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In the U.S., more immigrants with children are still in their first marriage
- firebaze 6y agoThey are not. They are normal. Would-be opinion-forming bullshit articles are supporting the bad guys, by delivering easy to refute narratives which ultimately support immigrant haters. I'm so sick of this good/bad scheme predisposed to paint immigrants bad. Edit: from my perspective a new strategy of far-right idiots is to propagate "positive immigrant narratives" which then prove wrong, just because they have been exaggerated from the start. Cheap psychological trick, still effective.
- firebaze 6y agoIf you downvote, please post an opinion and offer your opinion to be down- or upvoted!
- whatshisface 6y agoWell, if the article has statistics saying "yes," I'm not sure how far one could go on a comment that only has words saying "no."
- jcims 6y agoI didn't vote on your comment because I couldn't really parse what you were saying. So the IFS makes a poorly supported argument for immagrant family stability, is the idea that it's giving the anti-immigrant community a leverage point to turn it into a crater? edit: I figured there had to be a term for this, but couldn't find one. 'Grass Man' is proposed here - http://www.michaeldello.com/straw-man-steel-man-grass-man/ http://www.michaeldello.com/straw-man-steel-man-grass-man/
- firebaze 6y agoI despise the idea of differentiating between immigrants and natives. All people are equal. We all should be measured by equal terms. Quite often there are articles painting immigrants as innately good, which - to me - is the same racism as painting immigrants as bad.
- dbatten 6y agoSurely "all people are equal" does not mean "we should never do sociological research on people" or "any sociological research that finds statistical differences in how different groups of people behave is necessarily wrong and evil."
- jacob2484 6y agoIf I immigrate to Switzerland or Singapore, I should not have all the rights that the citizens have, such as right to vote or social programs which would stress their system. Not until enough time passes and I qualify to be a citizen. Otherwise would be unfair to the natives.
- foogazi 6y ago> Otherwise would be unfair to the natives. Says who ? These arbitrary rules were made up by someone, and are always subject to change. Life’s not fair
- tw04 6y ago>I despise the idea of differentiating between immigrants and natives. All people are equal. You seem to be confusing the words equal and same. Nothing in the article says immigrants aren't equal, it says their family dynamics are DIFFERENT. With statistics to back it up. It's no different than me saying that statistically: the average black family from alabama living in zip code 35033 consumes a different variety of food than the average hispanic family from south dakota living in zip code 57620. Nothing about that says they aren't EQUAL, but they are absolutely DIFFERENT. Calling that "racism" is a pretty blatant abuse of the term.
- foogazi 6y agoImmigrant here - I don’t see ANY difference between myself, Americans, Indians, Russians or Chinese I have met while working here - at the end of the day we are all people
- ahupp 6y agoYour comment is written as if immigrants are a homogeneous group, all identical to each other. That seems like a far more pernicious view than suggesting that they might differ (in positive ways, no less!) from natives.
- bee_rider 6y agoThe IFS does appear to be a right wing group. That said -- have you noticed this trend elsewhere? From my not-terribly-informed position, it looks more to me like this is part of the ongoing power struggle in the conservative movement. They recently had fairly poor election results, and this looks more to me like an attempt by this group to reverse their looming demographic challenges by at least trying to reach out to immigrant groups.
- Spellman 6y agoOf course, the instant caveat is that defining Stable = In First Marriage doesn't mean they are necessarily "happy." Huge cultural stigmas and structures that reinforce stability family structures is likely at play. Similar to how other stats show Religious folks have a lower rate of divorce. Partially because of the forces encouraging to not divorce, both positively with huge support networks to keep couples together, and negatively with implicit shame for those who break up. And also partially that many who divorce may also leave said faith (eg self-selection Religiosity). This second component of course doesn't apply to immigrants. Plus, a "no divorce" policy can also create systems where spousal/domestic abuse can run rampant and no recourse to escape. So it's not always the best metric to optimize for.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoNot surprised, given the source: https://sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Family_Studies https://sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Family_Studi...
