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This question is answered in the interview. She is saying that a household with a stable long lasting relationship is what’s driving these better outcomes. She’

This question is answered in the interview. She is saying that a household with a stable long lasting relationship is what’s driving these better outcomes. She’s also saying that in America marriage (unfortunately) seems to be the only way to keep people together for a long while (long enough for a child to not experience a parade of parents by the time they are 15 according to the article). In my personal opinion. I think what she’s stumbled on is yet again proof of Americans hyper individuality rearing its ugly face. The Europeans can stay together longer without the marriage piece of paper because 1) Selfishness derived from hyper individuality doesn’t drive people to nope out of relationships at the first sign of minuscule problems or one side not getting their way 2) Since over there not everything is an economical benefit proposal people value the relationship with different metrics than our countrymen and women do.

seec 3y ago
Why do you assume Europeans do any better at this? Do you have comparable statistics? From my own experience, it is extremely unlikely that it is any different once you accounted for all variables. One reason Europeans might stay together longer together is for the tax benefits and other government subventions they would not get if they were single. In fact, except for single mothers who get everything with very litte conditions but terrible outcomes. The reality does not have much to do with a special government, religion, or whatever convoluted explanation you want to find. The answer is right there in plain sight; expect you cannot really say it because of strong enforcement of the public discourse. If that was not clear, I am saying that women are the variable that is messing everything up, and as a recipient of this reality I think anyone who believe otherwise is either a fool or politically motivated for some reason.
Retric 3y ago
Again, both parents in a stable long lasting relationship are capable of a stable long lasting relationship. Americans being bad at this doesn’t mean long term relationships are the sole difference, though they likely do provide some benefits it’s not the total difference in populations. "I don't know exactly what it is about marriage, but it is a very practical matter," says Kearney, chafing at all the criticism. "If you just look in the data, marriage is what delivers kids a stable, long-term, two-parent household in this country." The data is clear, however understanding the root causes is important because it impacts what approaches are most useful. If the relationships themselves are important the having a high school class in maintaining healthy relationship could be useful. If it’s the broader issues then we need to address those issues.
- beej71 3y ago
  I'd like to see a control on this. Is there a group of people who thought they were married, but by bureaucratic snafu actually weren't? Did they have different outcomes than people who were really married?
  - Balgair 3y ago
    Widows/ers would also be a good control.
    - soeptical 3y ago
      Widows/ers may have some associated confounding factors
      - hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
        I'm sorry to be off-topic but widows/ers just hurts my eyes. Why not use a more elegant alternative, widow(er)s? Even the uglier widow(s|ers) would be better.
        kirubakaran 3y ago
        Or the gender neutral, invariant noun: “widowen” BTW, shouldn’t “widower” be the person who died and the survivor be called “widowee”?
        Retric 3y ago
        That may seem reasonable but widower is a man whose spouse died. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/widower https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/widower “Etymology Middle English widewer, alteration of wedow widow, widower, from Old English wuduwa widower; akin to Old English wuduwe widow”
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
theGnuMe 3y ago
Europe has a better social safety network and wants people to have more kids.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  Germany has the same fertility rate as Japan.
  - dangus 3y ago
    Sweden is a better example. Incredible parental support, high birth rates compared to the rest of Europe. (Personally, I don’t think high birth rates are a good thing. The long term survival of our species depends on curtailing global population. But that’s a different subject.)
    - Boatfaceing 3y ago
      [dead]
    - xctr94 3y ago
      Germany has very good support for parents, and has been working hard to reverse the downwards fertility trend. Some progress is showing. (Note that I don’t disagree that Sweden is doing better.)
    - pb7 3y ago
      How is it a better example? A better example to fit your narrative you mean. Clearly parental support is not directly correlated with high birth rates.
- jokethrowaway 3y ago
  > and wants people to have more kids. That doesn't seem to be the case. The last 60 years saw plenty of anti family propaganda (same like in the US) and the numbers confirm that trend. The only people keeping the number of kids per family high are immigrants from Africa / Middle East who haven't been indoctrinated for 60 years.
corethree 3y ago
