The Marriage Index

Who knew?  There is an official U.S. Marriage Index.  And we’re not looking so good.  A project of the Institute for American Values, the Marriage Index is an effort to quantify the health of marriage in the United States in the same way economists use indicators to figure out state of the country’s economy.  The Washington Post reports on the methodology:

The index combined five statistics — the percentage of adults between the ages of 20 and 54 who are married, the percentage of adults who reported being a “very happy” with their marriages, the percentage of first marriages intact, the percentage of births to married parents and the percentage of children living with their own married parents — to reach a composite score illustrating the state of America’s nuptial unions.

For the entire U.S. population:
In 1970, that score totaled 76.2;
By 2008 it had dropped to 60.3.

For African Americans:
In 1970, that score totaled 64.0;
By 2008 it had dropped to 39.6.

So what does this mean, and why does it matter?  Marriage matters, if only for the children.

The “father” of the Marriage Index, David Blankenhorn, laments:

“There’s a lot of genuine opinion out there that really marriage is something that we ought to leave to people’s private decision-making and it’s not society’s business to get into,” he concedes. “You’re going into their bedroom. You’re going into their private lifestyle choices. You’re going into situations you can’t possibly understand.”

Blankenhorn takes issue with that stance largely because marriage has such a significant impact on children. He points to statistics showing that kids who grow up in homes where their parents are married to each other are, on average, less likely to live in poverty, to have emotional or behavioral problems, to engage in premature sexual activity, to use drugs or commit suicide.

“Every single pathology or problem or difficulty a child can experience — every single one — growing up outside of a married-couple home elevates the risk,” he says.

Blankenhorn’s hope is that the index, a collaborative effort by 15 academics, researchers and policy experts intended for release every other year, will become a bellwether signaling the direction marriage is headed in the United States. And that it will galvanize concern and support for the institution.

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