Vivek Ramaswamy is right about marriage and family
Brad Wilcox and David Bass
Video Embed
An important moment in the Republican presidential primary debate on Wednesday night came when surging candidate Vivek Ramaswamy pointed to marriage and family as a key driver of success in life.
Ramaswamy has succeeded in the private sector at the young age of 38 — his net worth is estimated to be as high as $1 billion. That’s a remarkable feat considering his immigrant parents came to the shores of the United States with virtually nothing four decades ago. During the debate, Ramaswamy credited the groundwork for his success to two things: being raised in a two-parent family and getting a good education.
DAVID WEISS HAS NO CREDIBILITY AS SPECIAL COUNSEL
“The word ‘privilege’ gets used a lot,” Ramaswamy said. “Well, you know what? I did have the ultimate privilege of two parents in the house with a focus on educational achievement, and I want every kid to enjoy that.” Later, he added, “The nuclear family is the greatest form of governance known to man.”
Ramaswamy is right to spotlight the role that family plays in fostering success in America. In fact, one reason that Indian Americans like Ramaswamy have done so well in this country is that no group has higher rates of family stability than Americans with an Indian heritage. Strong and stable families give men, women, and children an incomparable advantage when it comes to doing well at school, flourishing in life, and achieving the American dream.
When it comes to children, for instance, the science tells us that boys and girls are much more likely to flourish when they are raised in a stable, married family. By contrast, children raised in single-parent or unstable families are much more likely to struggle.
In 2021, a team of researchers at the Institute for Family Studies used data from the American Community Survey and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to explore the ways that family structure is associated with child poverty, college graduation, and incarceration. The three types of family structure we examined were children living in a two-parent family that was a first marriage, children living in a likely step-parent family, and children living with a single parent.
The results were remarkably consistent, regardless of race. Children in homes headed by single parents were around three times more likely to be living in poverty compared to children living with two parents in a first marriage. As for educational outcomes, children from intact families were more than 60% more likely to graduate from college compared to their peers who grew up in non-intact families. As for the chance of incarceration, young men and women from non-intact families were about two times more likely to have been incarcerated compared to their peers in intact homes. In sum, children raised in intact, married families are much more likely to steer clear of poverty, avoid incarceration, and graduate from college.
Despite the benefits that a two-parent family affords men, women, and children, too many of our welfare policies penalize marriage, a point underlined by Ramaswamy on Wednesday night. At the debate, he railed against programs that “pays single women more not to have a man in the house.” He was right.
Today, programs like Medicaid and food stamps penalize marriage among lower-income families, especially working-class families with children earning between $20,000 and $60,000. These programs often punish couples for marrying and encourage them to cohabit rather than tie the knot. Specifically, many couples in this demographic lose vital government benefits if they marry. One study estimated that 11% of lower-income Americans were not married because they did not want to lose benefits.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Policymakers have long toyed with the idea of reducing or eliminating the marriage penalty, but little has been done to actually move the needle. Ramaswamy is right to focus on this, and so should the other contenders in the race. Specifically, Congress should raise the marriage threshold for families with children to twice the level for single parents to minimize the odds that means-tested policies discourage marriage. And to keep the costs down of this move, they should focus this adjustment on families with children under the age of 5.
The message and policies that Vivek Ramaswamy has been articulating regarding marriage and strong families are long overdue. He’s right to remind us that the “ultimate privilege [in America is having] two parents in the house with a focus on educational achievement.” It’s time for policymakers to make it easier for children from lower-income families to access this privilege.
Brad Wilcox, professor of sociology and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, is the future of freedom fellow at the Institute for Family Studies. David Bass is a writer for the Georgia Center for Opportunity and a contributing editor with the Philanthropy Roundtable.