Yes hyper individuality is part of it. The other part of it is gender equality. For most of human civilization genders were not equal so both sexes evolved traits that are also unequal. The most glaring trait responsible for lack of marriage is female hypergamy. Previously women being of generally unequal/lower status then men and overall a smaller pool of candidates (no online dating) would be forced to be more egalitarian in mate selection. It was easy for a woman to find a man who got paid more than them because this was most men. Now that women are doing better and having relatively more equal pay with men hypergamy is rearing it's head in a more pronounced fashion. Female selection preferences are much more strict because if women are getting paid equally with men then they must find men that are paid more as well and this is obviously a much smaller pool than when women had no jobs. This along with exposure to the top men via online dating, women can now match with the top men in the entire city rather then the top men in her social circle. And this is exactly what you see in the online dating statistics. The top 20% of men match with the top 80% of women and the bottom 20% of women match with the bottom 80% of men. I mean as progressive as you want to be there's no denying what I'm saying here as this data is just glaring. It spits in the face of people who say otherwise as it's measuring current dating behavior. Individualism is part of the story because it does push for more power for women overall. But it is in the end this individualism among women that is changing the game in the US. But not just the US, other countries as well. So what's going on is you have a few men who have an abundance of choice. They're never going to settle because when men have an abundance of choice they switch their mating strategy from monogamy to harlem style polygamy. And then the rest of the men have a much harder time finding anyone at all. This is actually more beneficial to women from certain theoretical perspectives. In anthropology there's a saying that monogamy benefits men while polygamy benefits women and general female behavior shows it. Basically for the best genes and resources, women generally prefer to "share" a top alpha man with other women over being in an exclusive monogamous relationship with a beta male. Men on the other hand don't accept this strategy because they are providers of resources. If a woman sleeps with another man then the partner may end up raising and spending resources on another mans child. Thus all men have intense instincts to basically end an entire relationship once a woman has a single sexual affair. You can actually see how this behavior plays out in certain countries like Japan where women are totally ok with their husbands fucking prostitutes. As long as that man "loves" them and is providing resources for them, fucking a prostitute without love is totally ok for japanese women. Source: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/i9qS5vDXLSI https://www.youtube.com/shorts/i9qS5vDXLSI Basically we live in an era of changing social norms and it's accelerating natural selection. The majority of men born today will not pass on their genes. Traits of alpha males including height, confidence will be expressed to a greater extent in future generations and it's possible for the trend to continue roughly culling the bottom 80% of men out of the evolutionary process. Women are slowly getting the upper hand in terms of natural selection, and for men to get the upper hand usually they have to reintroduce monogamy back into the society as this guarantees a mate for every man. Monogamy is the more beneficial strategy to men overall because very few men can actually benefit from polygamy just by the nature of the way numbers work. Monogamous restrictions are pervasive enough throughout human civilization that some women have even evolved monogamous instincts via sexual selection as men actually actively seek these traits out in women. This is basically what's going on from the most scientific point of view. It's not politically correct so a lot of people vehemently disagree. Of course everything I say here is speaking to a general truth. There are plenty of exceptions but those exceptions do not negate the existence of the general truth.
throwaway2037 3y ago
U.S., Denmark, Sweden, and Finland all have roughly the same divorce rates. Source: https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/divorce-rate-by-country/ https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/divorce-rate-by-count...
- xctr94 3y ago
  You’re comparing against some of the highest rates in Europe; possibly because the Nordic countries value that same individuality that GP mentioned?
  - achenet 3y ago
    from my admittedly limited knowledge of the Nordics, they are much more collectivist than Americans. For example, Swedes have it drilled into their heads from an early age that "everyone deserves a home". This is not the case in America, where "poor people deserve to be poor because they're lazy, cut welfare, universal health care is socialism" is an acceptable statement, and in fact the basically party line for one of the two major political parties.
  - pb7 3y ago
    This comment is interesting because these are the same countries that are often used to show how “backwards” the US is due to their comparatively strong safety nets, etc. I guess when it comes to Europe, people can only pick and choose the best example for each discussion despite it varying wildly just like the US, is that right?
    - xctr94 3y ago
      No, you’re right; but these 4 countries aren’t even close to the European average on many aspects. Some of them aren’t even part of the EU, which is normally what gets compared against US markers.

