#278： The Surprising Benefits of Marriage for Men
Episode Stats
Summary
Brad Wilcox is a sociology professor at the University of Virginia and the Director of the National Marriage Project at the Institute of Family Studies for Family Studies. He has spent his career researching the impact of marriage on people s lives. In this episode, Brad and I discuss the benefits of marriage and why getting married actually makes a significant difference compared to being in a committed non-married relationship. We also discuss what men can do to create a lasting marriage and the best age to get hitched.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Now for many
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men, marriage is seen as an institution that at best stifles them or at worst sets them
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up for divorce and as a result financial and emotional ruin. But research is coming out
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in recent years that suggests that marriage actually offers a lot of benefits to men from
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making more money, having a better sex life and enjoying a healthier, longer life. Today
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on the podcast, I talked to one of those researchers. His name is Brad Wilcox. He's a professor of
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sociology at the University of Virginia, as well as the director of the National Marriage
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Project. He spent his career researching the impact of marriage has on people's lives. And
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today on the show, Brad and I discussed the effect marriage has on men and why officially
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tying the knot actually makes a significant difference compared to being in a committed
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non-married relationship. We also discussed what men can do to create a lasting marriage
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and even the best age to get hitched. We then shift gears to talk about his research on fatherhood,
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particularly the importance of dads in a child's life and the benefits men get themselves from
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being a dad. Whether you're already married and a dad or thinking about popping the question,
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you're going to find a lot of insights and surprising information in this podcast. After
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the show is over, make sure to check out the show notes at aom.is slash menandmarriage.
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So you're a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. You're also the director of the
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National Marriage Project and a senior fellow at the Institute of Family Studies for Family
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Studies. And you do a lot of research about marriage, fatherhood, and particularly marriage
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in men and the benefits that men get from it, as well as the benefits children in the greater
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society gets from men being married. So I'd love to dig into your research a bit.
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So there's, I feel like for men in marriage today in America, it's either seen as something
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at best, you know, will restrain you, hold you back, or at worst, you're just setting yourself
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up for being fleeced in divorce courts. But you've done a lot of research showing these benefits
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that come from marriage. What are some of those benefits that men get from being married?
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So when it comes to the most kind of basic goods in life, what we find is that men who are
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stably married earn more money, have more assets, they do better when it comes to their health,
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and they even enjoy better quality sex lives. So kind of some basic goods that concern, you know,
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many ordinary guys, money, health, and sex. We see that men who are stably married are much more
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likely to be doing well on those outcomes, compared to their peers who are both single
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So what's going on there? So for example, you know, why do men who are married make more money?
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Because some would say there's a selection bias going on there. People, men who are able to
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maintain a stable relationship probably have attributes that allow them to, you know, go up
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the corporate ladder. I mean, is that what's going on? Or is there something else?
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Well, certainly part of the story here is what we call selection, where the types of men who get and
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stay married are more likely to have, say, good jobs, perhaps better social skills, and other,
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you know, traits that make them more attractive as husbands. But it's also the case, too, that when we
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kind of look at guys over the life course, what we see is that when men get married, they tend to work
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harder, and they work more hours, and they make more money. Also, when men get divorced, they tend to often
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cut back on hours and earn less money. So it's the state of marriage itself that looks like it's
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having an impact on men. There's also been a twin study in Minnesota showing that married twins
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were doing better financially than their unmarried twin brothers. So that's kind of a pretty compelling
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evidence. There's something about marriage per se that helps men do better in today's workforce.
