Marginalizing marriage or marginalizing Middle America?

What do you think could strengthen marriage in the US?

"The nation’s retreat from marriage, which started in low-income communities in the 1960s and 1970s, has now moved into Middle America. Take divorce. Today, moderately-educated Americans are more than twice as likely to divorce as college-educated Americans during the first ten years of marriage, and the divorce divide between these two groups has been growing since the 1970s."

The authors (one conservative, one liberal) of this Brookings Institution brief, "The Marginalization of Marriage in Middle America," agree that marriage is good for society, mostly because research indicates that children who grow up in families with two parents generally do better.

They have six recommendations:

1. Increase training for middle-skill jobs.

2. Increase the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for childless workers and reduce the marriage penalty.

3. Start a social marketing campaign.

4. Expand the Child Tax Credit.

5. Invest in preschool children’s development.

6. Reform divorce law.

One, two, four seem pretty straight-forward. I LOVE number five, obviously. I still don't understand why we as a country don't invest in universal preschool, when the returns are so high.

I'm not clear on how a social marketing campaign can turn this tide. Maybe though...when I think back to the sitcoms that I grew up with (Family Ties, Growing Pains, Cosby Show), vs. 10 years ago (Friends, Seinfeld) and what is big now (Jersey Shore, the Bachelor), our social mores around family have certainly changed. I also feel that TV has become really dumbed down and two-dimensional. In fact, I clicked on Charles in Charge the other day and was surprised by how witty and not dumbed down that show was. Weird huh? Not sure if that's related. Anyway, I wonder if the shows are a sign of the times or if the times are what drive the content of the shows.

The recommendation that I thought was the most questionable was the last one. The authors suggest that policies making divorce easier lead to higher divorce rates. While this may be true, their suggestions seem a bit too heavy handed. "Among the options that states should experiment with are the following: mandatory one-year waiting periods for couples with children, divorce education that alerts couples with children to the risks that divorce poses to their children, optional programs for couples who express an interest in reconciliation, and legal reforms that would allow judges to factor in breaches of the marital contract in making determinations about child custody and property division." In the first example, how would exemptions be determined, say in the case of emotional or physical violence? Seems a slippery slope to me! And although I think that being able to get divorced online is a little too easy, if one has children, the actual process of physical separation is certainly more complex than the one-click divorce.

The authors don't think really assess causes of divorce - such as money, stress, substance use. When I consider the stress that "Middle America" families face - a decline in suitable employment and real wages, working long hours, the stress of losing one's home....these factors seem like they might play a role in the divorce instead. Perhaps what we're seeing is a result of the marginalization of "Middle America" itself.