seec 3y ago

Why do you assume Europeans do any better at this? Do you have comparable statistics? From my own experience, it is extremely unlikely that it is any different once you accounted for all variables. One reason Europeans might stay together longer together is for the tax benefits and other government subventions they would not get if they were single. In fact, except for single mothers who get everything with very litte conditions but terrible outcomes. The reality does not have much to do with a special government, religion, or whatever convoluted explanation you want to find. The answer is right there in plain sight; expect you cannot really say it because of strong enforcement of the public discourse. If that was not clear, I am saying that women are the variable that is messing everything up, and as a recipient of this reality I think anyone who believe otherwise is either a fool or politically motivated for some reason.

Retric 3y ago

Again, both parents in a stable long lasting relationship are capable of a stable long lasting relationship. Americans being bad at this doesn’t mean long term relationships are the sole difference, though they likely do provide some benefits it’s not the total difference in populations. "I don't know exactly what it is about marriage, but it is a very practical matter," says Kearney, chafing at all the criticism. "If you just look in the data, marriage is what delivers kids a stable, long-term, two-parent household in this country." The data is clear, however understanding the root causes is important because it impacts what approaches are most useful. If the relationships themselves are important the having a high school class in maintaining healthy relationship could be useful. If it’s the broader issues then we need to address those issues.

beej71 3y ago
I'd like to see a control on this. Is there a group of people who thought they were married, but by bureaucratic snafu actually weren't? Did they have different outcomes than people who were really married?
- Balgair 3y ago
  Widows/ers would also be a good control.
  - soeptical 3y ago
    Widows/ers may have some associated confounding factors
    - hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
      I'm sorry to be off-topic but widows/ers just hurts my eyes. Why not use a more elegant alternative, widow(er)s? Even the uglier widow(s|ers) would be better.
      - kirubakaran 3y ago
        Or the gender neutral, invariant noun: “widowen” BTW, shouldn’t “widower” be the person who died and the survivor be called “widowee”?
        Retric 3y ago
        That may seem reasonable but widower is a man whose spouse died. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/widower https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/widower “Etymology Middle English widewer, alteration of wedow widow, widower, from Old English wuduwa widower; akin to Old English wuduwe widow”
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]

theGnuMe 3y ago

Europe has a better social safety network and wants people to have more kids.

mensetmanusman 3y ago
Germany has the same fertility rate as Japan.
- dangus 3y ago
  Sweden is a better example. Incredible parental support, high birth rates compared to the rest of Europe. (Personally, I don’t think high birth rates are a good thing. The long term survival of our species depends on curtailing global population. But that’s a different subject.)
  - Boatfaceing 3y ago
    [dead]
  - xctr94 3y ago
    Germany has very good support for parents, and has been working hard to reverse the downwards fertility trend. Some progress is showing. (Note that I don’t disagree that Sweden is doing better.)
  - pb7 3y ago
    How is it a better example? A better example to fit your narrative you mean. Clearly parental support is not directly correlated with high birth rates.
jokethrowaway 3y ago
> and wants people to have more kids. That doesn't seem to be the case. The last 60 years saw plenty of anti family propaganda (same like in the US) and the numbers confirm that trend. The only people keeping the number of kids per family high are immigrants from Africa / Middle East who haven't been indoctrinated for 60 years.