- sebmellen 6y agoRather embarrassing to see such a piece of propaganda posted on HN :/
- dang 6y agoOn HN we consider article quality more than site quality [1]. This doesn't seem like a bad article to me. It's an interesting finding, not one that's been much discussed, and certainly possible to have a curious conversation about. Arguably the article title is slightly misleading, because "stable family" can mean many things and has strong emotional associations. So I've changed the title to representative language from the article body [2], which is more precise. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22article%20quality%22%20%22site%20quality%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22representative%20language%22&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- dash2 6y agoMy favourite book of the past few years, Eric Kaufmann's "Shall the religious inherit the earth", points out that some religious minorities, often quite extreme ones, are much better at having children, and are likely to spread at the expense of the mainstream. This cultural difference in family stability reminds me of that. I would like to believe that the US and Europe can pick up whatever enables poor immigrant families to maintain stable families and viable reproductive structures – without buying into the more extreme aspects of some pro-natalist religious cultures.
- edgyquant 6y agoWhile this is true, the children of these families tend to move away from extremism (at least in the west) and the same rate as every one else.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoIt depends how cultish and restrictive the parents are. I know of some cults that even handicap their kids' English skills and keep them mingling amongst their own so that they don't really have any outside resources. Once they're economically dependent on their tribe, it's much harder for them to break out.
- dash2 6y agoYes, but those children that move away also move towards Western norms of sub-replacement fertility; while the children that don't, don't. I wouldn't say the best way to think about this is "these crazies are baby-making machines!" (Strawmanning your argument a little there.) There is some craziness in e.g. Quiverfull protestantism or Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, sure. Nevertheless, if culture X is set to survive into the future on current trends, and culture Y is not, then maybe culture X isn't completely stupid.
- filoleg 6y agoI cannot find the citation anymore, but I remember reading about an interesting phenomenon related to this. Since I cannot find the source now, please call me out if it is actually wrong, but it seems to make sense and rings true to my personal anecdotal experiences. Basically, the hypothesis is that immigrant families themselves indeed move away from extremism. But their children born in the new country tend to overcorrect and try to "discover the roots" by swinging harder in the opposite (extremism) direction. One generation down from the one that became less extremist, basically. I might be confusing some details given how long ago I had read it (it might be not the children of the immigrant family, but children of their children, for example), but that's the gist, and I saw it happening myself more than once.
- jacob2484 6y agoLet's not forget how the divorce system in the US HEAVILY favors women - perhaps more men would marry if the consequences of a bad marriage weren't so devastating.
- smegger001 6y agoyeah the potential of lossing access to children, your home, car, half of your possessions, and large part of your social network is not something to take lightly. then trying to peice your life back together when your have to pay alimony and child support, before your other expenses is a lot to ask when the alternative is free internet porn.
- foobarbaz33 6y agoI agree. I like the idea of marriage. But in the US 1 party is given financial incentive to divorce and make the other person their indentured servant for life. That incentive may be a factor in the high divorce rate.
- frongpik 6y agoI like to say that an american marriage is a startup: you find an investor, pitch an idea, do some business activity, bring new board members (kids) and sell your share to move on to other opportunities.
- amir734jj 6y agoI'm not sure if "stable" is the correct word here. Story time. I'm 27, immigrant living in the U.S. for the past 12+ years. We moved here from Iran when I was in highschool and now I'm a PhD student in computer science. I have been in the school since we moved in here. I have a brother and a sister who are 12 and 15 years older than me. They were not able to move here because they were over 21 years old. I work 2 jobs (senior software engineer and teaching at university), own a house and support my family in Iran. Iranian currency has been devalued by x20 times at least since we moved in so economy is messed up over there. I wouldn't call it a stable life. It's more like a survival. I'm not alone. I see international students (or couples) who work extremely hard to be able to get a job after graduation. Immigration is rewarding but not an easy path. I haven't been able to go to back to Iran and visit my friends and family members but I am scared being detained and used for the purpose of "hostage diplomacy" by the Iranian government.
- juskrey 6y agoImmigration is a tough survival filter for relationships.
