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思維導(dǎo)圖作者:
May Li 男,我要去追逐心中的太陽,還要繼續(xù)努力的亞古獸
全文概要: 文章強調(diào)了家庭結(jié)構(gòu)對美國兒童的嚴(yán)重影響。文章指出,由單身母親撫養(yǎng)的兒童面臨的貧困率要高得多(35%,而由已婚雙親撫養(yǎng)的兒童的貧困率為7.5%),他們的教育和經(jīng)濟(jì)狀況也往往較差。婚姻的衰落,現(xiàn)在超過 40% 的新生兒是由未婚母親所生,被認(rèn)為是造成這些趨勢的一個因素。作者 Melissa Kearney 認(rèn)為,解決單親家庭的根本原因,如改善未受過大學(xué)教育的男性的就業(yè)機會,推廣雙親家庭的規(guī)范,可能會有所幫助。不過,文章也承認(rèn),找到有效的政策解決方案具有挑戰(zhàn)性,并強調(diào)了個人決定對創(chuàng)建成功家庭的重要性。
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Why the state should not promote marriage
為何美國不該鼓勵結(jié)婚
英文部分選自經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人20230930期財經(jīng)板塊
Why the state should not promote marriage
為何美國不該鼓勵結(jié)婚
Even though children from two-parent households do better in life
即使雙親家庭的孩子更多“人生贏家”
Here are some stark facts about family structure and children in America. Whereas the poverty rate among youngsters living with two married parents is 7.5%, among those raised by a single mother it is 35%. Children of married parents tend to behave better in school, stay in education longer and earn more as adults. Those raised by married parents appear to be at an advantage even after controlling for the age, education and race of their mothers.
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1. stark: unpleasant; real, and impossible to avoid. (Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries)
2. control for something: control for, Statistics. to account for (variables in an analysis) by limiting the data under consideration to a comparison of like things.
Yet marriage has been in long-term decline (and without a compensating rise in unmarried cohabitation). Today more than two-fifths of births are to unmarried mothers, up from less than a fifth in 1980. The fall is unequal across demographic groups: only 11% of births to college-educated mothers are outside wedlock. Marriage has gone from being a pretty universal institution to an exclusive one that propels life advantage through generations.
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1. wedlock: the state of being married. (children born in/out of wedlock = whose parents are/are not married) (Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries)
2. propel something ( adv./prep.) to move, drive or push something forward or in a particular direction. (Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries)
3. institution: a custom or system that has existed for a long time among a particular group of people. (Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries)
In recent years economists have documented these trends and their relationship to inequality and social mobility. Melissa Kearney of the University of Maryland summarises the literature in a new book, “The Two-Parent Privilege”. Ms Kearney is aware that many liberals—and very few conservatives—will wince at her findings, and writes in an almost apologetic tone as a result. “Not talking about these facts is counterproductive,” she pleads.
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注釋:
wince: to show pain or embarrassment suddenly and for a short time in the face, often moving the head back at the same time. (Cambridge Dictionary) 因突然的痛苦/尷尬引起面部表情及動作
Why does being raised by two parents matter so much? One reason is the extra earnings an additional adult may bring to a household, which contribute to the enormous costs of child-rearing. Yet it is not all about money. Children raised by mothers who divorce and remarry tend to do worse than those raised by both their biological parents. The beneficial effects of two-parent child-raising appear to be particularly strong for boys, and even spill out beyond the boundary of the home. Researchers have found that the number of black fathers living in the local neighbourhood strongly influences the life chances of black boys.
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為什么雙親撫養(yǎng)對孩子的成長如此重要?其中一個原因是家里多一個成年人可以帶來額外收入,能夠分擔(dān)撫養(yǎng)孩子所需的巨大開支。然而,這也并不僅僅是錢的問題。由離婚后再婚的母親撫養(yǎng)的孩子通常表現(xiàn)不如那些由親生父母撫養(yǎng)的孩子。雙親養(yǎng)育子女的積極影響似乎在男孩身上體現(xiàn)得尤為明顯,這些好處甚至?xí)庖绲郊议T之外。研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn),社區(qū)中黑人父親的數(shù)量對黑人男孩在社會中取得成功和幸福有很大影響。
The question is what to do about all this. Ms Kearney does not argue for a return to conservative social practices, such as shotgun marriages after unplanned pregnancies or encouraging parents to remain in unhappy unions. She cites research showing that legal changes making divorce easier (the introduction of “no fault” or “unilateral” divorce) result in worse outcomes for affected children. But, she says, such laws have a big advantage: they help adults escape bad situations and are probably desirable as a result. On top of this, some households benefit from the absence of a negative influence. Children whose parents are charged with a crime tend to do better if that parent is sent to prison. If single mothers are single because the men who fathered their children would have been bad second parents, then their offspring would have had little chance of better life outcomes in the first place.
