A new Pew poll was released this week to great fanfare and an Associated Press story that highlighted just one of its findings: a large drop since 1990 in the proportion of Americans who see children as "very important" to a "successful" marriage. The Pew study itself however has a very different headline: "As Marriage and Parenthood Drift Apart, Public Is Concerned about Social Impact."
One key finding: Americans have a problem with unmarried childbearing. The Pew poll asked this question in a variety of ways: Seventy-one percent of Americans say the growth in births to unwed mothers is a "big problem" for society, while 69 percent agree "A child needs a home with both a mother and father to grow up happily." By a margin of 66 percent to 25 percent, Americans say that "single women having children" is a trend that is "bad for society," rather than "good."
The breadth of this consensus across lines of age, race and education is striking: Seventy percent of whites and 67 percents of black agree it's a bad trend for society (as do 54 percent of Hispanics). Seventy-two percent of senior citizens say it's a bad thing, but so do 65 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds. Sixty-eight percent of college grads worry about unmarried childbearing, but so do 65 percent of Americans with only a high school degree or less.
Sixty-seven percent of those in households making at least $100,000 a year see single parenting as a negative trend, but so do 62 percent of those in households making less than $30,000. Seventy-eight percent of Republicans say it is a bad trend, but so do 61 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Independents. Eighty-seven percent of white Evangelicals say it's a bad trend for society, but so do about two-thirds of white mainline Protestants, white Catholics and black Protestants.
Even 61 percent of never-married parents agree a child needs a mom and a dad, and 54 percent of never married parents say the trend of single women having kids is bad for society.
In fact the only group in which less than a majority agree that single women having children is bad for society are the "seculars." Forty-five percent of seculars say single women having children is bad for society, while 41 percent say it is a good thing -- which kind of makes one wonder about the reality-base of this particular community.