The Two-Parent Privilege:
How Americans Stopped Getting
Married and Started Falling Behind
THE TWO PARENT PRIVILEGE: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind (University of Chicago Press) makes a data-driven, research-based argument in favor of marriage as a crucial tool to reverse the great economic disparities found today in the United States. Drawing upon decades of research (including her own), Kearney shows clearly that a decline in marriage rates has also meant a decline in prosperity for American men, women, and children. If we can, as a society, work to strengthen families and increase rates of marriage, especially between adults who have children together, not for moral or religious reasons but for economic ones, she argues, we can improve the lives of families across the nation.
In THE TWO-PARANT PRIVILEGE, Kearney says what the experts know but often don’t want to utter aloud: that the rise in the share of children living in one-parent homes has not been good for children or society, and that increasing the prevalence of two-parent homes would deliver an invaluable economic boost to the next generation and the nation.
PRAISE FOR THE TWO-PARENT PRIVILEGE
“An important book. … We liberals often perceive the world through prisms of privilege, but we rarely discuss one of the most important privileges of all — and it’s the title of Kearney’s book, The Two-Parent Privilege.” —Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times
“Kearney, an economist at the University of Maryland, has amassed reams of evidence on the rise of single parenthood and the way it has put lower-income children at an even greater disadvantage to their high-income peers over the past four decades. Her book shows that marriage itself matters; it is not just a correlate of other factors, such as wealth and education.” —Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic
“The evidence is overwhelming that the decline of marriage over the past few decades has been very bad for children and, by extension, for society. For various reasons, however, this truth is too often left unsaid. In her new book, The Two-Parent Privilege, University of Maryland economist Melissa S. Kearney lays out all the dispiriting facts.” —Megan McArdle, The Washington Post
“Marriage is, writes University of Maryland economics professor Melissa S. Kearney, with clarifying bluntness, 'the most reliable institution for delivering a high level of resources and long-term stability to children.' She marshals the voluminous evidence in her new book, The Two-Parent Privilege.” —Alyssa Rosenberg, The Washington Post
“[Kearney] does not suggest, like some cultural critics before her, that the increase in out-of-wedlock birth rates is a signal of moral decline in America, or of a willfully individualistic flouting of tradition. Rather, she points to how the decline of manufacturing in the United States—and the rise of lower-paid, more precarious working conditions—has made it much harder for blue-collar males to sustain an adequate and reliable standard of living, rendering them less inclined to marry or to stay married, and less appealing as marriage material in the first place. In some of the most compelling passages in her book, Kearney explores research on the impact of financial strain on cognitive functioning; there’s evidence that the children of parents who are poorer and more consumed by stress may be shortchanged not only materially but emotionally.”―The New Yorker
“Kearney makes a compelling case that we should be concerned about the rising rate of single-parent households, at least from the perspective of child well-being. … Kearney’s proposals will be good not only for children but for parents as well."
―The Wall Street Journal
Defending Ideas — Sutherland Institute
June 11, 2024
Marriage is Now a Luxury Good
March 13, 2024
Suddenly Not Enough Babies
May 20, 2024
Economics, Applied with Steve Davis — Hoover Institution at Stanford University
Two Parents or One? What It Means for Children and Society
May 8, 2024
The Political Conversation with Wally Knox Part 1 & 2
What is Happening to Marriage and Families in the US?
December 11, 2023
Why Half of American Babies are Born to Unmarried Mothers
December 8, 2023
What Keeps You Up at Night? — St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Why the Decline in Rates of Marriage Has Led to a Host of Economic Woes for the Country
November 22, 2023
The Political Economy with James Pethokoukis — American Enterprise Institute
The Importance of the Two-Parent Home
November 2, 2023
Report Card — American Enterprise Institute
Melissa Kearney on the Two-Parent Privilege
November 2, 2023
October 26, 2023
The Decline of Marriage and the Fracturing of America
October 24, 2023
Two Much Privilege: Marriage, Parenting, and Economics
October 12, 2023
Are You Kidding Me? — American Enterprise Institute
Melissa Kearney on Family Structure and Reducing Poverty
October 12, 2023
Worried About Inequality? Fix Marriage.
October 9, 2023
The Two-Parent Privilege with Melissa Kearney
October 6, 2023
The Terrifying Impact of Single-Parent Households
October 5, 2023
You Might Be Right — University of Tennessee
Our Kids are Struggling. Who Can Help Them?
