<p>There is no longer any question that men, women, children, and even communities are better off, on average, when marriage grounds and guides the context of family life (Kearney, <span>2023</span>; Wilcox, <span>2024</span>). In communities and households where marriage is the norm, for instance, the American Dream is stronger (Chetty et al. <span>2014</span>; Wilcox, <span>2024</span>), rates of child poverty are lower and college graduation higher (Kearney, <span>2023</span>; Wilcox et al., <span>2015</span>), and adult deaths of despair and financial distress are markedly less common (Rothwell, <span>2024</span>; Wilcox, <span>2024</span>). Given this, how can one argue against public policies designed to strengthen the institution of marriage?</p><p>We are not persuaded by Professor Fomby's points. We explain why below.</p><p>There is no doubt, given the ways in which marriage is now more common among, for instance, more affluent and religious Americans (Wilcox, <span>2024</span>) that some of the evident benefits of marriage for children and adults actually flow from the “multiple forms of capital that [married] families accumulate and effectively deploy” in their lives, as Fomby contends.</p><p>But the effects of what Harvard anthropologist Joseph Henrich (<span>2020</span>) called our “primeval institution” are not likely to be entirely about selection. The values, norms, and customs of marriage—which have guided family relationships in civilizations across the globe—lend meaning, direction, and stability to individual and family lives. They also allow for unparalleled financial collaboration and security. All of which appear to have a protective impact on the well-being of children and adults that is causal (Wilcox, <span>2024</span>).</p><p>The most sophisticated social scientific evidence regarding marriage is consistent with the conclusion that marriage's effects are not just about selection but also about protection. One study of Minnesota identical male twins found, for instance, that married twins earn about 26% more than their identical twins who are not married (Bouchard et al., <span>1990</span>). Another twin study by psychologist Brian D'Onofrio and colleagues (<span>2005</span>) found results “consistent with a causal connection between marital instability and psychopathology in young-adult offspring” of mothers who were twins but discordant on divorce (p. 570). Studies like these strongly suggest that pre-existing biological or social factors do not entirely account for the effects of marriage on children and adults. As with other core institutions—like colleges and universities—the values, norms, and customs deployed by the institution of marriage appear to influence men, women, children, and the communities in which they live—generally for the good.</p><p>In the last 50 years, a large marriage divide has emerged in America such that lower-income and Black Americans are markedly less likely to get and stay married. Fomby a
{"title":"Bridge the marriage divide, don't accept it","authors":"W. Bradford Wilcox, Alan J. Hawkins","doi":"10.1002/pam.22638","DOIUrl":"10.1002/pam.22638","url":null,"abstract":"<p>There is no longer any question that men, women, children, and even communities are better off, on average, when marriage grounds and guides the context of family life (Kearney, <span>2023</span>; Wilcox, <span>2024</span>). In communities and households where marriage is the norm, for instance, the American Dream is stronger (Chetty et al. <span>2014</span>; Wilcox, <span>2024</span>), rates of child poverty are lower and college graduation higher (Kearney, <span>2023</span>; Wilcox et al., <span>2015</span>), and adult deaths of despair and financial distress are markedly less common (Rothwell, <span>2024</span>; Wilcox, <span>2024</span>). Given this, how can one argue against public policies designed to strengthen the institution of marriage?</p><p>We are not persuaded by Professor Fomby's points. We explain why below.</p><p>There is no doubt, given the ways in which marriage is now more common among, for instance, more affluent and religious Americans (Wilcox, <span>2024</span>) that some of the evident benefits of marriage for children and adults actually flow from the “multiple forms of capital that [married] families accumulate and effectively deploy” in their lives, as Fomby contends.</p><p>But the effects of what Harvard anthropologist Joseph Henrich (<span>2020</span>) called our “primeval institution” are not likely to be entirely about selection. The values, norms, and customs of marriage—which have guided family relationships in civilizations across the globe—lend meaning, direction, and stability to individual and family lives. They also allow for unparalleled financial collaboration and security. All of which appear to have a protective impact on the well-being of children and adults that is causal (Wilcox, <span>2024</span>).