August 26, 2008

The Marriage Gap rolls on


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

By Steve Sailer on 8/26/2008 Labels: ,

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

It would be interesting if we could see a further breakdown by race and by presence [or absence] of minor children in the home.

Since ~75% of all black children are born out of wedlock, and since ~50% of all "Hispanic" children are born out of wedlock, and since about 95% of blacks are voting for Obama and about 75% of "Hispanics" are voting for Obama [the last poll I saw had Obama with a 43% lead over McAmnesty among "Hispanics"], you've got to figure that just the Blacks & the Hispanics alone are skewing the numbers pretty badly.

Another question: How many of these children born out of wedlock eventually end up in married households? I.e. is it common for the child's mother to end up married to either the biological father or to some step-father?

Among Typical White Persons, it would be interesting to see the numbers broken down by sex - e.g. the graying spinster who lives alone with her cats -vs- the swinging playboy with the persistent Peter Pan Syndrome that he just can't seem to shake.

Finally, of course, there are all the unmarried sodomites, but I guess the courts are hell-bent on re-classifying them into the "married" category.

8/26/08, 6:45 AM
Chip said...

Unmarried people are disproportionately young. Any idea how the gap holds when you look at married versus unmarried people limited to a particular age group, say people under 35?

8/26/08, 8:23 AM
Anonymous said...

We would need to see the breakdown across several different age demographics for this to show us anything interesting.

Right now I'll chalk it up to youth.

8/26/08, 8:40 AM
Anonymous said...

It would be interesting to see how large the effect is if you normalize for things like black/white, age, etc.

8/26/08, 1:13 PM
Anonymous said...

'It would be interesting....'

No, really, guys, it wouldn't.

8/26/08, 2:00 PM
Anonymous said...

Lucious, the Census Bureau has the answer to your prayers. Ask and ye shall receive:

Link here

Among the findings: Second generation Hispanic women have lower fertility rates than third generation or first generation Hispanic women. Weird. A full 36% of births were to separted, widowed, divorced, or never married (and buried but computable), another 5% were to "living with partner" -- that's UK territory, nearly 41%!

"Peak Age" of fertility for women at least a bachelors was 30-34 years old. Guaranteed to create a one-child only "designer yuppie baby." Counter intuitively, though, women with graduate or professional degrees had the highest fertility. Strange.

I think there's enough evidence to form a pattern. The survey shows declining fertility among white women (20% lower than merely 20 years ago), with poverty-births and foreign born births strongly correlated, and twice the national average in California.

Poor people, mostly though not all Black/Hispanic -- lots of kids. Whites, kids in 30-34 range, guaranteeing only one kid.

A very STRONG increase, in women choosing single motherhood. Which is a world-wide choice, in the EU, Japan, Black Community, etc.

It seems that women, if economically and socially able, will choose the most testosterone laden man for a father, and raise a kid herself as a single mother. Women don't seem to want or need traditional marriage if they are wealthy "enough" from Welfare recipients to say, Minnie Driver.

That I assume will drive a huge gender gap in voting and policy. Stuff that benefits Single Moms will hurt single men, who without any attachment to women (a few men impregnating most women is the model) will express politically various anti-Women policies / preferences.

You'll have, in the various poor neighborhoods, lots of single mothers, mostly Black/Hispanic. In the offices and other business places, fewer but still likely the near-majority of mothers being single mothers, eventually the majority. Working side by side but otherwise irrelevant to their single male counterparts.

This is btw, a global phenomena.

8/26/08, 4:21 PM
Mu'Min M. Bey said...

Lucious,
Marital rates by (Black) Congressional districts accross the USA are typically low, no higher than 40% according to one study I saw. This makes sense if so many Black children are being born out of wedlock. And, extending things further, it makes sense if such people vote for the Dems, since they are the Party of higher taxes and expanding entitlements.

The question becomes, do we just allow the trend to continue and be further embedded into the mainstream, or, do we try and push back against the tide?

Comments, anyone?

Salaam
Mu

8/26/08, 4:29 PM
Anonymous said...

I guess that means a lot of the commenters here must be single guys. Count me completely surprised.

8/26/08, 5:42 PM
Assistant Village Idiot said...

This has been true for at least three decades, as I recall articles in the late 70's on more conservative voting patterns among those married, and especially among those with more than one child. My recollection is that this was less pronounced, but still quite strong, in the black population.

I have hypothesized that if the vote were limited to continuously married people who had raised two children past the age of eight, the Democratic Party would cease to exist. That's an attractive fantasy to me, but of course the basic unfairness of rewarding some choices over other to obtain the franchise carries a nasty amount of discriminatory baggage with it.

Still, it is always amusing to consider why this difference is so consistent.

8/26/08, 7:55 PM
Anonymous said...

Bey --

The trend towards single motherhood is basically unstoppable and only partly a cultural phenomena. It's probably more likely that culture is merely following the larger social trend.

Women generally at each socio-economic level make as much if not more than men.

