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May 8, 2014
Mother's
Day invites us to consider how motherhood is changing and how it varies
around the globe. Understanding these changes and their consequences
for children and families is particularly important in these times of
diminished government resources for programs supporting mothers and
their children.
Several myths about moms, their relationships, their children, and their circumstances are debunked by a new report, the World Family Map 2014,
which we released recently in collaboration with a consortium of
international research institutions and non-government organizations.
The project monitors key family indicators affecting child well-being in
60 countries in every region of the globe. We found that much
conventional wisdom about moms that we hold here in the U.S. does not
necessarily hold true abroad. Here are five myths about mothers and
families:
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Single moms are more likely to be poor.
This
is not always true. In the United States, single moms generally have
lower incomes than married moms, and this circumstance is often cited as
the primary reason why children raised by single mothers do more poorly
than children living with two parents on child well-being outcomes,
such as in education, health, behavior, and social-emotional areas. In
many developing countries, however, we find that single moms are more
likely to be highly educated and higher income than other moms. This
means that children raised by single moms in these regions are not at
the same economic disadvantage as children raised by single moms here in
the U.S., on average. In Africa, Asia, Central/South America, and the
Caribbean, single moms are typically of higher
educational and socioeconomic status than mothers who live with
partners. In poorer countries, family change often happens first among
elites who have the economic resources and the educational background to
experiment with nontraditional family life, or to leave an unsatisfying
or abusive marriage. As countries develop economically, and single
motherhood becomes more common, it becomes more concentrated among those
with less income and education, as is the case in wealthier countries.
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Children raised by single moms have worse outcomes than other kids.
In
the United States, children living with a single mother are at higher
risk for poorer health, educational, behavioral, and emotional outcomes.
This is not true universally. An examination of psychological
difficulties among 9- to 16-year-olds in the European Union finds that
in only eight out of 25 EU countries do children have higher levels of
psychological difficulties in single-parent families compared with
two-parent families, taking controls into account: Italy, Cyprus,
Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, Norway, Romania, and Austria. In fact, last
year's World Family Map reported on a number of developing countries
where children of single mothers did as well on education outcomes as
those in two-parent families. The report even cited a few countries
where children living with a single mother had better educational
outcomes than their peers living with two parents, net of controls. The
explanation for this varies around the globe, but in some regions, such
as Sub-Saharan Africa, research has found that when mothers control the
resources, they are more likely to spend them on their children's
education.
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Women in Europe have the highest rates of non-marital birth.
Central
and South American countries, with a long history of consensual unions,
lead the world in rates of cohabitation (living together without being
married) and non-marital childbearing. For instance, in Peru (2012), 38
percent of adults of reproductive age were cohabiting, and in Colombia
(2009-10), 84 percent of births were to unmarried women. Europe has the
next highest rates of cohabitation and non-marital fertility in the
world. For example, 26 percent of adults of reproductive age were
cohabiting in France, and 56 percent of all live births were to
unmarried women (2011). Cohabitation and non-marital childbearing rates
are more moderate in the United States by comparison, where nine percent
of adults were cohabiting in 2010 and 41 percent of births were to
unmarried women in 2011.
In
the U.S., studies have shown that children born to unmarried women and
raised with cohabiting parents generally have poorer educational,
health, and social behavioral outcomes. Since cohabiting unions tend to
be less stable, there is a tendency for poorer relationships between
parents, poorer parenting skills, more relationship turbulence, more
economic hardship and more stress than among married couples. These
negative consequences of cohabitation do not necessarily translate to
children from cohabiting partnerships in Europe, where cohabitation
often looks very different. For example, laws in Scandinavian countries
give unmarried dads the same rights and responsibilities as married dads
in the U.S. (including child support), and in both France and Sweden,
which have the highest rates of non-marital childbearing and
cohabitation in Europe, they also have the highest percent of GDP spent
on family benefits, such as child payments and allowances, parental
leave benefits, and child care support, easing the burden on unmarried
moms.
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Living together without being married is becoming more common worldwide.
While
cohabitation is increasing in many regions of the world, it remains
uncommon in the more traditional regions of the Middle East and Asia,
with the exception of the Philippines. In most countries the percentage
of married adults is still substantially higher than those who are
cohabiting. This is true in the U.S. as well. Younger couples are more
likely to cohabit than older couples, and many young cohabiters
eventually marry. The reasons for the increase in cohabitation include a
desire to try living together before marriage and thus delaying
marriage, lack of financial resources to marry, a perception that
marriage is unnecessary or even risky, and a desire for more flexibility
and freedom.
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Adults are satisfied with family life, but teens are not.
Not
necessarily. Families function as a refuge and source of emotional
support when they are functioning well. While in most countries, the
majority of adults express satisfaction with their family life, in other
countries this is not the case. In Russia, for example, only 31 percent
of adults are either completely or very satisfied with their family
life.
Frequent
communication among family members is considered an indicator of a
healthy family. And while conventional wisdom suggests that teens want
to have nothing to do with their parents, especially their moms, they
actually have closer relationships with their parents than is generally
perceived. The study revealed that teens, for example, talk quite a bit
to their parents. Fifteen-year-olds spend time just talking to their
parents every day or almost every day in countries studied around the
world, from 40 percent in Macao to 92 percent In Germany. And
generally, relationships get better by the time children reach their
early 20s.
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So
moms, take heart, and take (at least) a day to be proud of what you've
accomplished. The World Family Map reveals that you are in good company
with a diversity of families around the globe, and every country has
families with strengths as well as challenges. By looking at
international comparisons, we can see possibilities for strengthening
motherhood and families more generally, if we can journey beyond the
boundaries of our conventional thinking.
Contributor:
Laura Lippman
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