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II. Conceptual Frameworks
This section presents a conceptual framework dealing with the major causes of marriage and its interaction with employment and family functioning. Although the framework applies broadly, of particularly interest are the relationships between marriage and employment in the low-income population. These outcomes depend on the motivations of individuals, the external constraints they face, the choices individuals make as they convert their motivations into actions, and the cumulative impact of actions of others on the constraints and preferences of individuals. The pooled actions of other parties exert impacts via the labor market, the marriage market, and the norms of the individual’s community, friends, peers, and family.
Well-developed theories in economics, sociology, and psychology offer a starting point for our conceptual framework. With a focus on labor and marriage markets, we present a framework that considers the interplay of (1) preferences, (2) incentives and constraints, (3) uncertainty and information, (4) skills, and (5) context. In addition to the five main causal factors in our framework identified above, we take account of theories of behavior and self-control in contexts of uncertainty.5
A. PREFERENCES AND VALUES
Economists focus on how individuals maximize their satisfaction under constraints, where the satisfaction of individuals depends on their preferences. Although some economists, for example Veblen (1899) and Galbraith (1958), have long recognized the role of outside forces in influencing preferences, only recently have mainstream economists joined sociologists in focusing on the role of social interactions (Durlauf and Young 2001; Manski 2000), social norms (Kooreman 2007; Sliwka 2007), neighborhoods (Calvo-Armengol, Verdier, and Zenou, 2007; Vartanian and Buck 2005) and other institutions. In labor force decisions, individuals make choices based on their preferences not only for income and leisure, but also for job satisfaction, job comfort and safety, time spent with children, and work at home.
Preferences vary in the context of marriage and couple relationships as well. Not everyone places the same priority on marriage or long-lasting couple relationships. Preferences for marriage often interact with preferences about whether and when to have children. Although women commonly prefer to marry prior to having children, some women attach a higher priority to having children, even if childbearing takes place outside of marriage (Edin and Kefalas 2005).
Preferences can affect decisions about parental roles in housework, market work, and child care, about parenting styles, and about interactions with other family and friends. Individuals may value raising their partner’s satisfaction, but they may place a higher priority on their own. Economists have developed bargaining theories to capture the way couples negotiate the sharing of income, housework, child care, and leisure (see Lundberg and Pollak 2003 for a recent example).
Preferences can arise from personal or group values that may be influenced by religion, by an internal sense of right and wrong, and by other influential people, including family members, mentors, teachers, and peers. The choice of how much to work and what jobs to accept depends not only on the desire for the income to buy goods and services, but also on preferences for family and leisure time, and on the satisfaction from having a job and performing job-related tasks. Some see work as a way of fulfilling a higher value. Values play an especially significant role in marriage and family preferences. People may prefer marriage before childbearing because they believe it is morally wrong to have sex before marriage or to have a child outside of marriage. People may prefer staying in a less than ideal marriage because they place a higher priority on the outcomes for their children than on their own gratification. Again, the source of such preferences may lie in personal values influenced by religion, community norms, upbringing within a family, or other sources.
One preference that exerts a major impact on work, career choice, and family behaviors is the individual’s relative willingness to delay gratification for some larger benefit in the future (Banfield 1970; Laibson 1997). Individuals with a preference for immediate gratification are typically less willing to study, work at a low wage, or accept unpleasant work conditions today in return for a higher wage and more satisfying job in the future. Some couples take a short-run perspective, pay little attention to building a healthy relationship, and have unintended pregnancies. Others develop their interactions in ways that offer a better chance for marriage and a healthy, long-term relationship.
Uncertainty is inextricably linked to current and future preferences. One reason for short versus long time horizons is different perceptions of future outcomes. Some individuals have little confidence that future gains will materialize in return for delaying gratification today. No doubt the perception and reality of future gains differ widely across individuals. In fact, it is hard to know whether observed choices reflect differences in preferences, in knowledge about the future, or in real uncertainties. Women may avoid marriage because they prefer independence or because of uncertainty over both the economic future and social behavior of their partner. Decisions about careers, marriage, and family functioning all depend on this confluence of preferences, knowledge, and genuine uncertainties. Choosing an education and training strategy depends not only on preferences for current versus future satisfaction, but also on one’s knowledge about the future career outcomes in pursuing each strategy and on the actual variability in outcomes for various occupations.