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And, you know, with the set, you said that marriage can actually increase the quality of a man's sex
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life. A lot of people, a lot of guys put off marriages like, oh, well, let's have this one
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partner, it'll get boring. So don't want to do that. So why is it that marriage can improve a man's sex
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life? Well, you know, one study found that 54% of men said that they were extremely satisfied with the
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physical quality of their sex if they were married, compared to 44% of cohabiting guys,
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and 43% of single guys. That same survey also found that men reported they were more satisfied
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with the emotional quality of their sexual lives if they were married versus being cohabiting or
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single. So, you know, I think this sort of runs, you know, counter to a lot of what you might see on
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MTV or YouTube or movies or shows where kind of there's this image out there that the single guys
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or the cohabiting guys get the best sex. In reality, guys who have a ring on their finger
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tend to enjoy the highest quality sex. And I think that's for a couple of reasons. One is that,
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you know, even for guys, a sense of commitment, a sense of trust and security matters in the average
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sexual relationship. And marriage tends to deliver more security, more commitment, and more trust
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than the alternatives for guys. And the second thing that's worth, I think, noting about sex is
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it looks like, you know, couples who are married are more likely to kind of invest in one another
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in a whole variety of ways, you know, financially, practically, but also sexually. And so if you're
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stably married, there's kind of an incentive and an orientation to try to figure out what your,
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you know, what your spouse, you know, likes and to do that. So kind of to be more sensitive to
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to your partner in the bedroom is just one way of understanding this, this finding.
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Right. I think the report that just came out about men in marriage, I mean, it did state that
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married and cohabitating men have more sex than single men, which is makes sense if you're single,
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like you don't have a sexual partner there. But cohabitating men typically have more sex than
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married men, but they report the quality of sex not to be that great.
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Well, right. So it's important to know, actually, so cohabiting men have the most sex,
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followed then by married men and followed finally by single guys. But again, when it comes to
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reports of the quality, both the emotional quality of the sex and the physical quality of sex,
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we see that married men tend to do better than both their cohabiting and single peers. So again,
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I think we might think about sex as, you know, something that's more exotic, you know,
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whatever else is going to be the most exciting or the best sex. But if you kind of look at,
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you know, sort of sex in general, again, we're finding is the guys who are doing it in the married
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context are more likely to report that they're happy with both the emotional and physical
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And what about the physical and mental health benefits of marriage for men?
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Well, we know that men who are married tend to be in better physical health and better emotional
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health. So for instance, if you look at recent data among guys in their 20s and 30s, and ask them,
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you know, if they're very happy with life, what we find is the guys who are younger men, again,
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men between 20 and 38, are about twice as likely to say they're very happy with life if they're married
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versus single or cohabiting. So it's a pretty strong association there in some recent data
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from the general social survey. And then when it comes to physical health, we know that guys
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tend to do better on a whole bunch of outcomes. They tend to be less stressed, their immune systems
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tend to function better, and they tend to recover from things like cancer more quickly and more commonly
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if they're married. And it looks like guys live about nine years longer if they're stably married
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than their single or divorced peers. And so if you're the kind of guy, for instance, who likes to
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smoke, it looks like sort of the positive health effects of stable marriage are comparable to the
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negative health effects of smoking a pack a day. So if you are a smoker, it looks like stable marriage
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can kind of offset the health effects of regularly smoking. But that's just sort of one example of
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kind of the power of marriage. And, you know, we hear a lot obviously today about sort of smoking
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and health. I think what's striking is how little we hear about sort of the power of marriage
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to help men enjoy both psychologically and physically healthier lives.
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There's a lot of statistics coming out showing that younger people, millennials, they're not
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necessarily remaining single. They're dealing with a lot of cohabitating. They're not getting
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married. So, I mean, what is it about marriage compared to cohabitation that gives you these
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benefits? I mean, a lot of people would argue that, well, when you're married, like things don't
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really change from just living with your partner. Like all you now have now is a piece of paper from
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the state that says you're officially a couple. So, I mean, what is it about marriage that provides
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these benefits that you probably can't get cohabitating?
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Well, you know, marriage is really profoundly different than cohabitation. A lot of people
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think about marriage as being just a piece of paper. But, you know, I think one way to think
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about the difference between the two relationships is think about kind of the terms of entry.
