ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 18, 1996 TAG: 9603190040
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAUREEN WEST THE PHOENIX GAZETTE
You would never guess that staying married is in vogue, judging by the recent celebrity headlines:
``Di chucks her prince.''
``Liz says eight is enough!''
``It's splitsville for Michael and Lisa Marie.''
Or by the latest efforts in several states to ban no-fault divorces. Those who want to make breaking up harder to do point out that divorce rates have jumped since the no-fault revolution began in 1969.
``We can save the American family this way,'' they say.
But, wait a minute, major changes in the American family already may be coming to pass - because of our changing culture, not new laws, says Carol De Vita, a senior demographer for the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C.
We keep hauling out statistics comparing today to 1970, but today's 25-year-olds - those now in prime time to head down that aisle - weren't even born and have a hard time relating to then. And for good reason.
The snapshot of the American family in the mid-1990s does not look like families of two or three decades ago or function like them, De Vita said, and we need to look at the new picture.
She has issued an optimistic report - ``The United States at Mid-Decade'' - which suggests that, for the first time in recent history, things may be looking up for the American family. For five years we have seen signs of a turnaround that she believes bodes well for the next five years.
Notably, the divorce rate is decreasing and the number of two-parent households with children is increasing.
Some of the stability is because we're growing older. The huge baby boom generation, which had children later in life than its parents, has passed through the stage when the odds of divorce are the greatest. And at middle age, or nearing it, the boomers' focus is on family issues.
The rallying cry in cities across the nation is: ``Get my kid a good education.''
Divorce is driven more culturally than legislatively, De Vita says. And now, without the help of tighter divorce laws, the culture is encouraging couples with children to stay married or remarry.
The welfare debate, among other things, has clearly painted the financial and societal disadvantages for children raised in single-parent households. For one thing, marital status has a big effect on household income. The median income for couples in 1994 was $45,000, well above the $19,900 for female-headed families.
Because baby boomers have fewer children than their parents, they are taking their limited human ``investments'' in the future very seriously. Their interest in producing ``quality'' children has made work-and-family policies, job security and education high on their list of concerns. Since one in three potential voters is a boomer, family issues are high on lawmakers' agendas. (In a few years, when the nests empty, expect the focus to shift to a new concern - retirement issues.)
The facts to back up De Vita's case are these: Between 1990 and 1995, the number of two-parent households with children rose by more than 700,000, reversing a 20-year pattern of decline. Granted, the number of single-parent homes also continued to increase, from 7.8 million to 9 million, but it was a more moderate increase than in the past. In the big picture, certainly, the number of divorces has doubled since the 1960s, but the divorce rate has leveled off since the 1980s, and it seems to be holding fairly steady. In addition, young people are waiting to marry and thus are more mature when they say those wedding vows.
Certainly, this optimistic report could just be a blip. Naysayers are already lining up to challenge its findings, perhaps because it sounds so positive and somehow foreign in our downsizing, bad-news times.
But marriage is very much about hope and one can only hope there is more to it than that.
Meanwhile, boomers, remember to hug your little ``investments'' tonight.
You will need them in your old age.
LENGTH: Medium: 76 linesby CNB