A New Focus on Family Values

Creating an emphasison family values.

By Hara Estroff Marano, published on November 01, 1997

Married people lead more active sex lives. While cohabiting couples have similarly high levels of sex, married men and women report more satisfaction in the bedroom. That's because married people know the tastes of their partner better and can safely cater to them, while the emotional investment in the relationship can boost the thrill.

In addition to having more sex, the married have more money. Two can live, if not as cheaply as one, then certainly as cheaply as one and a half; they spend less to maintain the same lifestyle than if they lived separately. Further, married partners are more productive around the home than single people because each spouse can afford to develop some skills and neglect others, thereby increasing efficiency. Married couples also save more of their earnings than do single people at the same level of income.

Marriage leads to higher wages for men; it gives them an incentive to work harder. While married motherhood lowers women's wages on average, they often use their husband's support to give them time with their kids, a benefit generally unavailable to the unmarried.

Children do better in two-parent families. Children in single-parent households are twice as likely to drop out of high school, and they are more likely to become teenage parents. They are also far more likely to grow up poor. They may suffer from the lack of access to the time and attention of two adults; when fathers are married to the mothers of their children, the fathers' involvement in their children's life tends to be far greater. Children of single-parent families also move more often, thereby losing such important sources of support as neighbors and other community members.

Unfortunately, since the 1950s black men and women have been less likely to share in the benefits of marriage than whites, Waites notes. Although marriage rates have dropped for both blacks and whites, the decline among blacks is far steeper: currently, six in 10 black adults are not married.

Moreover, while rates of cohabitation have increased, the evidence clearly shows that "living together" is qualitatively different from marriage. For one thing, the commitment of marriage makes specialization in chores and responsibilities sensible; spouses count on their partners to fill in for them where they are weak. By contrast, cohabitation is unstable, easy to get out of, and makes specialization less rational. Second, marriage is far superior at connecting people to others--work acquaintances, in-laws-who are a source of support and benefits. It links married people to a world larger than themselves.

Waite believes the evidence supports a public health approach to marriage: make the evidence of its emotional and physical benefits widely available. Some folks who have been skeptical of marriage, she believes, will then reconsider.

Love's LOSS to Labor

In addition to the private aspirations of two partners, there are many forces in the culture that affect marriage. One of the most important is work.

Business has an important stake in shaping family policy, observes Dana Friedman, Ph.D., who heads Corporate Solutions, a New York consulting firm. She notes that marital status is absolutely critical in companies' promotion decisions; a Business Week survey, for example, found that 98 percent of top male corporate executives were married and had kids. Yet many companies do nothing to support marriage. Although companies now know that family issues--like finding child care--carry over into work performance, they have yet to recognize that work issues carry over into the home. In fact, reports Friedman, there are many aspects of work that actively impede good family relationships and place great strains on marriages:

Work is more stressful today. At many companies, people are working longer hours at a faster pace, cutting into family time and making it more difficult to shift from work mode to family mode. And lowered work morale is generally dispiriting, affecting not just on-the-job performance but home life as well.

As a result of corporate restructuring, there is no longer a guarantee of lifelong employment, adding an element of uncertainty to couples' long-term plans.

While some companies have become aware of the link between work and family and have implemented policies such as paternity leave, companies are less likely to promote workers who actually use these policies.

Important as company policies are to the balance between work and home life, a study at Johnson & Johnson identified other elements of the work environment as even more crucial: control over work hours, particularly during a crunch time; a sensitive supervisor; and a generally supportive work atmosphere.

The impact of work issues on home life is three times greater than the impact of home life on work, Friedman reports. Yet companies fail to take responsibility for this, even though surveys show that achieving balance between home and life is a leading concern of employees, and that those who achieve this work-life balance become the most motivated workers.

"Being a family-friendly company is no longer just about programs and policies," says Friedman. "It's about the culture of work and changing the relationships among co-workers." Work/life balance must be a strategy that's totally integrated with missions and business goals.

IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID