or isn't committed to the child,
or in extreme situations,

would be a harmful presence
or an abusive presence,

then there wouldn't be
a benefit of marriage.

But this doesn't mean that the decline
in the two-parent home isn't a crisis

for children and families in this country.

It means that it's not as easy as just saying
“more people should get married.”

It means we have to actually grapple with:

What is it that's keeping millions of parents
or millions of adults who have kids together

from getting married.

What is it that's keeping millions of dads
from being committed to their families.

It just it makes us look at
root causes of the problem,

it doesn't mean there's not a problem
or that two-parent homes aren't beneficial.

TIME 20:27

>>[DEYOUNG] Right, and I remember
looking at Cross's argument,

and you look at yes, there are differences
between Black families and White families;

and yet the data show that just again,
averages, it is better in America to be

(I mean, if you were
to predict adult outcomes)

to be a Black child raised by two parents,

than to be a White child
raised in a one-parent home.

So, yes, there's still differences, but—

and marriage, of course,
doesn't solve all problems.

I don't know who would argue that marriage
is going to solve all those problems.

But on the whole, all other things,
it's an advantage.

Melissa, you write about this in the book,

and you go through different
options and theories,

and, you know, like a good economist,

you have to say, “Well, it could
be this, and it could be that.

We can't finally determine.”

But where do you think,
in particular, this class divide goes?

So, you know, ten years ago in
Charles Murray's book, “Coming Apart,”

where he has, you know,
fictional Fishtown in Belmont,

and sort of, you know, in Belmont,

the upper middle class are living
one way, and in Fishtown, another way.

And one of the ironies he says is,

the people in this Belmont are
giving their stated views of one thing.

Like, it doesn't matter,
and yet the way they're living

shows a different kind of value system:

that “graduate school, get married,
then have your children,”

which you know, lots of studies show,
you do those things in that order.

And the chances of you being in poverty
in this country are very small.

So how, where did the very stark division—

Because it wasn't like this you show.

I mean, it wasn't like this in 1960
that there was such a division

between, you know,
“the Haves” and “the Have Nots”

getting even wider apart
on their very marital formation.

How did we get here?

>>[KEARNEY] Yeah, so this has really--
this class gap in family structure

and the share of kids
being raised in two-parent homes

has emerged over the past 40 years.

And frankly, this is why
anybody who professes to be

concerned about income inequality
or the erosion of social mobility

needs to contend with this

because two-parent homes
are very protective of children,

and they really increase, you know,

kids’ likelihood of hitting all
of these markers of success.

And so, what happened?

Well, here's the broad stroke of the story I tell

based on my reading of all
the data and relevant evidence,

which is, we had a social cultural
revolution in the ‘60s and ‘70s,

changed our expectations for marriage,
social norms around gender roles.

It eroded, a bit, the social convention

of needing to be married
to have kids together, okay?

And what we saw in the ‘60s and ‘70s

was a reduction in marriage
sort of across the board,

even proportion across adults
of different education levels.

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, things
diverged quite starkly

such that the decline in marriage
stalled, stopped declining among adults,

went men and women
with a four-year college degree.

So their rates of marriage
have barely declined in 40 years,

and we see that the share of kids being
raised in a married-parent home,

if they're born to a mom with
a four-year college degree,

that's decreased over this 40-year period by
only six percentage points, from 90% to 84%.

It's a very small decrease

when you realize how much bigger
and more diverse that group is.

So now about 30% of moms
have a four-year college degree

as compared to only about 11%,

and yet still, raising your kids
in a married-parent home

is holding steady among that class.

But in the ‘80s and ‘90s,

we saw that the share of kids being
raised in a married parent home,

not just for the most educationally
disadvantaged adults

without a high school degree,

but really interestingly, and I think
underappreciated in the middle.

So moms with a high school degree
or some college,

we might have considered them
sort of the middle class, right?

The likelihood that their kids are
being raised in a married-parent home

fell from 83% to 60%.

That is a massive drop in 40 years.

So now, where are we in 2020?

You know, we've got this really large,
very obvious class divergence.

I think part of this is driven

by the economic challenges facing
non–college-educated men in particular,

over the ‘80s, ‘90s and early 2000s.

We have a lot of research from economics

showing that secular global changes

think, you know, increased
import competition from abroad;

think, the adoption of technologies
and industrial robots

that pushed-- sort of both of those trends

pushed non–college-educated men
out of well-paying middle-class jobs,

either out of the workforce
or into lower paying jobs;

think, the erosion of unions and other
sort of wage-supporting institutions.

Basically, all of these trends were
unkind to non–college-educated workers,

which, in an economic sense,

made them less attractive or necessary
as marriage partners to the extent

that one of the things husbands do
is bring financial resources to a home.

And so that's, I think, part of the story.

But then you've got this,
you know, cyclical effect

where the economics make the institution
of marriage less attractive or necessary

because women outside
the college-educated class

are doing better compared to men, right?

So they're more likely to be
able to do it on their own,

and he's less likely to be a stable provider.

So you've got this confluence events,
and that changes the social norm

because now, more and more
people in your community,

having and raising their kids
outside a two-parent home,

and then these things amplify each other.

So you've got economics and social
changes amplifying each other.

And that's why this is a cycle
that really needs to be broken.

TIME 26:43

>>[DEYOUNG] So I want to come back
to those numbers in just a second.

I need to just mention our
irst sponsor, Crossway Books.

Thank you for sponsoring
Life & Books & Everything.

And today, I want to mention
their New Testament theology series.

Here's one of the volumes
[singsong as he shows the book]

on 2nd Corinthians by Dane Ortlund.

So thank you to Crossway for sponsoring LBE

and check out their good books
and that new series.

Uh, Melissa, I want to just underscore,

you have this nice chart, these numbers
you just gave here on the book.

So just to say, because this is really
important, and you just said this.

So four-year college. This is in 1980.

So 90% of children living
with married parents,

high school or college in 1980: 83%;
less than high school: 80%.

So that's a really tight—
Back in 1980, you know, 80-90%.

So whether you had high school,
some high school, college,

you're roughly the same.

In statistical terms, it's pretty close.

And then, I mean, you just show how
four-year college declines a little bit.

But these other 83[%] to 60[%],

from 80% to 57% is a major decline
among those less educated.

And you've talked about some
of the reasons why that may be

and about the “marriageable man” thesis.

And so you hit on that there.

I want to ask the question.
So maybe it's twofold.

The women -- because almost all
of these single-parent households

are headed by women -- Is it in the case

that they're looking to get married
and they just can't find the right guy?

Or is it the case that the norms are such

that marriage just isn't
something that they think of.

And then, you know, follow up is,
is there anything we can do about that?

I'm reminded of a quip…

I wrote an article last year
for "First Things,"

which is a Catholic journal
about declining fertility rates,

and I looked at all of the things they've
tried to do in Japan and other places

which have had almost no effect
on increasing fertility,

and somebody had this line, you know,

“Government programs can help you maybe
encourage you to have the kids you want,

but they won't convince you
to have the kids you don't want.”

And it’s maybe sort of
the same with marriage.

There are some policy things.

If you want to get married, they can help it.

But if you're not looking for that,
what can we do?

>>[KEARNEY] This is a really important point,

which is that there does
not seem to be evidence

that people in the U.S. have whole-scale
rejected the institution of marriage.

I know there are some groups

that essentially say marriage
is a patriarchal institution,

and it's not compatible
with modern day feminism.

And so, of course, you're going
to have a reduction in marriage.

And let me just say before I go further on this

that let's keep coming back to the fact
that college-educated women,

the most economically successful women
perhaps in the history of, like, the world.

We're still getting married and raising
our kids in married-
parent homes.

So I reject the proposition
that marriage is inherently at odds

with any feminist view of women's
economic participation or success.

So then it's the question of:

“Well, why has marriage fallen out of favor
outside the college-educated class?”