</p><p>The most sophisticated social scientific evidence regarding marriage is consistent with the conclusion that marriage's effects are not just about selection but also about protection. One study of Minnesota identical male twins found, for instance, that married twins earn about 26% more than their identical twins who are not married (Bouchard et al., <span>1990</span>). Another twin study by psychologist Brian D'Onofrio and colleagues (<span>2005</span>) found results “consistent with a causal connection between marital instability and psychopathology in young-adult offspring” of mothers who were twins but discordant on divorce (p. 570). Studies like these strongly suggest that pre-existing biological or social factors do not entirely account for the effects of marriage on children and adults. As with other core institutions—like colleges and universities—the values, norms, and customs deployed by the institution of marriage appear to influence men, women, children, and the communities in which they live—generally for the good.</p><p>In the last 50 years, a large marriage divide has emerged in America such that lower-income and Black Americans are markedly less likely to get and stay married. Fomby a","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"43 4","pages":"1301-1304"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/pam.22638","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142002716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>Does marriage improve well-being for parents and children? It can certainly appear that way. In the contemporary United States, children who grow up with married parents perform better in school, enjoy better physical and emotional health, more often begin and finish college, and enter stable employment at higher rates compared to peers who grow up in other family arrangements (Brown, <span>2010</span>). Married parents appear to be better off, too: they report being happier, healthier, and more financially secure than parents who are single or in cohabiting unions (Waite, <span>1995</span>).</p><p>The relationship between marriage and well-being is of policy interest for several reasons. First, a lot of childrearing in the U.S. happens outside of marriage. Forty percent of U.S. children are born to unpartnered or cohabiting parents (Guzzo, <span>2021</span>; Osterman et al., <span>2024</span>, Table 9), and roughly one quarter of children under age 18 live with a single parent, usually their mother (Census Bureau, <span>2022</span>, Table C3). By age 12, more than half of U.S. children have spent some time outside of a married-parent family household (Brown et al., <span>2016</span>).</p><p>Further, in the U.S., children in single-parent households, and particularly those headed by single mothers, are exceptionally likely to be poor, and child poverty is strongly associated with compromised development and achievement (Duncan et al., <span>1998</span>). Among families with children in 2022, 37.2% of female-headed households and 18.3% of male-headed households were in poverty under the official poverty measure, compared to just 6.9% of married-couple families (Shrider & Creamer, <span>2023</span>, Table A-2). Among 30 peer countries, the U.S. ranks first for single motherhood's average marginal effect on the probability of being in relative poverty (Brady et al., <span>2024</span>).</p><p>And although most Americans say that they would like to marry (Gallup, <span>2020</span>), married parenthood is largely stratified by race and social class. Sixty percent of Asian adults, 54% of White adults, and 63% of college-educated adults are in married couples today, compared to fewer than half of Black or Hispanic adults and adults with a high school education (31%, 45%, and 45%, respectively; Census Bureau, <span>2022</span>, Table F2; Julian, <span>2023</span>). Married adults also have higher earnings at marriage compared to their same-aged unpartnered or cohabiting counterparts (Ludwig & Brüderl, <span>2018</span>; Oppenheimer, <span>2003</span>).</p><p>Socially patterned disparities in marriage formation and stability in the United States are not new: indeed, Dianne M. Stewart (<span>2020</span>) has described the profound systemic barriers to stable marriage that Black adults have encountered over four centuries in America as “this country's most camouflaged civil rights issue” (p. 217). But at the end of the Baby Boom, marriage was near
