Young people from less-privileged homes are more likely to graduate from college and earn more if raised by two married parents.
Young adults are 44 percent more likely to have graduated from college if they were raised by their married parents。
In fact, the opportunity story begins with our families—in particularly, with our parents. As the Nobel-prize-winning economist James Heckman recently noted, “the family into which a child is born plays a powerful role in determining lifetime opportunities。”
Research indicates that adolescents raised in intact, married homes are significantly more likely to succeed educationally and financially. The benefits are greatest for less privileged homes—that is, where their mother did not have a college degree。
As the next graph indicates, young men and women who hail from intact, married homes are much more likely to graduate from college. More precisely, young adults are at least 44 percent more likely to have graduated from college if they were raised by their married parents. This is important because a college degree is associated with better work opportunities, lower odds of unemployment, and a substantial wage premium。
The marriage bump is strongest among families where the parents didn't go to college (the left half of the graph above). Among less-educated families, the children of married parents earn about $4,000 more than their peers from non-intact families, as the next chart shows. The association between intact families and income is not significant for children of college-educated parents。
Adolescent family structure also has important implications for family formation among young adults. The next graph indicates that men and women who hail from intact families are about 40 percent less likely to father or bear a child outside of wedlock. This is important because nonmarital childbearing reduces your odds of successfully getting and staying married down the road, maximizing your income, and of providing a stable home to your children。
Marriage might even have economic benefits at the citywide level. A recentstudy from Harvard and UC-Berkeley found that the most important predictor of economic mobility was the low share of single moms in a community. Mobility for poor kids was highest in the Salt Lake City metro area, which also happens to have one of the lowest rates of single motherhood of any major metro area in the country。
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不富裕家庭的年輕人，若是由父母雙親撫養(yǎng)長大，更有機會大學畢業(yè)并獲得高薪。
在由已婚父母養(yǎng)育下長大的年輕人大[微博]學畢業(yè)的機會要多出44%。
事實上，機會始于家庭——特別是父母。諾貝爾經濟學獎得主詹姆斯·�？寺罱赋�，“家庭在孩子的出生中扮演了強有力的角色，決定了其一生的機會。”
研究表明健全的婚姻家庭中長大的青年人在教育上和經濟上都更有可能成功。在母親沒有大學學歷的不富裕家庭，家庭完整就是最大的優(yōu)勢。
如下圖所示，來自完整家庭的年輕男女更有可能從大學順利畢業(yè)。確切的說，已婚家庭長大的青年人大學畢業(yè)的機會要多出44%。而大學畢業(yè)至關重要，因為它意味著更好的工作機會，更低的失業(yè)率和工資的大幅溢價。
父母沒念過大學的家庭婚姻是最坎坷的(如上圖左示)。下圖表明，受教育程度低的家庭中，已婚父母的孩子同離異家庭的同齡孩子相比能多賺4000美元，而對受教育程度高的家庭的孩子來說，家庭完整與收入之間的關系并不大。
青少年的家庭結構對年輕一代成年人家庭的形成有著重要的意義。下圖表明，完整家庭中成長起來的男女婚外生育的幾率要小40%，這一結論非常重要，因為非婚生育將使你今后成婚和維系婚姻都步履維艱，大幅加薪機會渺茫，甚至為子女提供一個安穩(wěn)的家都遙不可及。
婚姻甚至在全市層面帶來經濟效益。哈佛和加州大學伯克利分校最近一項研究表明一個社區(qū)經濟流動性的最重要跡象是該社區(qū)的單身母親為數不多。鹽湖城大都會區(qū)是貧困孩子的流動率是最高的地方，也是全美大都會區(qū)母親單身率最低的地方。