And when you look at
the ethnographic evidence

and the qualitative surveys
of low-income couples,

unmarried couples who avail themselves

of some of the government programs

or government-funded programs,
their community-offered programs

that work with unmarried parents
trying to strengthen families,

what you see in those interviews
and those qualitative studies

is that a lot of these couples
say they want to be together.

And we saw this in the
“Fragile Family” survey, too, right?

They say they want to be together,
they plan to be together.

And then for a whole variety of reasons,
they can't make that work.

This too should really affect our willingness
to grapple with this as an equity issue.

If you've got high income couples,
highly educated couples

who are managing to achieve

and make this very advantageous
structure work for them,

shouldn't we want more people

who say they WANT to be
able to have a two-parent home

and a happy, healthy marriage,

shouldn't we help them achieve it,

even if they can't pay for high-priced
marriage counseling or whatever.

What do you see? There are real barriers?

There's economic instability

that makes someone either less willing
to commit to taking care of a family

or makes, you know,
the mother of his children

less likely to accept him as a resident dad.

>>[DEYOUNG] Right.

>>[KEARNEY] You see substance abuse,
you see mental health challenges.

You see a lot of these adults grew up in homes

that weren't characterized
by stable, healthy marriages,

growing up in communities where their
friends and cousins and other role models

are not raising their kids in this way.

So here's an opportunity for community
groups and for public funding

and philanthropic groups
and for church groups to say:

“What can we do
to help strengthen families

to meet them where they are
and help make them stronger?”

At the same time, creating a
social convention and expectation

among children being raised and teenagers now

that this is something to strive for.

This will make your household
more economically viable.

It will confer benefits to your children.

So it's both meeting families
where they are now.

But I think, setting our sights on:

“What do we want to accomplish
going forward and how do we get there?

>>[DEYOUNG] That's great. And really helpful.

You have a great chapter on boys and dads,
and I'm going to ask you a question,

not so much as an economist
(so you know, if you want to answer it or not)

but as a teacher and as a professor,
and maybe the sort of students
that are coming to University of Maryland

are so self-selecting of such a high
elite caliber that you wouldn't see this.

But I just wonder in your years of teaching,

there's lots of social science research
on the ways that boys are falling behind.

And we can even say anecdotally,
young men are drawn to online influencers,

some of whom you are sort of helpful,
some of whom are really unhelpful.

I just wonder, have you sensed something?

I mean, you work with
young people of different ages.

Have you sensed in,
you know, the last generation

that there are more challenges
or more anxiety, despondency?

What are you, sort of on the ground, sense?
And in particular, about boys and men?

TIME 33:53

>>[KEARNEY] I think the single biggest
thing that gets me down as a professor,

and, you know, I've been working with
the young adults now for almost 20 years.

There really is, you just see it,
just a widespread anxiety among them

(men and women alike)

that I just I don't I don't think--
I certainly didn't notice it 20 years ago.

Now, I'm very aware of the fact
that I've been a parent.

And so now I see these 20-year-olds.

Is like closer and closer
to my own children.

>>[DEYOUNG] Right. Uh-huh.

>>[KEARNEY] But the amount of kids,
I mean, KIDS, right? They're young adults.

They’re like 18 to 22 who come to my office.

Often--Like you know, young men, too,
I'll call them in, and I'll say,

“What happened?
happened on the test,” right?

“Like, what happened?
Do you come to class? Like, what?”

And they're big guys,
and they have their hoodie up,

and they look like they don't care.

>>[DEYOUNG] Uh-huh.

>>[KEARNEY] And then they'll start crying.

And they'll be like-- You know,
I'm not I'm not making this up, right?

And all of these anecdotes
are part of the reason

why I felt so like I had to write this book,

even though I don't tell
these anecdotes in the book.

They'll be like, you know, “My parents
just announced they're getting divorced.

I think they thought it was okay
because we're at college now,

but I'm having a tough semester.”

Or you know, “My grandma raised me,
and it was just me and my grandma

and my grandma died,
and I'm having a tough semester.”

Or “I can't figure out what I'm
going to do with the rest of my life,

and I'm really stressed

and I'm supposed to be interviewing
for jobs, and I just don't know.”