The stability of preferences affects our understanding of what people choose and which policies can be effective. Preferences typically form within a context of family background, cultural traditions, peer groups, media messages, and the social norms of one’s community. Although changing an individual’s preferences may be difficult, programs often attempt to do so by appealing to an individual’s sense of higher values, and by emphasizing the long-term satisfaction and pride one gains from constructive activities in work, parenting, and helping others. Where preferences are stable, purposeful, and reflective of individuality, shifts in individual decisions will take place mainly as a result of changing incentives and constraints, including skills. Although many argue for designing programs for low-income populations with respect for each person’s preferences and without imposing middle-class values, others see changing preferences as critical to changing behavior. One expert on ex-offender programs argues that job-oriented interventions for young ex-offenders will succeed only by motivating them to choose to exit from a life of crime (Bloom 2006; Bushway 2003). Another perspective emphasizes problems of self-control and ambivalence in people’s desires. For example, an individual may want to leave the life of crime, but may lack sufficient self-control and may give in to a desire for excitement, revenge, or quick money.
Behavioral economists recognize that people may fail to save money, to stop smoking, or to meet work schedules because of short-term decisions that run counter to deeper preferences for their economic welfare and their health. The policy implications that behavioral economists promote often involve limiting choices and steering people to constructive alternatives that better reflect their long-term objectives and choices. Information may be necessary to reshape preferences and choices toward more constructive choices, but it is rarely sufficient. For example, men may engage in less casual sex after learning about the risks of sexually transmitted infections and about the risks of having to pay high levels of child support. But, altering the opportunities and changing community norms may be required as well. Thus, while preferences matter, the context within which preferences are formed, as well as other factors, will interact to determine the choices individuals make and their consequences.
B. INCENTIVES AND CONSTRAINTS
In addition to preferences and values, choices clearly depend on incentives and constraints. In economic models, individuals maximize their satisfaction (which depends on their preferences) subject to constraints. Nonwage income and the net wage level are key variables affecting the choice about whether and how much to work. For any given set of preferences for work versus leisure, more nonwage income makes people wealthier, possibly reducing their hours of work, while higher net wages exert two offsetting effects. A higher wage rate increases income, lessening the need to work long hours; the higher wage also raises the gain from working extra hours, thus encouraging more hours working on the job. Empirical evidence shows that the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) increased the net wage of many workers and led to increased work effort on the part of low-income single parents (Meyer and Rosenbaum 2001). Becker (1981) played a major role in extending standard economic models to marriage, viewing individuals as maximizing satisfaction on the basis of full income (including household production) and as recognizing the benefits from jointly producing income and other outputs of value to each member of a couple.6
Tax and transfer programs can also affect marriage incentives and choices. Policies that strengthen the economic position of single parents relative to married parents can lead some couples to delay marriage. Some aspects of the tax system are favorable for married couples, especially for those with only one worker. However, in parts of the system with a single-family filing unit, a family definition of income, and progressive tax and transfer schedules, financial disincentives to marry are inevitable. The impact is particularly large for couples earning similar amounts of money. Disincentives to marry are especially high among couples that receive means-tested transfer income and live together without reporting their coresidence. Consider a mother with two children earning $8 per hour and working 25 hours per week who receives food stamps, a housing subsidy, child care, and Medicaid benefits, and cohabits with a man working full-time at $10 hour but not reporting his coresidence. If the average couple in the United States married, they would lose about 30 percent of their total income (about $820 per month).7 At the same time, low-income couples with substantially different incomes and little or no transfer income can be financially better off if they marry. Rigorous enforcement of child-support obligations strengthens disincentives to father children outside marriage and to divorce and become a noncustodial parent. But, added child support improves financial outcomes for custodial parents, reducing the financial constraints against unwed motherhood and maintaining a single-parent family. Overall, however, aggressive child support appears to reduce the share of low-income children in single-parent families (Acs and Nelson 2004). In addition, high child-support obligations and payment rates can reduce a father’s incentive to work in the mainstream economy (Holzer, Offner, and Sorensen 2005).