- filoleg 6y agoYep, but it is a very just filter, i think, because it seems to kill off relationships that were already cracked and being held together by just pure will. Had that happen with my parents. We immigrated when I was a teen, and just 4 years later my parents divorced. To people on the outside it seemed completely out of nowhere. But growing up with them, it was painfully obvious (in retrospect) that they kept it all together not by trying to actually solve problems or work things out, but by holding it all together just on pure will. It could've been held forever if everything else was stable, but immigration process and the experience of adapting to a new country is anything but stable. While it sounds bad, I don't think of it as a tragic experience, and I don't wish that it had never happened. I am not happy that it happened either, but it was bound to eventually happen one way or another. Either that or one (or both of them) would just settle with being unhappy and miserable until the last days, being constantly anxious that one day that bridge held by duct tape would collapse.
- baybal2 6y agoIt's the other way around. Marriage is a tool for survival in more parts of the world than where it isn't. People around the world have more miseries to care other than marriage. Immigration itself is a filter for education, wit, and wealth, and, sometimes, even physical fittness, and health. By the definition, if both husband, and wife pass that, that's a very rare, lucky marriage. Russia has huge divorce rates, but Russian immigration much lower. Russians marry late back in Russia, but in mid-twenties, and early twenties marriage is commong among people I met. There were probably more women from Russia I knew in technical occupations in the West than all other women in engineering I knew alltogether. Think of it, if you were a woman, and was from the start aiming at studying for long 6 years, having harsh early career, and enduring hardship of living as a recent immigrant, you wouldn't be getting a husband whom you need to pull.
- paxys 6y agoThis isn't necessarily something to celebrate. "Not divorced" doesn't automatically mean stable. I'm Indian, and know so many couples (mainly older) who have been locked in loveless and joyless marriages for decades. Divorce is such a taboo subject in the community that it isn't something you can even consider. If you peel back the curtain you will see a shocking amount of infidelity, emotional/mental/physical abuse, marital rape and more, not exactly stuff I would associate with "stable" marriages.
- licnep 6y agoSeems like there are a lot of confounding factors here. For many people marriage is a prerequisite to immigrate to the us or bring their family over, and people risk deportation if they divorce. So saying that immigrant families are more stable can be akin to saying that H1B workers are more loyal to their company.
- m463 6y agoI also imagine living in a foreign country you spend a disproportionate amount of time just doing basic things, let alone growing a social circle from zero, let alone getting out and dating other people.
- andrewmcwatters 6y agoThe amount of comments espousing the idea that stable marriages can't be happy is off-putting to me and what I see as a reflection of how Americans value marriage.
- dang 6y agoThat would be a non sequitur! This is a classic case of the contrarian dynamic: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22contrarian%20dynamic%22%20objecti%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... Your post, and the upvotes it's getting, are the second wave :)
- enjeyw 6y agoHow interesting! Would love to see come quantative research into Contrarian Oscillations.
- AmericanChopper 6y agoPlease don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
- beisner 6y ago... it’s dang.
- AmericanChopper 6y agoI know who it is. I just think it’s funny that that particular guideline is so poorly written that even Dang violates it occasionally.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> I just think it’s funny that that particular guideline is so poorly written that even Dang violates it occasionally. The “guidelines” are, as the name suggests, “more what you'd call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.”
- darth_avocado 6y agoAm I the only one overtly bothered by the fact that in the chart, 60% is literally half of 72%?!!
- sebmellen 6y agoCould it be that this actually tracks more with wealth than being an immigrant? Looking at the numbers in the study, those richer immigrant groups like Indians seem to skew the data away from poorer groups like South Americans.
- golemiprague 6y agoI don't think immigration or wealth is the factor here but rather traditional values. An immigrant from Europe will have probably the same marriage rate as a non immigrant American while an Orthodox Jew will have higher stable marriage rate even though they are non immigrants and not particularly rich.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- yalogin 6y agoIsn't this directly related to the divorce rates in their respective countries of origin? IMO, this plays a stronger role in the divorce rates than anything else. One number I would love to see if how the subsequent generations of the immigrants do, both divorce rates and financially.
- lurquer 6y agoThere doesn’t appear to be any comparison of ages between immigrants and natives. The age rage is “between 18 and 64”. That’s a big range. Too big. How do I know — from the stats given — if the disparity is simply a matter of age? If the native average age is 45 while the immigrant average age is 35, the ‘result’ may simply be a matter of the natives having had more time to get divorced. Something is screwy. I smell an agenda.
- jeegsy 6y agoImmigrants are always these exemplary people unlike those pesky Americans!