And just the amount of sadness
and anxiety among young people

who have their whole lives ahead of them.

>>[DEYOUNG] Yeah.

>>[KEARNEY] Right?
I think just should be filled with energy.

And I don't want to overtell this story

because there is something that's also
really energizing among young people.

But I just, I worry about them. I do.

I worry about them, and I wish as adults,
we could do more to make them feel

comfortable and confident and safe
and secure, and, like, it's okay.

>>[DEYOUNG] Yeah. Do you think boys
in particular are wondering--

Well, I suppose, men and women,

but you know, you talk about
the incredible importance of dads.

And, you know, that wonderful story
about the dad (was it in Louisiana?)

who showed up at school,
and gang participation plummeted.

And even some of the metrics you give with—
It even seems that boys in the home

are more affected by the lack
of a father than girls are.

>>[KEARNEY] Yeah, I mean, again, this comes
out of really rigorous econometric studies.

We see that the gender gap favoring girls

(meaning girls are now less likely
to get in trouble at school;

they've always been,
but that gap has widened).

They're more likely to graduate high school.
They're more likely to go to college.

Again, girls are more likely
to hit all these markers of success.

This has been happening over the same
decade that we've had a tremendous rise

in the share of kids growing up
without dads in their home.

And researchers, economists
have worked very hard

to establish a causal link here showing
that that gender gap that favors girls

is wider among kids coming from mother-
only homes than two-parent homes.

And then economists have gone further
and looked at the mechanisms

and shown that the absence
of additional parental inputs,

meaning time nurturing parenting
that kids from single-parent homes get.

Again, not because single moms
aren't great parents.

It's because they don't have a second
parent in the house to help, right?

>>[DEYOUNG] My wife is always saying,
“I don't know how I would do this.”

I certainly don't know how I would do it.

>>[KEARNEY] So this isn't
to impugn single moms.

Again, it's to say that there are more
parenting resources in two-parent homes,

and we see that lower level of parenting
inputs and nurturing parenthood

has a large, larger effect on
the behaviors and outcomes of boys.

I want to be careful because I don't think
we should erroneously conclude from that

that girls aren't necessarily struggling.

But girls might be struggling
in different ways.

Whereas boys, again, we know on average
are more likely to express their struggles

by acting out in ways that are going to get
them suspended, in trouble with the law,

all sorts of things that could really
impede their educational and economic—

>>[DEYOUNG] They have outward
aggressive, noticeable, public

>>[KEARNEY] Again, on average, right?

>>[DEYOUNG] Uh huh.

>>[KEARNEY] And so that's bad for them.

This, too, is why this is
SO important to intervene.

Like, from all angles and break this

because let's get back to why
we think there's a reduction

in marriage outside the college-educated class.

Men are either viewing themselves

as less likely to be stable,
good providers for family.

Women are less likely to view them that way.

Then you have millions of boys being
raised without dads in their house.

That actually makes them less likely

to be in a position to be, you know,

stably employed, emotionally stable,
supportive husbands and fathers.

And this gets back to something
else you brought up with.

Well, the elite class is
raising their kids in this way.

And frankly, it's I mean, not only does it
reject the overwhelming evidence and data

showing that kids benefit from
having dads in their homes,

but it's extraordinarily elitist and
obnoxious, quite frankly, to say:

“No, my kid benefits from having me
in the home because I'm a great guy

and I can read to them
and really equip them.”

But do we really expect the, you know, 40%
of kids who are born to less-educated dads

to benefit from their fathers?

Like, “Let's give up on those guys

and just assume a government
program is going to make up for them”?

And I just I refuse to resign
ourselves to that view of society.

>>[DEYOUNG] Yeah.
Oh, I hadn't thought of it that way,

but there is a level of self-aggrandizement.

“Of course, I'm valuable.

I wouldn't want my kids to be without,
because I'm a very special parent.”

Well, we're all probably all probably capable
of being better parents than we think,

and we're probably less special
than we think at the same time.