October 3, 2023
Straight Talk with Hank Paulson
September 26, 2023
Education Next: The Education Exchange
It Takes Two, Baby
September 18, 2023
The Facts are In: Two Parents are Better than One
September 20, 2023
Crazy Money with Paul Ollinger
Why Two Parents are Better than One
September 19, 2023
Melissa Kearney on Marriage and Children
September 5, 2023
April 10, 2023
How American Men and Boys are Falling Behind — and What We Can Do to Help Them
February 5, 2024
December 21, 2023
The Benefit of ‘The Two-Parent Privilege’
November 27, 2023
October 6, 2023
October 2, 2023
WXXI FM & WEOS FM: Connections with Evan Dawson
September 27, 2023
September 25, 2023
Bloomberg TV: Wall Street Week
September 14, 2023
Luxury Beliefs and Two-Parent Privilege
July 27, 2024
The Two-Parent Privilege: Economic Impacts as Marriage Declines
March 19, 2024
University of Wisconsin-Madison
March 1, 2024
Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility
November 29, 2023
From Marriage to Economics: Melissa Kearney Unravels the Two-Parent Privilege
November 8, 2023
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Annual Mullen Lecture with Melissa Kearney
October 4, 2023
September 26, 2023
The Two-Parent Privilege: A Conversation on the Case for Marriage
September 21, 2023
The U.S. Economy Needs More Two Parent Families
Time
September 28, 2023
A Driver of Inequality Not Enough People are Talking About
The Atlantic Online
September 18, 2023
The Explosive Rise of Single Parent Families is Not a Good Thing
The New York Times
September 17, 2023
What Do Single Mothers Really Need? Hint: It Isn’t Marriage
Tanzina Vega, The Boston Globe
October 28, 2023
Why We Need to Talk About Marriage
Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker
October 23, 2023
Economist Makes Data-Driven Case for Stable Two-Parent Households: 'It's Clear that Kids Benefit'
Kristine Parks, Fox News Online
October 22, 2023
Why Children of Married Parents Do Better, but America is Moving the Other Way
Pallavi Gogoi, NPR
October 22, 2023
A Conversation About Two-Parent Privilege
Interview with Matt Yglesias, Slow Boring
October 19, 2023
Michael R. Strain & Harry J. Holzer, Project Syndicate
October 17, 2023
‘The Two-Parent Privilege’ Gets Caught in the Trap of Convention
Becca Rothfeld, The Washington Post
October 14, 2023
Trump and the Upside-Down World
Richard Galant, CNN Online
October 2, 2023
Growing Up in Intact Families Matters More Than Ever
Brad Wilcox & David Bass, National Review
October 1, 2023
How Many Americans Are Marriage Material?
Ross Douthat, The New York Times
September 29, 2023
The Problem With All This Talk About Two-Parent ‘Privilege’
Jill Filipovic, CNN Online
September 28, 2023
Single Moms Know Marriage Would be Ideal, But How Do They Get One?
Christine Emba, The Washington Post
September 28, 2023
Why Experts Say Two-Parent Families Are the Key to Fighting Inequality
Mike Bebernes, Yahoo! News
September 26, 2023
Why the Problem Isn’t Single-Parent Families
Nathan J. Robinson, Current Affairs
September 25, 2023
‘The Two-Parent Privilege’ Review: Where Have All the Good Men Gone?
Michael Luca, The Wall Street Journal
September 24, 2023
The Return of the Marriage Plot
Rebecca Traister, The Cut
September 22, 2023
Is Single Parenthood the Problem?
Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic
September 22, 2023
Children Will Benefit if We Face This Fact: Married Parents are Ideal
Megan McArdle, The Washington Post
September 20, 2023
Liberals Don’t Like Talking Up Marriage. Here’s How They Can Start.
Alyssa Rosenberg, The Washington Post
September 19, 2023
New Book Shows Economic Downside of Single Parenting
Neil Irwin, AXIOS
September 18, 2023
No Culture Wars, Please, We’re Academics
Naomi Schaefer Riley, AEI
September 18, 2023
The Ultimate Privilege? Two Parents
Charles Fain Lehman, Institute for Family Studies
September 18, 2023
The Two-Parent Privilege — We Need to Talk About Kids With Single Parents
Soumaya Keynes, Financial Times
September 15, 2023
The Privilege Hiding in Plain Sight
Ian Rowe, National Review
September 14, 2023
The One Privilege Liberals Ignore
Nicholas Christof, The New York Times
September 13, 2023
Marriage is Increasingly for the Upper Classes. That’s Not a Good Sign.
Interview with Kara Miller, The Boston Globe
September 10, 2023
Interview with David A. Price, Econ Focus Magazine
September 6, 2023
What’s Happening to Today’s Families and Children
Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed
August 16, 2023
Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
April 19, 2022