Family composition is a symptom of poverty as much as a cause.
No, it isn’t. Family composition is entirely a symptom of the choices people make. Some people choose to be promiscuous and decide to have children out of wedlock. That creates poverty, not the other way around.
Every study ever done that looks into this subject in detail finds that it is both. Whether you happen to like it or not. Families that are poor and in which one spouse is unemployed or underemployed break up at MUCH higher rates than affluent families. Also families that are less educated break up at much higher rates than families that are college educated. The divorce rate for people with a HS education or less is about double that for people with college degrees.
So there is a cycle of poverty and undereducation that is generational.
Last edited by Ken on Wed Feb 28, 2024 11:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Family composition is a symptom of poverty as much as a cause.
No, it isn’t. Family composition is entirely a symptom of the choices people make. Some people choose to be promiscuous and decide to have children out of wedlock. That creates poverty, not the other way around.
You’ve got it. Daycare expenses verses mother raising the children. If not that, two incomes to handle those expenses.
Even the mayor of Baltimore has had a child out of wedlock.
It would be my contention that family breakdown or failure to form families in the first place is the #1 cause of most of our so problems.
Family composition is a symptom of poverty as much as a cause.
No, it isn’t. Family composition is entirely a symptom of the choices people make. Some people choose to be promiscuous and decide to have children out of wedlock. That creates poverty, not the other way around.
You’ve got it. Daycare expenses verses mother raising the children. If not that, two incomes to handle those expenses.
Even the mayor of Baltimore has had a child out of wedlock.
It would be my contention that family breakdown or failure to form families in the first place is the #1 cause of most of our so problems.
But Josh tells us that daycare is free if you are poor. At least in Ohio. That they pay you to be poor.
I'm the first to agree that single parent families are a cause of a lot of problems in this country. But they are also a symptom as well. Life, society, and the economy is complicated not simplistic. And simplistic answers are usually doomed to fail because they fail to address root causes in the first place.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Ken wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 11:01 pm
Every study ever done that looks into this subject in detail finds that it is both. Whether you happen to like it or not. Families that are poor and in which one spouse is unemployed or underemployed break up at MUCH higher rates than affluent families. Also families that are less educated break up at much higher rates than families that are college educated. The divorce rate for people with a HS education or less is about double that for people with college degrees.
So there is a cycle of poverty and undereducation that is generational.
Well, (plain) Anabaptists pursue 8th grade education and no more and mom stays at home instead of working… and they have the lowest divorce rate of really any group in America. So no, educational attainment has very little to do it.
But they don’t tolerate children out of wedlock at all. In my own congregation I can think of that happening one time out of the last 20-30 years, and that’s out of hundreds of babies born.
In reviewing old obituaries, there were a handful of “shotgun weddings” where a couple got married when pregnant. That’s over a time span of the last 70 years and all those instances were when people were Amish.
Even our very poor families stay together, despite a man have constant struggles with underemployment.
No, it isn’t. Family composition is entirely a symptom of the choices people make. Some people choose to be promiscuous and decide to have children out of wedlock. That creates poverty, not the other way around.
You’ve got it. Daycare expenses verses mother raising the children. If not that, two incomes to handle those expenses.
Even the mayor of Baltimore has had a child out of wedlock.
It would be my contention that family breakdown or failure to form families in the first place is the #1 cause of most of our so problems.
But Josh tells us that daycare is free if you are poor. At least in Ohio. That they pay you to be poor.
I'm the first to agree that single parent families are a cause of a lot of problems in this country. But they are also a symptom as well. Life, society, and the economy is complicated not simplistic. And simplistic answers are usually doomed to fail because they fail to address root causes in the first place.
Yes, daycare is free until you make a fair bit of money. If my wife decided to pick up 20 hours or more of work a week, we could get free preschool for my 3 year old.
However, economic differences aren’t really what makes the difference. Choices are. Single mother homes mean dad isn’t in the home every day, providing living discipline. Mom is stressed with too many duties for one person. (Free daycare? Still have to deal with transport there and back in between going to and from job. Free groceries on EBT? Still have to find time to go to the grocery store. Free rent or subsidised rent in section 9? Now you’re living around a bunch of other single moms who likewise struggle to discipline their kids consistently.)
All we do in America is provide economic subsidies to people who make very poor choices to have children out of wedlock. So we get more of this bad behaviour.
Ken wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 11:01 pm
Every study ever done that looks into this subject in detail finds that it is both. Whether you happen to like it or not. Families that are poor and in which one spouse is unemployed or underemployed break up at MUCH higher rates than affluent families. Also families that are less educated break up at much higher rates than families that are college educated. The divorce rate for people with a HS education or less is about double that for people with college degrees.
So there is a cycle of poverty and undereducation that is generational.
Well, (plain) Anabaptists pursue 8th grade education and no more and mom stays at home instead of working… and they have the lowest divorce rate of really any group in America. So no, educational attainment has very little to do it.