>>[KEARNEY] Kevin, this is analogous
to the conversation about college.

And we know that people with a college
degree do better in the labor market.

And there's a push to try and get
more people through college, right?

We have lots of policy interventions
aimed at doing that.

But there's a group of people that says,
“Well, not everybody needs college.”

And the critics of that view always say,
“But ask them if they're
sending THEIR kid to college.”

Right?

>>[DEYOUNG] Right. Yes.

>>[KEARNEY] It’s a similar thing.

Like, “Well, YOU don't need two parents,
and your kid doesn't go to college.

But by the way, I'm going to shower
two parents’ worth of resources on my kid

and make sure they go
to a four-year college.”

>>[DEYOUNG] Yeah, I wonder--
I would love to-- I mean, if you're willing,

how does this affect how you are as a mom?

If your kids are anything like my kids,
they are not going to read your book.

>>[KEARNEY laughs]

>>[DEYOUNG] Maybe your kids
are really high over achievers,

But I've written some stuff,
and I try to gift it.

“No, I'm not interested in it.”

But this is informing and is shaped by
and probably downstream in some ways

from your own parenting.

What sort of messages,

given the expertise you have in this area,
are you trying to give to your own kids?

>>[KEARNEY] To be overt, I am very aware
of the fact that my kids are growing up,

not only in a two-parent
household themselves,

but surrounded by people who are
being raised in two-parent household--

>>[DEYOUNG] Which is huge.

>>KEARNEY] because that's what it looks like
in, you know, sort of well-off community,

which is where we live.

I mean, I'm very open about the fact

that I recognize my kids are being
raised in a very privileged setting.

And so it's you know, kids absorb
what they see around them.

And again, we know this from evidence,
even though it also is incredibly intuitive

that kids’ world view is shaped
by what they experience.

And so I mean, I probably should talk about it
more explicitly, let's say, with my kids,

but I don't really worry
that my daughters are thinking

that maybe they would become
young unmarried mothers.

That's-- I mean, I'm not foolish
to think that things don't happen.

>>[DEYOUNG] Right, for sure.

>[KEARNEY] But that's not really something

they observe very often in the people around
them that they're being raised with, right?

And so they just sort of, by default,
expect that they're going to go to college.

And also, you know, interesting
for me as a mom,

they see me and my sisters
all working and having careers.

And I assume that that affects
the way they think of it.

Now, my daughters also think I work too much,
and they don't want to work as much…

>>[DEYOUNG chuckles]

>[KEARNEY] …which is also fair, right?
Like they’re definitely--

But that was something actually, I grew up
in a different generation than my mom,

where I assumed I was going
to work and have a career,

but then, thinking of my own mom,

but I also assumed I was going to have
kids and be a really involved mom

and there was some conflict there.

So I think about that a lot, you know,

how our kids see us and our communities
affect what the aspirations…

>>[DEYOUNG] Yeah. Absolutely.

>>[KEARNEY] …you know,
they have for themselves.

>>[DEYOUNG] So, maybe
that's a good transition

to sort of a last line of questioning.

I do want to— Let's see. I’ll mention one
other sponsor, Desiring God, new book:

“Foundations for Lifelong Learning,
Education, and Serious Joy” by John Piper,

available next week when this is recorded.

So check that out. Always great
to see what John is writing there

about education and serious joy.

Thank you to Desiring God.

That's a great transition because you
used a phrase a number of times in the book,

and this is really what you're talking about,

“social norms” because there are
lots of things as an economist,

you think about different policies,
and those things do matter.

They're not irrelevant.
They can nudge people.

They can make certain decisions
more or less likely or palatable.

But then you have this big bucket
Of, well, social norms.

One of the things I underlined
throughout the book

that you would often mention
as a kind of aside, you'd say,

“Well, Asian families
are the exception to this.”

And I couldn't help but say,

“Well, there are some
very strong social norms,

that's not just a stereotype.”

I mean, there's data to support that.

Very strong social norms about marriage,
about education, about all these things.

So is there a possibility to affect
social norms? How do we go about it?

