Work, Marriage, Children, and Taking Care of All Three, Essay Example

A Critical Analysis of an American Statistical Study

In America’s Living Arrangements: 2007, Kreider and Elliott (2009) delve into the household’s components: employment status, marital status, income, race, and number of children. For once, the presentation of the data often usurps the attention from the shocking statistical revelations, such as Figure 5’s illustration that in the so-called “Bible Belt” there are as many- and often more- single-parent and as many unmarried households with children. The segmentation which unifies the data makes it nationally applicable to many fields and even useful to international research regarding the Sociology of marriage and family in America. The study chose to only study children up to the age of eighteen- even though those young adults are often still economically dependent upon their head-of-household for a matter of years afterward.

They begin their examination of the modern family on strong foundations: vocabulary and statistics. Furthermore, these introductory pieces of information are representative of the findings and are presented in a precise, logical, and intriguing manner. The charts, graphs, and tables are compelling but detract from the overall fluidity of moving from data to visual data representations and vice-versa. It is a common U.S. Census oversight which is in accordance with the often rigid study parameters necessary to the accomplishment of the bureau’s goals. However, a large portion of the research was evaluated simply in terms of comparing and contrasting Caucasian and Hispanic familial norms. That is not to say that other minorities were not included, but that the amount of information analyzed was not proportionate to the amount of statistical information available. For example, despite the large number of single-parent divorced, separated, or unmarried, female-headed households in the black community, African American data is severely underrepresented in this study. One possible explanation is found in Table 4, which relates that there are more than ten times as many White or Hispanic homes with two married adults and child(ren) under the age of fifteen.

Especially given the nature of the data, it is surprisingly engaging. Typically, a first reading only engages in a surface analysis, but the reader is likely to be intrigued by the foreign experience of being able to pick any one sentence from a twenty-one-page article and find it intriguing, current, and relevant to personal interests or experiences. Kreider and Elliott’s statistical exploration organizes efficiently and highlights the summarizing points of data in an impressive manner. Moreover, relevant facts are not explicitly acknowledged, such as the strong ties between Catholicism and large families or (traditionally, at least) patriarchal norms. Some statistics point to underlying social factors, as does the higher percentage of Hispanic stay-at home mothers, but the authors take the subjective researchers’ high road.

Although not any fault of the authors, there are some puzzling figures. In Table 3, for example, it is recorded that there are more than four times as many married (and thus usually dual-income) households with an income of fifteen thousand dollars or less per year as there are unmarried-led households in the same income bracket. Any number or combination of factors could effect this data: the late parenthood trend, unemployment, welfare, the age and number of parents and children living in and contributing to the household, etc. As was noted earlier, these figures do not consider dependent young adults in the calculations. Regardless, in 2006 a little over 1.5 million two-parent households with at least one child under fifteen lived below the poverty level.

Interestingly, the data shows an increase in the male parental responsibility and family roles and might indicate the beginning of a trend. “Married fathers were more likely to be employed (92 percent) than fathers in unmarried-parent family groups or father-only groups (80 percent each)” (Kreider & Elliot, 2009, 11). This particular statistic has an immeasurable value as a vocational, psychological, and sociological frame of reference. Recent research has suggested before that the average married man will live longer than his bachelor peers, but the information regarding the effects of child-rearing on the male self-esteem is in short supply. In itself, this one finding opens the door to a modernist line of research to the end of gender-specific studies of parenting and Psychology. The increased sociocultural acceptance of both home-husbands and single-parent households led by working fathers may indicate a prevailing trend, but only time and continued research can tell.

Reference

Kreider, R. & Diana Elliott. (Sept. 2009). America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2007. U.S. Census Bureau’s Department of Commerce.