On Being

What are the causes that affect the ghettos particularly?

• The high stress of being poor leads to a high rate of divorce. Marriage is difficult enough without the extraordinary problems associated with being poor in America.
• The high rate of joblessness among inner-city men leaves them virtually incapable of supporting a family economically. Not only does this make them less desirable marriage partners, but being unable to fulfill the socially expected male role of breadwinner within a family also makes it emotionally difficult for a man to stay in the marriage. Studies show that when a single man has a job, he is much more likely than a jobless man to marry the child's mother after the birth of the baby.
• More recently, the extraordinarily high numbers of young black men in the criminal justice system further decreases the chance of marriage.
• Poverty leads to despair. Chronic poverty impairs one's motivation to aspire to something greater than what one sees in the environment. It increases the male's desire to "prove himself" by having a child. For both men and women, sex among teenagers in the ghetto is more about personal affirmation than about status or a ticket to a better life. Economic prospects for young, inner-city women are poor regardless of marital status, so there is little reason to value marriage, especially for teenagers. The desperation of the ghetto leads to a sense that there is little to lose. The girl from a poor, inner-city family sacrifices only a few of her already limited options by having a child out of wedlock.
• In part due to changing societal mores, in part due to joblessness, in part due to the oppression of the ghetto, the cultural norms within the ghetto in support of husband-wife families and against out-of-wedlock births have become much weaker. There is no longer any stigma attached to having an "illegitimate" baby.18 Many young ghetto women, in fact, have come to see a man in the house as a liability.
• For those who doubt the importance of the structural causes of poverty, it might be instructive to meditate on the fact that, at least in America, a high out-of-wedlock birthrate is correlated with societal oppression. American blacks, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans and native Hawaiians all began as indigenous peoples, were overrun by conquerors or colonizers, were consigned to positions of dependency, and have been easily identifiable racially.19 Their rates of out-of-wedlock births range from 46% for Hawaiians to 68% for blacks, compared to 18.5% for whites.

It is important to dispel some widespread myths. There is, for instance, little scientific evidence that welfare plays a significant role in promoting out-of-wedlock births. It is likely that some welfare requirements have caused some intact couples to stay out of formal marriage. Nevertheless, research examining the association between the generosity of welfare benefits on the one hand and out-of-wedlock childbearing and teen pregnancy on the other indicates that benefit levels have no significant effect on blacks having children outside of marriage (although there may be a small effect on whites). The rate of out-of-wedlock teen childbearing, for instance, has nearly doubled since 1975 despite the fact that the real dollar values of welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid has fallen.


Footnotes
¹⁸ Since no baby should be labeled "illegitimate," the term's virtual disappearance from our language should be considered progress. Nevertheless, it also indicates a change in our mores, a weakening the social constraints on out-of-wedlock births.
¹⁹ White Puerto Ricans have out of out-of-wedlock statistics similar to the general population.