Because it seems like the biggest thing—

We can do lots of things around the edges
to try to help push people

in the right direction for the well-being
of society and their families and kids.

And yet, social norms are very—

There's no program to change
a community’s social norms.

>>[KEARNEY] This is why this is a hard issue
for like economists and policy wonks

Because, like you said, we could do
all sorts of tinkering around the edges.

I can propose (and I have proposed)
changes to the tax code

that would be less punishing,
frankly, of marriage.

There are definitely
tinkering policy things—

>>[DEYOUNG] If you get
more tax breaks for having kids.

I have nine kids, so I welcome
as many as you can get. [chuckles]

>>[KEARNEY] Yeah, I'm all for
an expanded child tax credit.

I'm all for a child allowance.

I'm certainly for what I've referred to
as a secondary earner tax deduction

so that we don't penalize married couples
or two workers when they get married.

We have all sorts of ways
we could tinker around the edges,

and I think those will, you know,
l

ike you said, nudge some people
and have incremental effects.

But really turning this around is going to
require a change in social conventions,

and now you're moving further and further
away from the economist policy tool kit.

But again, you know, some critics are like:

“Oh, she tells us this big problem
and then there's no real solutions.”

But in some sense, one of the things
I'm trying to accomplish with this book is,

“Here, I know there's a problem…

>>[DEYOUNG] Right.

>>[KEARNEY] …Now, all of you who do things
more than just tinker with the tax code,

let's address this together.” This is--

>>[DEYOUNG] This is pastors
and communities and other, yeah--

>>[KEARNEY] There are things we could do.

Now, that's on the one hand.

On the other hand,
(because I am an economist,

that's how we do things:
“on the one hand, on the other hand”),

Social norms are surprisingly malleable,
and they can also change very quickly.

And we have, again,
good social science evidence

showing that things like role models
matters (we were just discussing);

things like media messaging matters.

Let me give you a couple examples.

Eliana La Ferrara and her colleagues

have shown that in Brazil,
when soap operas came on TV—

this is sort of amazing--

using variation in where they
were viewed at different timing,

they document a causal link, exposure
to the smaller families and divorce on—

you know, like in those communities
that saw those media images,

that led to a change in family formation,
an increase in divorce, fewer kids.

Like people responded by
emulating what they saw on TV.

In a very different setting, my colleague
Phil Levin and I looked at what happened

when the “16 and Pregnant” and
“Teen Mom” franchise came on MTV

>>[DEYOUNG] Yeah, talk about that.

That was a really
interesting point of the book.

>>[KEARNEY] This is crazy.

All of a sudden, one year,
teen childbearing in the U.S.

went down by way more
than it had been falling.

So teen childbearing
had been falling in the U.S.

And then one year,
there was a really large drop.

And we had studied this issue

enough to know [that] it wasn't
the unemployment rate.

It wasn't sex ed.

What could this be?

It turns out that when this show came on TV,
which millions of teenagers watched,

it was a pretty realistic depiction
of how unglamorous it was to be pregnant at 16,

>>[DEYOUNG]
“16 and Pregnant” is the MTV show.

>>[KEARNEY] “16 and Pregnant.”

And so we had an R.A. [research assistant?]

watch all the shows
and code up what happens.

Well, what happens?
Most of the boyfriends don't stick around.

Most of these young girls are stuck with
a crying baby in the middle of the night.

Like, you might have thought that people
would know being a teen mom was hard,

but apparently, this was really salient.

And in those communities

where more people were watching
MTV before this show even came on

(so MTV just had more market
penetration in certain areas).

When this show came on the air,

you saw a larger reduction in teen
childbearing in those places.

And so the idea here is: Gosh, this show
really changed hearts and minds

in ways that affected behaviors
that affected birth rates.

And so we got access
to Google and Twitter data,

and you see that when these episodes aired,

there would be a spike in Google
searching for how to get birth control.

There would be a spike in tweets
mentioning this show and birth control.

So there was this idea
that people saw this show

and decided they didn't want
to become pregnant as a teenager.

