The percentage of
Americans who consider children ''very important'' to a
successful marriage has dropped sharply since 1990, and more
now cite the sharing of household chores as pivotal,
according to a sweeping new survey.
The Pew Research
Center survey on marriage and parenting found that
children had fallen to eighth out of nine on a list of
factors that people associate with successful
marriages--well behind ''sharing household
chores,'' ''good housing,'' ''adequate income,'' a ''happy
sexual relationship,'' and ''faithfulness.''
In a 1990 World
Values Survey, children ranked third in importance among
the same items, with 65% saying children were very important
to a good marriage. Just 41% said so in the new Pew
survey.
Chore-sharing was
cited as very important by 62% of respondents, up from
47% in 1990.
Delving into one
of the nation's most divisive social issues, the survey
found that 57% of the public opposes allowing gays and
lesbians to marry. However, opinion was almost evenly
divided on support for civil unions (45% for, 46%
against) that would give same-sex couples many of
the same rights as married couples.
When asked about
the trend of more same-sex couples raising children, 50%
said it is bad for society, 11% said it is good, and 34%
said it made little difference.
The survey also
found that by a ratio of nearly 3 to 1, Americans say the
main purpose of marriage is the ''mutual happiness and
fulfillment'' of adults rather than the ''bearing and
raising of children.''
The survey's
findings buttress concerns expressed by numerous scholars
and family-policy experts, among them Barbara Dafoe
Whitehead of Rutgers University's National Marriage
Project.
''The popular
culture is increasingly oriented to fulfilling the X-rated
fantasies and desires of adults,'' she wrote in a recent
report. ''Child-rearing values--sacrifice,
stability, dependability, maturity--seem stale
and musty by comparison.''
Virginia Rutter,
a sociology professor at Framingham State College in
Massachusetts and a member of the board of Council on
Contemporary Families, said the shifting views may be
linked in part to America's relative lack of
family-friendly workplace policies such as paid leave
and subsidized child care.
''If we value
families...we need to change the circumstances they live
in,'' she said, citing the challenges faced by young
two-earner couples as they ponder having children.
The Pew survey
was conducted by telephone from mid February through mid
March among a random, nationwide sample of 2,020 adults. Its
margin of error is three percentage points.
Among the scores
of questions in the survey, many touched on America's
high rate of out-of-wedlock births and of cohabitation
outside of marriage. The survey noted that 37% of U.S.
births in 2005 were to unmarried women, up from 5% in
1960, and found that nearly half of all adults in
their 30s and 40s had lived with a partner outside of
marriage.
According to the
survey, 71% of Americans say the growth in births to
unwed mothers is a ''big problem.'' About the same
proportion--69%--said a child needs both a
mother and a father to grow up happily.
Breaking down the
responses, the survey found some predictable
patterns--Republicans and older people were more
likely to give conservative answers than Democrats and
younger adults. But the patterns in regard to race and
ethnicity were more complex.
For example,
census statistics show that blacks and Hispanic are more
likely than whites to bear children out of wedlock. Yet
according to the survey, these minority groups are
more inclined than whites to place a high value on the
importance of children to a successful marriage.
The survey found
that more than 80% of white adults have been married,
compared with about 70% of Hispanics and 54% of blacks. Yet
blacks were more likely than whites and Hispanics to
say that premarital sex is always or almost always
morally wrong.
Among those who
have ever been married, blacks (38%) and whites (34%)
were more likely than Hispanics (23%) to have been divorced.
(David Crary, AP)
