As Murray concludes: “The absolute level [of social cohesion] is so low that it calls into question the viability of white working-class communities as a place for socializing the next generation.”
On Sunday, February 19, the New York Times ran a page-one lead story headlined “For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage,” telling of the social cataclysm that is taking place right under our noses today:
Once largely limited to poor women and minorities, motherhood without marriage has settled deeply into middle America. The fastest growth in the last two decades has occurred among white women in their 20s who have some college education but no four-year degree, according to Child Trends, a Washington research group that analyzed government data.
Written by Jason DeParle and Sylvia Tavernise, the story noted that the change appears to be occurring from the bottom up, with the white working class now adopting the cultural norms—or lack thereof—long associated with the African-American population. Despite all the brouhaha about Murphy Brown, the fictional TV newscaster who elected for single motherhood, in reality upper-income, college-educated women remain largely immune to the contagion:
One group still largely resists the trend: college graduates, who overwhelmingly marry before having children. That is turning family structure into a new class divide, with the economic and social rewards of marriage increasingly reserved for people with the most education.
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