The economic and social health of a family interacts in ways affected by incentives and constraints. Parents may resort to poor-quality child care because they lack resources for high-quality care. Conversely, the lack of decent backup child care forces some parents to be absent from work and can lead to the loss of a job. Some people face difficulties in credit markets that limit their borrowing and investment opportunities, putting homeownership out of reach. For low-income families, the inability to buy a car on credit can hamper their job search and job stability. On the positive side, legal constraints can improve family functioning, as in the case of strong enforcement of domestic-violence laws that limit a family member’s ability to hurt another family member.
Sometimes, unnoticed institutional factors or seemingly minor transaction costs affect behavior in surprisingly significant ways. The availability of the Internet to reduce job-search costs may increase the return to employment. The presence of a nearby office may affect whether families apply for food stamps. In another context, the Congress recently recognized the potential importance of simple features of the institutional environment for encouraging enrollment in private pensions. It allowed employers to enroll new employees automatically unless they take an active step to withdraw. Research suggests this change in the “default” provision is likely to increase participation, despite having no effect on the economic returns to taking part in the program.
Changing incentives to alter outcomes is a common policy recommendation. Often, however, altering a policy instrument to encourage one objective (say, encouraging work by reducing the duration or benefit replacement rate of unemployment insurance) can negatively affect other outcomes, such as material hardship or family stability. Resolving such conflicts requires balancing among competing objectives or using additional policy instruments. For example, reducing benefits encourages single mothers to seek work but might leave them and their children worse off if no job is found. Instead, the government can leave benefits constant while imposing work requirements as a way to encourage people to take jobs without worsening their children’s economic position of children. To help people overcome educational and other constraints that limit access to good-paying jobs, we can turn to other elements of our framework, particularly information and skills.
C. INFORMATION
Insufficient information, an issue that economists have addressed rigorously in the last few decades, is clearly relevant to discussions about marriage, employment, and family functioning. Individuals base their decisions about work, marriage, and family functioning partly on their interpretation of current and future realities. Unfortunately, their information is often incomplete and inaccurate. Too often, this misinformation or misperception contributes to bad life-course decisions. For example, lacking good information on the availability and requirements for good jobs and careers, young people spend too little time and effort concentrating on learning in school and outside of school. Some young men may be unaware of the impact of early and unwed fatherhood on their child-support obligations, their children’s future, their ability to sustain an adequate living standard, and their ability to become effective fathers. Others apparently overestimate the economic gains from working in illicit and criminal activities, such as the drug trade (Leavitt and Dubner 2005).
Misinformation is widespread about the general effects of marriage on health, sexual satisfaction, living standards, and happiness. Many low-income and minority young people may base their beliefs about marriage on limited observations in their families and communities, or on media portrayals of marriage (Edin and Kefalas 2005). Often, these sources distort the realities of marriage as well as the requirements for and the advantages of healthy marriages. The distinction between cohabitation and marriage patterns is another area in which misinformation is widespread. Many are unaware that cohabitation typically involves much higher breakup rates and that longer-term cohabiting unions are more prone to domestic violence than marriages (Waite and Gallagher 2000).
Sound parenting and other aspects of family functioning require accurate information. Many parents are unaware of the profound impacts of reading to children at very young ages and of mixing warmth and discipline appropriately. Again, when information comes entirely from poor role models, from unsuccessful families in neighborhoods, or from media, parents may choose unconstructive ways to raise their children. Other critical pieces of information include knowing where to go for help in dealing with unemployment, other financial crises, and child misbehavior.
By itself, accurate information may not lead people to make wise decisions. But, inaccurate or distorted information can certainly contribute to unsound choices. Generally, accurate information is necessary but must be combined with a supportive context and with skills for people to achieve healthy employment, marriage, and family-functioning outcomes.
D. SKILLS
Skills are central as well to wage determination, to healthy marriages, to wise parenting, and to other family functions. The role of skills in determining wages, employment, and careers is well known. Indeed, researchers, policymakers, and the public all recognize that people must invest in learning appropriate skills before they can become a computer technician, nurse, welder, or carpenter, or enter most other professions. Having a preference for a profession and general knowledge about the profession are not enough: individuals must undergo education and training and then practice the skills they absorb to demonstrate their abilities to perform the relevant tasks. Adequate preparation for many careers involves not only learning what is pertinent to a particular occupation but also skills that apply to a range of jobs and careers. Among them are academic capabilities (reading, writing, basic math), interpersonal skills, and problem-solving skills.