But they don’t tolerate children out of wedlock at all. In my own congregation I can think of that happening one time out of the last 20-30 years, and that’s out of hundreds of babies born.
In reviewing old obituaries, there were a handful of “shotgun weddings” where a couple got married when pregnant. That’s over a time span of the last 70 years and all those instances were when people were Amish.
Even our very poor families stay together, despite a man have constant struggles with underemployment.
And if the WHOLE WORLD lived like that we'd still be living in a feudal agrarian society by poverty and disease. With childhood death rampant and average life spans of about 35 years. And experiencing periodic famines and pandemics that would wipe out large portions of the population.
With no modern medicine, no electricity, no internet or electronic communications, no cars, trains, trucks, planes, or modern transportation, no books or libraries, no modern agriculture or agricultural surpluses, no refrigeration, and so forth.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Ken wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 11:01 pm
Every study ever done that looks into this subject in detail finds that it is both. Whether you happen to like it or not. Families that are poor and in which one spouse is unemployed or underemployed break up at MUCH higher rates than affluent families. Also families that are less educated break up at much higher rates than families that are college educated. The divorce rate for people with a HS education or less is about double that for people with college degrees.
So there is a cycle of poverty and undereducation that is generational.
Well, (plain) Anabaptists pursue 8th grade education and no more and mom stays at home instead of working… and they have the lowest divorce rate of really any group in America. So no, educational attainment has very little to do it.
But they don’t tolerate children out of wedlock at all. In my own congregation I can think of that happening one time out of the last 20-30 years, and that’s out of hundreds of babies born.
In reviewing old obituaries, there were a handful of “shotgun weddings” where a couple got married when pregnant. That’s over a time span of the last 70 years and all those instances were when people were Amish.
Even our very poor families stay together, despite a man have constant struggles with underemployment.
And if the WHOLE WORLD lived like that we'd still be living in a feudal agrarian society by poverty and disease. With childhood death rampant and average life spans of about 35 years. And experiencing periodic famines and pandemics that would wipe out large portions of the population.
With no modern medicine, no electricity, no internet or electronic communications, no cars, trains, trucks, planes, or modern transportation, no books or libraries, no modern agriculture or agricultural surpluses, no refrigeration, and so forth.
People in my congregation or denomination use electricity, work as electricians, run Internet service providers, repair vehicles, build vehicles from scratch, drive trucks, repair trucks, write books, print books, operate printing equipment, sell books door to door, operate libraries, conduct some of the most modernised, advanced agriculture in the world, generate massive surpluses of ag goods, use refrigerators, repair refrigerators, and so forth.
Despite doing all these things, divorce and single parenthood is virtually unheard of.
Josh wrote: ↑Thu Feb 29, 2024 12:36 pmWell, (plain) Anabaptists pursue 8th grade education and no more and mom stays at home instead of working… and they have the lowest divorce rate of really any group in America. So no, educational attainment has very little to do it.
People in my congregation or denomination use electricity, work as electricians, run Internet service providers, repair vehicles, build vehicles from scratch, drive trucks, repair trucks, write books, print books, operate printing equipment, sell books door to door, operate libraries, conduct some of the most modernised, advanced agriculture in the world, generate massive surpluses of ag goods, use refrigerators, repair refrigerators, and so forth.
And you can do all of those things because you live in a society in which there are people over the past centuries with more than an 8th grade education have made most of those things possible. A society in which there are universities where people older than 8th grade (ages 13-14) come together to learn and make discoveries and disseminate information. And in which there are highly educated brilliant people who do basic research and engineering that make all the technology that you use possible. Including the agricultural surpluses of which you speak. For example, corn yields have increased 6-fold in the past 80 years. That is due to science and the development of hybrid seeds and a variety of other technological advancements. All by people working in universities or educated in universities and whose formal education continued past age 13-14.
None of that would have happened in a society without high schools much less colleges and universities.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Would you care to share with us what led to the development of turkey red wheat, since you claim it would be impossible for plain people to construct any society except one mired in poverty and starvation?
Would you care to share with us what led to the development of turkey red wheat, since you claim it would be impossible for plain people to construct any society except one mired in poverty and starvation?
I said no such thing.
What I said was that the modern world we live in with modern medicine, technology, and yes, modern agriculture, was developed by people whose education did not stop at age 13-14. And if the entire world chose to eliminate all schooling past age 14 (no high schools or universities anywhere on the planet) and have everyone just start work at age 14 then the modern world as we know it would not exist.
Conservative Anabaptists who disdain any schooling past 8th grade are prosperous because they live in a world in which others have developed the technology and infrastructure that they rely on.
Turkey red wheat is an heirloom variety that practically no one grows anymore. I would be willing to bet that few Anabaptist farmers still grow it instead of higher-yield hybrids. And yes, winter wheat yields have also tripled in the past century due to advancements in science
Why is that? Mostly science
Last edited by Ken on Thu Feb 29, 2024 4:19 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