Which again, it's just really amazing
because it validates this idea

that exposure to content and ideas
affects people's attitudes

in ways that affects their behaviors,

even in the really complicated domains of
marriage, family formation, and having kids.

>>[DEYOUNG] It was really fascinating.

I've heard of the show.

I can't say I've watched it before
or that we have a lot of MTV on.

But yeah, I mean, you did the homework

to show there's probably
some connection there.

You say at the end of the book:

“Here are things we should do
to address the challenges I've laid out,

and then some things
I do not think we should do.”

And these are good.

But I want to highlight two
because I just wonder:

How do we do both of these things?

So here's what you say we should do:

“Work to restore and foster a norm
of two-parent homes for children.”

Good.

“Here's one thing we should not do:

Stigmatize single mothers
or encourage unhealthy marriages.”

So I agree with both of those things.

Here's what I wrestle with a lot,
and I wrestle with it as a pastor

and it’s stigma.

So we think of stigma
as universally a bad thing,

and yet we want to stigmatize
racism or all sorts of things.

There are bad behaviors that our culture
and our communities do a lot to say:

“That's a bad thing to do.”

So I think as a pastor-- and I don't
know what your views are on this.

I'm not presuming
that you share these personal views.

But, I believe the Bible says
that sex before marriage is wrong,

but also the Bible says
you can be forgiven for that.

And it's not the end of your life.

And so, on the one hand, I think
about our church community,

which has a pretty thick culture

and what you described,
you know, your neighborhood,

there are certain norms.

There are certain things that it just
looks normal to have a mom and a dad.

It looks normal to work hard at school.
It looks normal to not do drugs.

[It looks normal] to pursue education.

All of these things are good.

And so there would be if somebody in
our church, you know, was 16 and pregnant,

it would raise eyebrows and
there'd be something of a stigma.

So on the one hand, I wanna say—

>>[KEARNEY] But also hope you guys
would love her and embrace her

and pay for her diapers and--

>>[DEYOUNG] Yes, absolutely.

So what I'm getting to is:

How do we do it so that the behavior,
like in our case, would be stigmatized,

but the person is not cast off.

And in fact, somebody said,
this really just helped open my eyes.

Of course, I should-- You know,
it's not even out-of-wedlock births.

I mean, we should, from my perspective,
applaud the mom who is going through

and having the child and working
to, you know, sacrifice so much.

We want to applaud that decision, I do.

So it's always this push and pull
of how to establish norms,

because norms say something is normal.

But then when something is outside of
that normal, as you were right to interject,

yeah, I want our community to love
that mom and sign up for meals,

which I know they would
and buy diapers and do all of that.

How do you think about
that as an economist

or even just as a mom or as—

>>[KEARNEY] As a person? [chuckles]

>>[DEYOUNG] Yeah.

I mean, I think you
completely put your finger

on probably the hardest needle
I'm trying to thread

by saying those two things.

And somebody said directly to me,
like, “We DO need to bring back shame.”

But there's, you know, there's a role for it.
So here's what I mean when I say that.

I'll give you examples of
things on those two points--

>>[DEYOUNG] Mm-hmm.

>>[KEARNEY] that I would and wouldn’t do.

So the stigma of single moms and
their kids that basically in the past,

made them outcast from society,

let's all agree we should
never go back to that, right?

We do not want women feeling like they're
trapped in abusive marriages, right?

And we do not want children
and their single parents

to be even more deprived of resources

by punishing them for where they are.

>>[DEYOUNG] You're 18, and you get
a second-class life for the rest of it.

>>[KEARNEY] Yeah. And here you are.

So those are terribly counterproductive
approaches that we should never go back to.

At the same time, I mean,

I'm not going to totally point my finger
at like Disney Plus or Netflix or Hollywood.

But you know, the television portrayal
of families has gone so far to say:

“Hey, it's totally fine.”

You know, this one's being raised
with her mom and her new boyfriend,

but her old boyfriend is still they're
all good friends and it's awesome.

But that's, like, such a farce.
That's not really what it looks like.