corethree 3y ago

Yes hyper individuality is part of it. The other part of it is gender equality. For most of human civilization genders were not equal so both sexes evolved traits that are also unequal. The most glaring trait responsible for lack of marriage is female hypergamy. Previously women being of generally unequal/lower status then men and overall a smaller pool of candidates (no online dating) would be forced to be more egalitarian in mate selection. It was easy for a woman to find a man who got paid more than them because this was most men. Now that women are doing better and having relatively more equal pay with men hypergamy is rearing it's head in a more pronounced fashion. Female selection preferences are much more strict because if women are getting paid equally with men then they must find men that are paid more as well and this is obviously a much smaller pool than when women had no jobs. This along with exposure to the top men via online dating, women can now match with the top men in the entire city rather then the top men in her social circle. And this is exactly what you see in the online dating statistics. The top 20% of men match with the top 80% of women and the bottom 20% of women match with the bottom 80% of men. I mean as progressive as you want to be there's no denying what I'm saying here as this data is just glaring. It spits in the face of people who say otherwise as it's measuring current dating behavior. Individualism is part of the story because it does push for more power for women overall. But it is in the end this individualism among women that is changing the game in the US. But not just the US, other countries as well. So what's going on is you have a few men who have an abundance of choice. They're never going to settle because when men have an abundance of choice they switch their mating strategy from monogamy to harlem style polygamy. And then the rest of the men have a much harder time finding anyone at all. This is actually more beneficial to women from certain theoretical perspectives. In anthropology there's a saying that monogamy benefits men while polygamy benefits women and general female behavior shows it. Basically for the best genes and resources, women generally prefer to "share" a top alpha man with other women over being in an exclusive monogamous relationship with a beta male. Men on the other hand don't accept this strategy because they are providers of resources. If a woman sleeps with another man then the partner may end up raising and spending resources on another mans child. Thus all men have intense instincts to basically end an entire relationship once a woman has a single sexual affair. You can actually see how this behavior plays out in certain countries like Japan where women are totally ok with their husbands fucking prostitutes. As long as that man "loves" them and is providing resources for them, fucking a prostitute without love is totally ok for japanese women. Source: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/i9qS5vDXLSI https://www.youtube.com/shorts/i9qS5vDXLSI Basically we live in an era of changing social norms and it's accelerating natural selection. The majority of men born today will not pass on their genes. Traits of alpha males including height, confidence will be expressed to a greater extent in future generations and it's possible for the trend to continue roughly culling the bottom 80% of men out of the evolutionary process. Women are slowly getting the upper hand in terms of natural selection, and for men to get the upper hand usually they have to reintroduce monogamy back into the society as this guarantees a mate for every man. Monogamy is the more beneficial strategy to men overall because very few men can actually benefit from polygamy just by the nature of the way numbers work. Monogamous restrictions are pervasive enough throughout human civilization that some women have even evolved monogamous instincts via sexual selection as men actually actively seek these traits out in women. This is basically what's going on from the most scientific point of view. It's not politically correct so a lot of people vehemently disagree. Of course everything I say here is speaking to a general truth. There are plenty of exceptions but those exceptions do not negate the existence of the general truth.

throwaway2037 3y ago

U.S., Denmark, Sweden, and Finland all have roughly the same divorce rates. Source: https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/divorce-rate-by-country/ https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/divorce-rate-by-count...

xctr94 3y ago
You’re comparing against some of the highest rates in Europe; possibly because the Nordic countries value that same individuality that GP mentioned?
- achenet 3y ago
  from my admittedly limited knowledge of the Nordics, they are much more collectivist than Americans. For example, Swedes have it drilled into their heads from an early age that "everyone deserves a home". This is not the case in America, where "poor people deserve to be poor because they're lazy, cut welfare, universal health care is socialism" is an acceptable statement, and in fact the basically party line for one of the two major political parties.
- pb7 3y ago
  This comment is interesting because these are the same countries that are often used to show how “backwards” the US is due to their comparatively strong safety nets, etc. I guess when it comes to Europe, people can only pick and choose the best example for each discussion despite it varying wildly just like the US, is that right?
  - xctr94 3y ago
    No, you’re right; but these 4 countries aren’t even close to the European average on many aspects. Some of them aren’t even part of the EU, which is normally what gets compared against US markers.