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注釋:
1.No-fault Divorce:無過錯離婚(No-fault Divorce)是指要求離婚的一方配偶無需證明對方配偶存有過錯,而只需簡單說明夫妻雙方無法繼續(xù)共同生活便可獲取法庭的離婚判決。1969年,美國加州(California)成為美國(乃至西方世界)第一個適用無過錯離婚的州,在此之前,獲取離婚的唯一方式是證明對方配偶存有過錯或因?qū)Ψ脚渑嫉牟划?dāng)行為而導(dǎo)致婚姻完全破裂。一般情況下,準(zhǔn)予無過錯離婚的理由通常為:無法相處(Incompatibility)、無法協(xié)調(diào)的差異(Irreconcilable Differences)、或婚姻完全破裂(Irremediable Breakdown Of The Marriage)。
2.Unilateral Divorce:單方面申請離婚。我國《民法典》允許離婚自由,所以夫妻因感情破裂,可以單方面申請離婚?!吨腥A人民共和國民法典》第一千零七十九條 夫妻一方要求離婚的,可以由有關(guān)組織進(jìn)行調(diào)解或者直接向人民法院提起離婚訴訟。人民法院審理離婚案件,應(yīng)當(dāng)進(jìn)行調(diào)解;如果感情確已破裂,調(diào)解無效的,應(yīng)當(dāng)準(zhǔn)予離婚。
Ms Kearney is more interested in whether the underlying causes of single parenthood can be fixed, so that more happy marriages are formed. She laments the long-term decline in the availability of good jobs for men without college education, which is thought to reduce the pool of “marriageable men” and—consequently—present fathers. She also highlights that social norms now exert less pressure, even on parents in a healthy relationship, to live together. To demonstrate the importance of these norms, she compares the effects of two economic booms that took place a generation apart. The Appalachian coal rush of the 1970s and 1980s boosted men’s wages; the result was more marriages and, for married couples, more births—but not more births out of wedlock. Decades later, amid different norms, the shale oil and gas booms had different effects. They boosted births among married and unmarried women alike, and had no effect on the propensity of couples to marry. Therefore Ms Kearney concludes that both money and mores are needed for additional two-parent homes to form.
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科爾尼更關(guān)心的是能否找出造成單親家庭的根本原因,以便促成更多幸福的婚姻。她哀嘆沒有受過大學(xué)教育的男性能找到的好工作持續(xù)減少,認(rèn)為這減少了 '可堪婚配男性 '的基數(shù),從而減少了現(xiàn)如今已為人父的男性數(shù)量。她還強調(diào),即使父母關(guān)系健康,不住在一個屋檐下,也不會再像以前那樣承受那么多來自公序良俗的壓力。為了闡明這些習(xí)俗的重要性,她比較了相隔一代人的兩次經(jīng)濟(jì)繁榮對社會的影響。在20世紀(jì)70年代和80年代的阿巴拉契亞煤炭業(yè)繁榮時期,男性的工資增加了,所以在這段時期內(nèi)結(jié)婚的人更多,已婚的夫婦也選擇生更多的孩子,但是未婚生育的情況并沒有增加。數(shù)十年后,社會風(fēng)氣變了,頁巖油氣業(yè)繁榮產(chǎn)生了不同的影響。頁巖油氣業(yè)繁榮同時促進(jìn)了已婚和未婚女性生育,但對結(jié)婚率卻沒有影響。因此,科爾尼得出結(jié)論,要想促成更多的雙親家庭,財力和好的社會風(fēng)氣缺一不可。
For all the striking statistics in the book, the author does not offer an especially rousing call to arms. Ms Kearney’s four prescriptions are to promote a norm of two-parent homes, to improve the economic position of men without a college education, to scale up the pro-family programmes that work and to strengthen the social safety-net for all family types.
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Yet policymakers are already obsessed with male-dominated middle-class manufacturing jobs. Recently this has meant more protectionism and other policies that do more harm than good. And it is doubtful that governments can do all that much to alter social norms, just as they hold little responsibility for the fact that they changed in earlier decades. Past research (of which Janet Yellen, America’s treasury secretary, was a co-author) has theorised that technological development—namely, the wider availability of contraception and abortion—was the fundamental cause of the rise of single parenthood in the late 20th century, because it altered the premarital behaviour of both men and women. Although some conservatives argue that the welfare system is instead to blame, since it made single motherhood a less daunting financial prospect, this is at odds with the evidence. As Ms Kearney notes, restricting welfare does not reduce births and single-motherhood is more common in America than in countries with generous handouts. Moreover, the record of trying to promote marriage with tax incentives and the like is one of failure. Without more concrete proposals, Ms Kearney is at risk of having identified a trend that correlates with poverty, but is no easier to solve.
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Happy families
幸福家庭
Perhaps knowledge of what produces successful adults is most useful to individuals planning their own lives. The safest bet for anyone who wants to have children who thrive is probably to settle down. The vast majority of college graduates already seem to believe this, at least based on how they behave, if not how all of them talk. Anyone who doubts that the two-parent privilege exists should read Ms Kearney’s book. Unfortunately, that does not mean there is much in its pages for policymakers to exploit.
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翻譯組:
Ellie,女,金融碩士,經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人粉絲
Humi,女,學(xué)習(xí)財經(jīng)的金融小白,不負(fù)韶華,平視世界
Summer,女,QE在職,夢想能仗走天涯 翻譯/音樂 /健康
校對組:
Cecilia,今年過得貴婦一點
Eva,尋路中,偶爾懷念,時常向前
Zorina,Dream big and be daring
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