{"title":"Prioritize families, not marriage","authors":"Paula Fomby","doi":"10.1002/pam.22630","DOIUrl":"10.1002/pam.22630","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Does marriage improve well-being for parents and children? It can certainly appear that way. In the contemporary United States, children who grow up with married parents perform better in school, enjoy better physical and emotional health, more often begin and finish college, and enter stable employment at higher rates compared to peers who grow up in other family arrangements (Brown, <span>2010</span>). Married parents appear to be better off, too: they report being happier, healthier, and more financially secure than parents who are single or in cohabiting unions (Waite, <span>1995</span>).</p><p>The relationship between marriage and well-being is of policy interest for several reasons. First, a lot of childrearing in the U.S. happens outside of marriage. Forty percent of U.S. children are born to unpartnered or cohabiting parents (Guzzo, <span>2021</span>; Osterman et al., <span>2024</span>, Table 9), and roughly one quarter of children under age 18 live with a single parent, usually their mother (Census Bureau, <span>2022</span>, Table C3). By age 12, more than half of U.S. children have spent some time outside of a married-parent family household (Brown et al., <span>2016</span>).</p><p>Further, in the U.S., children in single-parent households, and particularly those headed by single mothers, are exceptionally likely to be poor, and child poverty is strongly associated with compromised development and achievement (Duncan et al., <span>1998</span>). Among families with children in 2022, 37.2% of female-headed households and 18.3% of male-headed households were in poverty under the official poverty measure, compared to just 6.9% of married-couple families (Shrider & Creamer, <span>2023</span>, Table A-2). Among 30 peer countries, the U.S. ranks first for single motherhood's average marginal effect on the probability of being in relative poverty (Brady et al., <span>2024</span>).</p><p>And although most Americans say that they would like to marry (Gallup, <span>2020</span>), married parenthood is largely stratified by race and social class. Sixty percent of Asian adults, 54% of White adults, and 63% of college-educated adults are in married couples today, compared to fewer than half of Black or Hispanic adults and adults with a high school education (31%, 45%, and 45%, respectively; Census Bureau, <span>2022</span>, Table F2; Julian, <span>2023</span>). Married adults also have higher earnings at marriage compared to their same-aged unpartnered or cohabiting counterparts (Ludwig & Brüderl, <span>2018</span>; Oppenheimer, <span>2003</span>).</p><p>Socially patterned disparities in marriage formation and stability in the United States are not new: indeed, Dianne M. Stewart (<span>2020</span>) has described the profound systemic barriers to stable marriage that Black adults have encountered over four centuries in America as “this country's most camouflaged civil rights issue” (p. 217). But at the end of the Baby Boom, marriage was near","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"43 4","pages":"1284-1289"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/pam.22630","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142002673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Poverty in the Pandemic: Policy Lessons From COVID-19 by Zachary Parolin. New York: Russell Sage, 2023, 288 pp., $42.50 (paperback).","authors":"Vincent A. Fusaro","doi":"10.1002/pam.22635","DOIUrl":"10.1002/pam.22635","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"44 1","pages":"340-344"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142002767","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Is public housing bad for children? The net effect of moving into public housing on children's academic outcomes is theoretically ambiguous and likely to depend on changes to neighborhood and school characteristics. Drawing on detailed individual-level longitudinal data on New York City public school students, we exploit plausibly random variation in the precise timing of entry into public housing to estimate credibly causal effects of public housing residency on academic outcomes. Both difference-in-differences and event study analyses suggest positive effects of public housing on test scores, with larger effects after the initial year. Stalled academic performance at entry may reflect disruptive effects of residential and school mobility. Effects on test scores are larger among students who move from lower-income neighborhoods due, perhaps, to increases in neighborhood and school quality. For some subgroups, attendance improves and the incidence of obesity declines. Our results contradict the popular belief that public housing is bad for kids.