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And, you know, what's interesting when you ask people sort of when they begin to cohabit,
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if you ask that question to both partners, oftentimes you'll get a different answer. Because
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one partner might count sort of that moment when they started spending three nights a week together,
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and the other partner might count that moment when, you know, one of the partners moved all of
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their possessions, you know, into their apartment. But the point is there isn't kind of one particular
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moment that marks that entry into cohabitation, you know, for many couples. By contrast, kind of
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everyone knows their wedding date. And it's usually, you know, a situation where you are getting
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married in front of friends and family members, you know, often in some kind of religious institution.
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And, you know, you've got music, you have vows, you have people who are looking at you entering
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into this new relationship. So it's just a very different way of sort of starting a relationship.
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relationship. And one is much more sort of public and social than the other. And so that kind of
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different entry is just one example of the way in which marriage, I think, conveys a lot more
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seriousness, a lot more commitment. And those things then engender more trust, more emotional security,
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and much more stability. We see today in America, and really, really around the world, that married
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couples tend to enjoy much more stability than their cohabiting peers. So again, some people are
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under this misimpression that the only difference between the two things is this piece of paper.
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But because marriage is a much more committed institution, both individuals, couples, and their
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larger community of friends and family tend to view a married relationship much differently than a
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cohabiting one. And it affects how they view their own relationship, and how other people trust them.
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So for instance, folks who are married are much more likely to get financial support and assistance
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from their parents or their in-laws, so to speak, than couples who are cohabiting, because the parents
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have more confidence that that support will be kind of going to the couple and nowadays any kids that
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they might have on a kind of more permanent, you know, basis. Another example, a practical example,
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is that guys who are married tend to save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on car insurance
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compared to their peers who are cohabiting or single. And again, this is because, you know,
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companies have done the numbers and find there's something about marriage that tends to make guys
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drive more safely. And that's just one other indication of the way in which marriage is really
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a distinctive institution, even today for today's men. Yeah, I thought that was interesting, your point
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about how cohabitation, the date of entry into the relationship is different for everybody. It's fluid.
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We had Dr. Meg Jay on the podcast several years ago. She wrote the book, The Defining Decade.
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She talks about cohabitation as you're sort of sliding into a relationship, right? Like you're
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not really making a firm commitment. You're just kind of just going with the flow and it just sort
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of happens. And something about that doesn't provide the stability of making a firm commitment.
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Yeah. So cohabitation today gives young adults a lot of freedom and flexibility, and that's
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obviously appealing and attractive in some ways. But the flip side to that is it doesn't have the same
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degree of commitment and the same degree of security. And, you know, kind of at our deepest levels,
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you know, and in our most vulnerable moments, we really want someone who is there for us,
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you know, where there isn't kind of that freedom to leave if, you know, if you're not that happy in
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the relationship, you know, at one moment in time. And then, of course, the other thing that's
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important to put on the table here as well is that today a lot of younger adults are cohabiting and
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having kids in those cohabiting relationships. And that is, I think, the most worrisome thing I would
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say about cohabitation because those relationships are much less stable than our married relationships.
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So people who are having their kids in a married relationship are much more likely to go the
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distance with their kids compared to couples who are having a baby in a cohabiting relationship.
