College-educated wives dropping out of the workforce

College-educated wives married to similarly educated husbands are leaving the workforce in increasing numbers, creating a trend that may hinder an already weak economic recovery.  But will young men’s lower college graduation rates reverse this trend?

… between 1993 and 2006, there was a decline in the workforce of 0.1 percent a year on average in the number of college-educated women, with similarly educated spouses.

That contrasts with growth of 2.4 percent a year between 1976 and 1992.

The result: the labor force in 2008 had 1.64 million fewer such women than if the growth rate had kept up its earlier trend, slightly more than 1 percent of the total workforce in that year….

May have a negative effect on economic growth

Stefania Albanesi, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and one of the study’s authors, said the loss may hurt economic growth at a time when the nation can ill afford to have highly skilled workers on the sidelines….

Dropping out of the workforce is not just for the super-wealthy, and babies are not the reason these women are staying home.

But the trend is not limited to top earners. It has been detected among households earning around $80,000 per year….

… it’s not the tug of looking after young children that makes most educated women give up their career.

“These women usually give up their jobs when their children are school-age and not babies any more,” Albanesi said.

This doesn’t surprise me.  I know I’m not the only mom who found that juggling babies and work was a lot easer than caring for older, school-aged children while working full-time.  As they grow older, the logistical, disciplinary, and emotional needs of children can become more complicated.  For me, out-sourcing childcare for my pre-teens proved more challenging than finding a good caregiver for my babies.

Will the more women than men graduating from college, will this trend be affected?

Educational homogamy, the tendency to marry someone of the same educational level, is a decades-long pattern particularly strong among college graduates.  With the declining “supply” of men who are marriage material for educated women, what will happen?  Will female college graduates change their behavior and join their less-educated sisters in the growing trend of having children outside of marriage?  Or maybe they will begin to marry down in greater numbers.  In this case, quitting work to care for children may not be such a good option for wives out-earning their husbands, and we may see more men staying home to care for children.  That would be a significant shift in traditional gender roles, with unpredictable effects on families.

Add in the higher education bubble to these possible scenarios and anyone’s prediction about the next 30 years starts to look very fuzzy.  All I can think to do is advise my children to be ready for anything and be careful what you wish for.

Related articles:

• Non-marital births by education level as part of the growing class divide
• US Economy: Women Leaving Workforce Over Past 20 Years (wire.kapitall.com)
• Decline in Labor Force Participation Reflects Demographics, May Not Be as Bad as Reported

Postponing remarriage to get more college financial aid

There are a many “tricks” that will increase your odds of getting college financial aid, including postponing remarriage so that household income looks low.

I Do! (In a Few Years)
The Fafsa asks a seemingly absurd question: “Who is considered a parent?” Yet frequently families react with frustration when I explain how the government defines parents for financial aid purposes. If both parents are alive and married to each other, they check off the “married” box and include their information on the Fafsa.

If there has been a divorce or legal separation, you need to determine who the student lived with more than 50 percent of the time the previous year. That’s the custodial parent. Only the custodial parent’s income and assets appear on the Fafsa; the noncustodial parent’s income and asset information don’t (though a child support question and another untaxed income question can reflect household support).

This is true even if the divorce arrangement says the noncustodial parent has to pay for the whole expense, or things are split evenly.

Here’s the surprise for some stepparents: Let’s say mom, the custodial parent, marries stepdad. Both mom and stepdad’s income and assets appear on the form. Maybe when they married they had a deal: he would pay for his children, she would pay for hers. Not happening. Of course, I don’t recommend holding off on saying, “I do!” (again) until after all the children have their degrees, but be aware of the rules.

Related articles

• Boost your chances for college financial aid with these FAFSA tips (costofcollege.wordpress.com)

Non-marital births by education level as part of the growing class divide

Declining marriage rates and non-marital births are only a problem for those without college degrees. (Assuming you believe this is a problem, of course.) Here’s the stark data.

…
CHARLES MURRAY has been harshly criticized for writing about this trend in his latest book,  Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, but it seems the New York Times has also not been shy about reporting how education and race correlate with non-marital births.

Large racial differences remain: 73 percent of black children are born outside marriage, compared with 53 percent of Latinos and 29 percent of whites. And educational differences are growing. About 92 percent of college-educated women are married when they give birth, compared with 62 percent of women with some post-secondary schooling and 43 percent of women with a high school diploma or less, according to Child Trends.… Others noted that if they married, their official household income would rise, which could cost them government benefits like food stamps and child care…. Reviewing the academic literature, Susan L. Brown of Bowling Green State University recently found that children born to married couples, on average, “experience better education, social, cognitive and behavioral outcomes.”

Just talking about these issues of class, education, and race sometimes leads to charges of racism.  Curiously, the NY Times chose not to allow comments on their stories referenced in this post.  Maybe they were afraid the topic would generate excessive inflammatory rhetoric.

UPDATE:   One single mom is upset that the liberal elite have joined conservatives in moralizing about fatherless children.

More Single Moms. So What.  -  The New York Times condescends to single moms.
This proud single mother and NYU journalism professor, who is definitely not “too poor to marry,” is insulted by a New York Times article on the 53 percent illegitimate-birth rate among females under 30, which she thinks covertly telegraphs the message that unwed moms can’t in fact do it all… Marriage, Roiphe reveals triumphantly, “does not ensure eternal love, or even eternal security.” Now we know.

Young Mothers Describe Marriage’s Fading Allure – NYTimes, 2/18/12

Five myths about white people – Washington Post, 2/10/12

Related:  College-educated women marry at higher rates

College-educated women marry at higher rates

I have to admit the fact that college-educated women marry at higher rates enters my mind when I think of my own children.

Educated women are still the marrying kind because they know intuitively what research concludes: children are more likely to succeed in school, go to college, and get good jobs if they grow up with their two married parents. Prepping your kids for a competitive knowledge economy is a time-consuming, devotional task; no wonder it works better with a steady, focused twosome.

An alarming statistic (to me) is that over 40% of American children are born to unmarried mothers, but the picture is very different for college-educated mothers.

… The latest Census shows that percentage of college educated women who have children outside of marriage is only about 6%. That’s an increase from previous years, but a very small one.

Is it any wonder that middle- and upper-class parents are so intent on ensuring their children snare a diploma from a ‘good’ college?  We think of it as the entry ticket to a happy family life.  However, the evolving landscape in higher education, including soaring costs and the possibility that traditional colleges may lose their monopoly on career credentialing, portends changes in how we’ll guide our children’s educational path in the years to come.  How soon will real changes come and what form will they take?  I wish I knew.

Of course, related to all this is the important point that correlation does not always indicate causation.

Divorce harms math scores

The most notable aspects of these results were that the negative effects did not appear until after the divorce decision was made and the suggestion that the children never caught up with their peers.

Children struggle with maths and making friends when their parents divorce, a study has found….

Contrary to some previous research, children through primary school did not show any negative effects before the parents decided to split, the U.S. study found.

The five-year study compared emotional and academic development of children of divorce with those whose parents stayed together, by following 3,585 children from around the age of four….

‘My original prediction was that children of divorce would experience negative impacts even before formal divorce processes began. But the study finds this is not the case.’

Also this:

While the negative impacts do not continue to worsen several years after the divorce, “there is no sign that children of divorce catch up with their counterparts, either,” he added.