Economist Melissa Kearney has studied poverty, inequality and family structure for more than 20 years and has come to the conclusion that America’s drift away from the two-parent norm has “contributed to the economic insecurity of American families, has widened the gap in opportunities and outcomes for children from different backgrounds, and today poses economic and social challenges that we cannot afford to ignore.”
She is hardly alone among her social science peers in reaching this conclusion. As she relates in her new book, “The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind,” these insights are more or less commonplace among those who study the matter.