So let's be honest that, you know,

we could accept and love
all sorts of family arrangements,

while still being honest about
what is best for kids in particular.

And by the way, it's not great for single
parents who tend to be under-resourced

to be doing this by themselves.

So, the kinds of things about fostering norms,

for instance, a lot of the social
service agencies or programs

for, you know, single moms and
their kids, the dads will tell you this:

You go into those buildings,
and the picture,

like, the logo is basically a mom and
her daughter, or a mom and her child.

>>[DEYOUNG] Yeah.

>>[KEARNEY]
There's not even a dad in the picture, right?

>>[DEYOUNG] Right, that’s a norm.

>>[KEARNEY] And so these responsible
fatherhood programs walk in,

and they're like, the dad
isn't even in the picture.

In an effort to being sort of
welcoming of the reality

that a lot of these programs
serve single moms and their kids,

there's not even an expectation
of a dad being around.

And that kind of subtlety,
I think matters, right?

So, I was even talking to a woman

who runs a program for lifting up
single moms, and I said to her:

“Well, you're part of the solution.
You're working to strengthen families.”

And she stopped, and very thoughtfully,
she said, “But I've never thought to ask,
where's the dad? Why isn't he around?”

And that's a bit of a mind shift, right?

To say, let's think about
strengthening families.

Let's talk about the importance
of dads, how they can contribute

without stigmatizing the one
parent and their child so strongly

that they feel like they're
not enveloped in support.

>>[DEYOUNG] Right, yeah,
and I think you said earlier,

this is going to happen at
a personal level and community level.

I mean, I think of a number of women
in our church who volunteer

with a Christian Young Lives
program that reaches out

and my younger daughters have volunteered
to do some of the babysitting

so these single moms can get training,

and, you know, in our context,
it’s Bible studies and other things.

And there's lots of people
who do care about these things.

And anybody listening who does,

there are things and good programs that
can make a difference and help with these.

So my last question for you.

Thank you so much
for writing this book, Melissa.

If any of my kids go
to the University of Maryland,

it's not on their list, but if they do,
I'll tell them to take a class.

>>[KEARNEY, laughing] Great!

>>[DEYOUNG] You're doing undergrads.

What do you have coming up next?

What are you working on?
Academic books, popular books?

What are you doing?

Hopefully, you know, some of the negative
feedback you're probably getting on this book

doesn't keep you away from it
because it's really helpful.

>>[KEARNEY] I appreciate that.

I will say, because I wrapped up
this manuscript, you know, some time ago

before it actually shows up in print.

>>[DEYOUNG] In COVID, I think.

>>[KEARNEY] Yeah. Over the past two years,

I've been working a lot trying
to understand the decline in fertility,

which is another, you know,
not uncontroversial topic.

>>[DEYOUNG] Uh-huh.

>>[KEARNEY] But again, there's a lot
of economic causes and consequences

to the decline in fertility,
and so that's another one

where setting aside all sorts
of moral or value judgments

about how we think somebody
should live their lives.

The fact that in high income countries,
we are now below replacement level,

fertility is going to pose a lot of challenges
on our economic and social structures.

>>[DEYOUNG] Good.

>>[KEARNEY] Studying that is, you know,
what I've been thinking about.

>>[DEYOUNG] Well, I will read that.

>>[KEARNEY, laughing] Okay, great.

>>[DEYOUNG] Glad for you to write that.

It's really important.

Again, talking to Melissa,
“The Two-Parent Privilege:

How Americans Stopped Getting
Married and Started Falling Behind.”

Thank you so much for taking time

and working before we started this
to get all the mics and headsets.

And thank you to your husband.

>>[KEARNEY] It was a pleasure.
Thanks for having me.

>>[DEYOUNG] Yeah, thank you.

So thank you for listening
to Life & Books & Everything,

a ministry of Clearly Reformed.

You can get episodes like this and
other resources at clearlyreformed.org

Until next time glorify God,
enjoy him forever, read a good book.

♪ [up-tempo closing music] ♪

[END]