Less widely recognized is the critical role of skills in achieving healthy marriages and healthy couple relationships. Again, the preference for and information about a healthy marriage may not be enough. Couples must also have or develop the skills to communicate constructively, to solve problems together, and to deal with financial issues, including limited budgets. Many of these skills apply not only to the couple and marriage setting but also to the work setting. One example of a skill that affects many facets of life is the ability to deal with interpersonal conflicts and solve other problems.8 How individuals handle conflicts and solve problems can have repercussions for their educational outcomes, careers, relationships, and family formation.
E. CONTEXT
Individuals develop preferences for work and marriage in the context of peers, neighbors, and the community setting. Current perceptions and future goals concerning living standards depend on the living standards attained by others. Context plays a central role in shaping what is acceptable and what constitutes success in work arrangements, couple relationships, sexual activities, and child-rearing. The specific mechanisms may be peers who dismiss working at a low-wage job as toiling for “chump change,” who attach high status to men who have many sexual partners, or who see young women having children outside marriage as normal and even something to celebrate.9
Context has market, institutional, and interactive dimensions as well. If most potential partners in one’s community place little value on marriage before bearing children, on fidelity to one’s partner, and on formalizing a couple relationship into marriage, individuals trying to choose a healthy marriage may find few takers. If few men are seeking marriage or willing to forego various temptations in return for a stable marriage, then women may be unable to exercise their preferences for a stable, healthy marriage. Another barrier to healthy marriages may be the limited venues in which men and women committed to marriage and raising children within marriage can meet. In the employment context, if individuals see few opportunities to invest in career-oriented skills or to enter rewarding careers, even those with long-term horizons may choose not to study hard in school or to avoid jobs in the illegal economy.
In some cases, the actions of individual agents interact in unexpected ways, leading to an environment that works ineffectively for the group as a whole. As Schelling (1971) demonstrated, despite individual preferences for living in an integrated neighborhood (but one in which they are in the majority), the micro decisions of individuals can easily lead to complete segregation—a macro outcome that no one prefers. Similarly, neighborhood men in search of good-paying jobs may turn down a few low-wage opportunities and thereby lead employers to believe that men in the neighborhood do not want to work. In the context of a modest shortage of available men, a few women may bid for partners by becoming more willing to accept infidelity or a submissive role. In turn, more men may come to expect this behavior, resulting in a cascade of actions that lead to high rates of unstable relationships and unwed childbearing.
The linkages between context and other elements of the framework may run in both directions. Without changes in individuals’ context, their constructive preferences may be undermined, their information may be questioned or dismissed, and their skills may go unused. On the other hand, policies that alter the preferences, constraints, information, and skills of a large share of a group may change the context significantly and set off self-perpetuating and reinforcing changes in preferences, constraints, information, and skills. The impacts may be highly nonlinear (Gladwell 2000). Initially, the effect on individuals may be overcome by the labor- and marriage-market context. However, reaching a critical mass of individuals may achieve a tipping point that ultimately changes the context in a new direction, one especially favorable to employment, healthy marriage, and beneficial family functioning.
F. NEXT STEPS
The five elements of our conceptual framework encompass the main influences on the motivations and actions of individuals and couples relating to marriage, employment, and family functioning. We believe they offer a guide for policy and potential government initiatives and for learning about the key forces affecting each outcome and the interactions among outcomes. Improving employment and marriage outcomes may require steps relating to all elements of our framework. Alternatively, changes in a few elements—say, financial constraints affecting work and marriage or improving marriage-related skills—may help turn around the nation’s current predicament, particularly among the low-income and less-educated populations, of high proportions of nonmarital births, weak employment and career outcomes for less-educated men, high divorce rates, and unhealthy practices in family functioning.10
The next sections review the experience with demonstrations and programs based on the five elements of our framework and then propose demonstration ideas that draw on this experience along with elements of the framework.
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