Women can advance their careers more easily than men, no one fires a pretty girl, but men are of course disposable. Significantly, a number of women can and do sleep their way to the top: Katie Couric, Barbara Walters, Rielle Hunter, Monica Lewinsky, Chandra Levy, etc.

Women demand a premium in earnings and status over their own by potential mates that simply does not exist for most men.

If women can't land the "dreamy" politician or even high-powered attorney, they'll certainly sleep with him and have a kid by them. Women crave testosterone and without social forces that moderate that choice they'll behave like men given "free money" at a strip club.

I don't think these things can be changed, women benefit too much from the ability to form single motherhood families (they get the kids they want) and still have the high-testosterone man.

Women, of course detest intelligence in men, since it correlates highly with lower testosterone. This is why women will run away from nerds or "smart" guys.

8/26/08, 8:45 PM
Anonymous said...

testingg99 says: "Among the findings: Second generation Hispanic women have lower fertility rates than third generation or first generation Hispanic women. Weird."

This fits in with the UCLA Ortiz/Telles data Steve reviewed in his "Roll Over, Michael Barone—Even Fourth-Generation Mexicans Are Failing" Vdare essay.
http://vdare.com/sailer/080601_barone.htm

I'll quote the UCLA press release of that Ortiz/Telles study:

"The educational levels of second-generation Mexican Americans improved dramatically. But the third and fourth generations failed to surpass, and to some extent fell behind, the educational level of the second generation."
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-study-of-four-generations-46372.aspx

I gather that education levels and fertility rates are often inversely correlated, so these two pieces of data fit together.

8/26/08, 8:46 PM
Anonymous said...

Testing99 said Women can advance their careers more easily than men, no one fires a pretty girl, but men are of course disposable. Significantly, a number of women can and do sleep their way to the top: Katie Couric, Barbara Walters, Rielle Hunter, Monica Lewinsky, Chandra Levy, etc.

Chandra Levy and Lewinsky slept their ways to the top? One died as an intern. The other went to grad school (she did, at least, sleep her way into a high ranking university) and, as a 31 year old, is two years out of university.

8/26/08, 10:17 PM
Anonymous said...

'It would be interesting....'

No, really, guys, it wouldn't.

He's right. Steve has discussed this phenomenon before. The results of racial analysis of these kind of things are boring because they are entirely predictable (though actually making an accurate prediction ahead of time is racist).

8/26/08, 10:51 PM
Mu'Min M. Bey said...

Testing 99,
If the Democrat Party Platform for this election cycle is any indication, I would have to sadly concede that you're right. And even worse, it will be my people who will suffer the worst from this, because of the so many "lost boys" who wind up as numbers on a slab or prison cell, "raised" in single mother homes, state subisidized by ever-expanding taxation (more than a full third of my pay goes to this!).

But I still say that we men have lost our nerve and will to fight. And this includes your remark about "smart guys" not getting any. The don't get any not because they have lower testosterone, but because they give up too easily. If these guys can figure out how to make the Atom Bomb and land on the Moon, they surely can figure out how to make a woman drop her drawers. I ain't buyin' it.

And I think that's the real reason as to why the stats Sailer notes above are occuring; because far too many men are Sissies.

Holla back

Salaam
Mu

8/27/08, 1:08 AM
Anonymous said...

I enjoyed testing99's comments but I dont think the end of marriage is at hand quite yet--one thing I got a laugh out of was his comment(I assume he was trying to be serious)"women detest intelligence"! Ha ha ha now we get it! Come on testing,start working out,get your teeth whitened,get some decent clothes and you can get a girlfriend,too! :) BTW some people(media-types) have commented re Hillary's speech,where she blabs on about being a "Proud mother" a "Proud Democrat" a "proud this' a "Proud that" (and as an aside have you noticed that people like her who are the supposed defenders of the little people,the war vets,the cancer victims etc are such fatheaded arrogant FUCKS!!?!?)--anyway,she did NOT say "Proud wife'! Some say this was a diss to Bill,but I believe its bad form as a feminist---and feminism is easily defined as hatred of men,no matter what blithering B.S. the girls give about a new society of goodness and ad nauseum--to recognize the role of wife in a hetereosexual marriage,unless its in the form of demand for something. To say "I'm a proud wife" implies acknowledging some form of responsibility or obligation to a man.Bad. The fembots will always blubber on about 'motherhood' and the need to be a good mother---but never a word about the need to be a good WIFE! Unless of course its a LESBIAN marriage,something that no doubt concerns a lot of Hillary supporters. Hillary is a mole on the ass of America thta is rapidly metasticizing into a cancer!

8/27/08, 7:57 AM
Anonymous said...

"I guess that means a lot of the commenters here must be single guys"

Married men are too busy earning money and taking care of their wives and children to have time to comment on blogs.

8/27/08, 8:35 AM
Anonymous said...

Unlike all of you slackers, I've had two white children since I started reading this blog. My IQ is around 130 and the father's is around 180, so even with regression to the mean they'll be pretty bright, and I'm going to have more. UNLIKE YOU SLACKERS.