{"title":"Are public housing projects good for kids after all?","authors":"Jeehee Han, Amy Ellen Schwartz","doi":"10.1002/pam.22625","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22625","url":null,"abstract":"Is public housing bad for children? The net effect of moving into public housing on children's academic outcomes is theoretically ambiguous and likely to depend on changes to neighborhood and school characteristics. Drawing on detailed individual-level longitudinal data on New York City public school students, we exploit plausibly random variation in the precise timing of entry into public housing to estimate credibly causal effects of public housing residency on academic outcomes. Both difference-in-differences and event study analyses suggest positive effects of public housing on test scores, with larger effects after the initial year. Stalled academic performance at entry may reflect disruptive effects of residential and school mobility. Effects on test scores are larger among students who move from lower-income neighborhoods due, perhaps, to increases in neighborhood and school quality. For some subgroups, attendance improves and the incidence of obesity declines. Our results contradict the popular belief that public housing is bad for kids.","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142002654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"APPAM Announcements","authors":"","doi":"10.1002/pam.22626","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22626","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"43 4","pages":"1329"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142233116","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Notes from the Editor","authors":"Erdal Tekin","doi":"10.1002/pam.22629","DOIUrl":"10.1002/pam.22629","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"43 4","pages":"998"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141904589","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Agents and Structures in Cross-Border Governance: North American and European Perspectives by Bruno Dupeyron, Andrea Noferini, and Tony Payan (Eds.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023, 400 pp., $85.00 (hardcover). ISBN: 978–1487502881.","authors":"Yuzhu Zeng","doi":"10.1002/pam.22624","DOIUrl":"10.1002/pam.22624","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"43 4","pages":"1308-1313"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141895352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Referee Acknowledgments","authors":"","doi":"10.1002/pam.22622","DOIUrl":"10.1002/pam.22622","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"43 4","pages":"1322-1328"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141895217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Deliberative Democracy, Public Policy, and Local Government by Joanna Podgórska-Rykała. London: Routledge, 2024, 220 pp., $55.79 (eBook). ISBN 978–1032670799.","authors":"Anshar Syukur, Husain Syam, Haedar Akib","doi":"10.1002/pam.22623","DOIUrl":"10.1002/pam.22623","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"43 4","pages":"1305-1308"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141895216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ian T. Adams, Joshua McCrain, Daniel S. Schiff, Kaylyn Jackson Schiff, Scott M. Mourtgos
The accountability of police to the public is imperative for a functioning democracy. The opinions of police executives—pivotal actors for implementing oversight policies—are an understudied, critical component of successful reform efforts. We use a pre‐registered survey experiment administered to all U.S. municipal police chiefs and county sheriffs to assess whether police executives’ attitudes towards civilian oversight are responsive to 1) state‐level public opinion (drawing on an original n = 16,840 survey) and 2) prior adoption of civilian review boards in large agencies. Results from over 1,300 police executives reveal that law enforcement leaders are responsive to elite peer adoption but much less to public opinion, despite overwhelming public support. Compared to appointed municipal police chiefs, elected sheriffs are less likely to support any civilian oversight. Our findings hold implications for reformers: we find that existing civilian oversight regimes are largely popular, and that it is possible to move police executive opinion towards support for civilian oversight.
警察对公众负责是民主制度正常运作的必要条件。警察行政人员--执行监督政策的关键行为者--的意见是成功改革努力的关键组成部分,但却未得到充分研究。我们利用一项预先登记的调查实验,对美国所有市级警察局长和县级警长进行了调查,以评估警察行政人员对平民监督的态度是否对以下两方面做出了反应:1)州一级的公众舆论(利用最初的 n = 16,840 的调查);2)大型机构之前采用的平民审查委员会。来自 1,300 多名警察主管的调查结果显示,执法领导者对精英同行的采纳情况反应灵敏,但对公众舆论的反应则要小得多,尽管公众绝大多数都表示支持。与任命的市警察局长相比,民选警长不太可能支持任何民间监督。我们的研究结果对改革者具有启示意义:我们发现,现有的文职监督制度在很大程度上是受欢迎的,而且有可能使警察行政人员的舆论倾向于支持文职监督。
{"title":"Police reform from the top down: Experimental evidence on police executive support for civilian oversight","authors":"Ian T. Adams, Joshua McCrain, Daniel S. Schiff, Kaylyn Jackson Schiff, Scott M. Mourtgos","doi":"10.1002/pam.22620","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22620","url":null,"abstract":"The accountability of police to the public is imperative for a functioning democracy. The opinions of police executives—pivotal actors for implementing oversight policies—are an understudied, critical component of successful reform efforts. We use a pre‐registered survey experiment administered to all U.S. municipal police chiefs and county sheriffs to assess whether police executives’ attitudes towards civilian oversight are responsive to 1) state‐level public opinion (drawing on an original <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 16,840 survey) and 2) prior adoption of civilian review boards in large agencies. Results from over 1,300 police executives reveal that law enforcement leaders are responsive to elite peer adoption but much less to public opinion, despite overwhelming public support. Compared to appointed municipal police chiefs, elected sheriffs are less likely to support any civilian oversight. Our findings hold implications for reformers: we find that existing civilian oversight regimes are largely popular, and that it is possible to move police executive opinion towards support for civilian oversight.","PeriodicalId":48105,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Policy Analysis and Management","volume":"73 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2024-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141495841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}