Karl Bakeman

Philip Cohen’s recent post about new research showing that states with more religious populations had higher teenage birth rates reminded me of a terrific article in The New Yorker by Margaret Talbot from last year. Talbot contrasts the different trends in families in red states and blue states. In the article, she interviews family-law scholars, Naomi Cahn, of George Washington University, and June Carbone, of the University of Missouri at Kansas City. They argue that “’red families’ and ‘blue families’ are ‘living different lives, with different moral imperatives.’

“The ‘blue states’ of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic have lower teen birthrates, higher use of abortion, and lower percentages of teen births within marriage,” Cahn and Carbone observe. They also note that people start families earlier in red states—in part because they are more inclined to deal with an unplanned pregnancy by marrying rather than by seeking an abortion. . . . Of all variables, the age at marriage may be the pivotal difference between red and blue families. . . . The red-state model puts couples at greater risk for divorce; women who marry before their mid-twenties are significantly more likely to divorce than those who marry later. And younger couples are more likely to be contending with two of the biggest stressors on a marriage: financial struggles and the birth of a baby before, or soon after, the wedding.

Divorce Rates

Both Cohen and Talbot highlight work by Mark Regnerus. Talbot’s article features his analysis of data drawn from of a survey that he did of thirty-four hundred thirteen-to-seventeen-year-olds and from a comprehensive government study of adolescent health known as Add Health. According to Talbot:

Regnerus argues that religion is a good indicator of attitudes toward sex, but a poor one of sexual behavior, and that this gap is especially wide among teen-agers who identify themselves as evangelical. The vast majority of white evangelical adolescents—seventy-four per cent—say that they believe in abstaining from sex before marriage.” However, “according to Add Health data, evangelical teen-agers are more sexually active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews. On average, white evangelical Protestants make their “sexual début”—to use the festive term of social-science researchers—shortly after turning sixteen. Among major religious groups, only black Protestants begin having sex earlier.

Not only are evangelical teens having sex earlier, but they are also less likely to use contraception, which would explain those high teen-pregnancy rates and also low median ages for marriage. Since virginity pledges and other evangelical strategies clearly aren’t working, Regnerus proposes that couples should get married younger instead. In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Regnerus argues that couples should marry early for many reasons including fertility, the ability to pool resources, and environmental sustainability. He also believes that “Marriage actually works best as a formative institution, not an institution you enter once you think you’re fully formed. We learn marriage, just as we learn language, and to the teachable, some lessons just come easier earlier in life.”

Mark raises some unexpected arguments in his op-ed, but there have also been some reasonable criticisms. Andy Cherlin highlights that the fertility benefit of marrying early is a relic of our pre-industrial era. There are very few benefits to having a large family today. In fact, many folks don’t see any benefit to having children at all. In his Huffington Post piece, Philip Cohen explains that Regnerus is “teaching to the choir.” He argues that most evangelicals are already encouraging earlier marriage (see covenant marriage policies, for example). Cohen writes:

I believe the truth is that, across the board — even among Christians, the poor, and poor Christians — the standards for marriage have increased as it has become less necessary for survival. I think that’s why people marry later and divorce more than they used to, but see no reason to postpone sex. Regnerus’s attempt to lower the bar for marriage — “weddings may be beautiful, but marriages become beautiful” — is probably futile