8/27/08, 9:23 AM
Anonymous said...

If these guys can figure out how to make the Atom Bomb and land on the Moon, they surely can figure out how to make a woman drop her drawers.

see: Mystery Method.

8/27/08, 10:34 AM
Anonymous said...

It would be interesting to see how large the effect is if you normalize for things like black/white, age, etc.

Google "CNN Election 2004" and go to the exit polls and you'll see a pretty extensive breakdown based on a variety of measures. None that separates out "married white" and "unmarried white," however.

USA Today did a pretty good article on the subject about two years ago, however. It includes a very handy list of the top and bottom 25 House ditsricts by marriage rates. Many are represented by guys with names like Darnell, Edolphus, Chaka, and Jose - but not all. Some are represented by people with names like "Nancy Pelosi."

My guess is that Republicans probably represent most of the districts in the top two quartiles of marriage rates, while the 3rd quartile is represented by white Democrats and the 4th quartile by black and Hispanic Democrats.

Among the points made in the article:

Republicans control 49 of the 50 districts with the highest rates of married people.

If voting differences between white married and white unmarried were marginal, then there would not be that big a gap. It's too big for random probability.

Democrats represent all 50 districts that have the highest rates of adults who have never married.

Further proof...

Of the five Republicans who have the lowest rates of married people in their districts, four are in tough battles with Democrats. On the other side, Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Ill., whose district has a high marriage rate, faces a strong GOP challenge.

Yet again...

From a different article that was part of the series (linked to from the marriage article):

Democrats represent 59 districts in which less than half of adults are married. Republicans represent only two

And...

Democrats represent 30 districts in which less than half of children live with married parents. Republicans represent none.

And providing proof positive of how many of our congressmen don't understand jack shit, this gem from Democrat Rush Holt:

Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., who represents the most-married Democratic district (32nd overall), discounts the importance of the marriage rates. "It's a statistic without meaning," he says. "If you look at numbers from enough different angles, you can see almost anything."

Right.

But providing further proof that there are plenty of idiots on both sides, this doozer from the recently defeated Chris Cannon:

These numbers are amazing," Cannon says. "I see now where José [Serrano (D - La Raza)] is coming from...The needs of kids in his district are just not the same as the needs of children in my district," Cannon says.

In 2004, about 273,000 votes were cast in Chris Cannon's Utah district (remembering that a full 280,000 were too young to vote). Serrano's New York dsitrict saw fewer than 117,000 people vote - the rest being largely made up of convicted felons and immigrants, legal or illegal.

But "conservative" Chris Cannon wanted more "good people" like the folks who make up Serrano's rotten borough to come to the United States - and didn't really care how they came.

8/27/08, 11:54 AM
albertosaurus said...

I suspect that the relevant independent variable is not marriage but age.

A lot of empty rhetoric sounds new and fresh to the young but those who have experienced a couple presidential campaigns are likely to be less impressed.

For example, we are hearing a lot this season about alternative fuels from Obama and McCain. Those who can remember Jimmy Carter will recognize the same calls for more wind power and solar power.

In Carter's day solar accounted for less than one tenth of one percent of our national power generation. After forty years of political crisis rhetoric it's still less than one tenth of one percent.

Wind power became popular (with massive subsidies) in Denmark and Germany but they are today cutting back.

You would never know any of this from the political ads being run by both parties. Everybody has a windmill in their ad.

Older people have heard all this before as well as all the repetative blather about "getting America moving again". McCain - a legitimately old guy - can afford to repeat generations old slogans but Obama the self proclaimed change agent, loses credibility will his shopworn message.

Old married people have heard all this before.

8/27/08, 2:33 PM
Anonymous said...

I suspect that the relevant independent variable is not marriage but age.

Wrong.

The relevant variables are related to personal values. Those values are expressed in how people live their lives, including whether or not they marry (and remain married).

I can't find it on the internet, but a decade or so back Bill Clinton's pollster Stan Greenberg claimed he could determine a person's parisan affiliation to a high probability buy asking them 5 questions. One was about church attendance and another was about if/how much porn they watched. Seriously.

Liberal people of all races are less likely to marry or stay married long. Conservative people of all races are more likely to marry and remain married. The state with the lowest rate of marriage is Massachusetts. Massachusetts is plenty white and plenty old - and plenty liberal, as well.

8/27/08, 10:14 PM
Anonymous said...

Massachusetts is plenty white and plenty old - and plenty liberal, as well.

And plenty Catholic and Jewish.

--Senor Doug

8/28/08, 9:26 AM
Anonymous said...

Can we have a response to this post - i find it very interesting
____________

I have hypothesized that if the vote were limited to continuously married people who had raised two children past the age of eight, the Democratic Party would cease to exist.
_____________

does anyone have statistics on this - intact families, families with a father and a mother, both never divorced, with two kids - i mean intuition would say that the adults in these families may vote republican at four or five times the rate that they vote democrat - but i'd like to see data.

8/29/08, 9:40 AM

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