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So again, marriage gives not just adults, but especially kids a stability premium that's
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really valuable to the next generation. Well, yeah, you did a report a while back ago about
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the rise of unmarried couples who are having children. I mean, besides the stability, what are
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the other detriments or the lack of stability? What are some of the other detriments that cohabitation
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possess or poses to children? Well, kids in cohabiting relationships are,
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one, more likely to experience instability. Two, they're more likely to see their parents
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be physically violent with one another. I think partly because their parents are less likely to
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have that commitment and trust, you know, guiding their relationship. And kids in cohabiting households
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are, you know, more likely to sort of sense that that, you know, that sort of that trust and commitment
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isn't as strong or as publicly kind of noted for their parents, you know, as it might be for,
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you know, say friends down, down the block, so to speak. So there are just a variety of ways in which
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because it entails less commitment and less trust and also actually less sexual fidelity,
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you know, it's not as ideal for child rearing as marriages. Now, it's also important in all of this
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that it's not just sort of a marriage license that matters. It's also kind of a marriage mentality,
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I think, that matters. And so what I would say is it's, you know, couples who really think of
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themselves as married, who think of themselves in terms of we, not me, or of we, not I, who think
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about their marriage in terms of this is a kind of permanent commitment, not a kind of, you know,
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commitment that's for as long as I shall love. It's those couples who are more kind of committed
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to marriage, um, and to a lifelong, um, love, um, also tend to not surprisingly enjoy more stable
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relationships. Uh, they tend to be happier in their relationships and they tend to invest more
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in one another, uh, practically, you know, financially, uh, emotionally in ways that, um,
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redound to long-term typically to both their own benefit, to the benefit of their spouse and, um,
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to the benefit of their kids as well. So again, when we're talking about marriage, it's not just
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the law, it's not just the license. It's also kind of whether or not a couple kind of really embraces
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what I would call a marriage mentality shapes, you know, their odds of enjoying the, uh, the highest
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quality, um, relationship. So what's the state of marriage in America today? Is it still a goal
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for a lot of people or they, is it sort of becoming, you know, push to the wayside? Well, I think marriage
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is in a kind of a weird spot because on the one hand, I think that, uh, marriage remains the gold
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standard. Um, it remains kind of the ideal. Um, but you know, in the pop culture with shows like
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bachelor and bachelorette with, you know, music and movies, I think we often have an overly idealized
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vision of marriage as kind of like the soulmate relationship or this romantic relationship where
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you can signal to your partner and to your friends and to yourself that you've kind of made it,
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you know, emotionally, relationship wise, even financially, oftentimes today. Um, the problem
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with that view is it doesn't kind of appreciate, I think kind of the practical character of marriage
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and, um, and the demands that marriage puts upon us. I mean, marriage, of course, is not, uh, for most
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of us is not an easy relationship. It's really oftentimes a pretty hard one to be in a relationship
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with someone, you know, day in and day out, um, with all of their faults and failings and with all
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of your own faults and failings. Um, so I think what's missing oftentimes today is an appreciation
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of the way in which, you know, marriage is a difficult undertaking, but nevertheless, one that's,
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um, you know, really important and valuable, um, you know, both for us adults, uh, for our children,
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um, and, uh, for our communities and even the country. Because, um, when marriage is strong,
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we see that kids are more likely to flourish, uh, communities are more likely to, um, be healthy
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and thriving. And even our own research suggests, you know, that, um, states with stronger marriage
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cultures tend to do better, for instance, you know, economically, uh, than states that don't have that
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strong marriage culture. So, uh, in terms of talking about kind of the character of marriage, I would
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say on the plus side, marriage still is an important part of, um, American ideals. Um, and it's also
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the case on the plus side that we've actually seen divorce come down since the height of the
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Doris revolution in the 1970s, 1980s. Um, and particularly among college educated Americans,
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um, stable marriage really is sort of the defining feature of family life. Um, the problem though,
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when it comes to marriage is that we do see a growing marriage divide in the United States where
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working class and poor Americans today are less likely to get and stay married. Um, I think partly
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because they have kind of the soulmate view of marriage, like everything has to be kind of perfect
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for them to either get married or stay married. Um, and probably because they have a few economic
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resources to, uh, to navigate married life. And then we're also seeing too, that I think a lot of
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younger adults are needlessly postponing marriage. Um, and because they have kind of this idealized,
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you know, soulmate, uh, model of marriage, um, that makes them expect perhaps too much of both
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themselves and potential partners, you know, before they go into marriage. So, you know, those are
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some of the things that indicate kind of the way in which marriage is not as strong or as powerful as
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it used to be. Um, and my biggest concern, I guess, in terms of looking at, you know, more negative
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trends related to marriage family life is that, um, you know, a large share of younger folks
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particularly are, are having kids outside of marriage. Um, and about 40% of babies now born
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outside of marriage. And, you know, that's associated with a lot of instability for those kids and,
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you know, a number of negative outcomes for those children. So there, there's a lot to unpack there.
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Um, first, so this, the, the divorce rate being high amongst, um, just working class high school
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educated Americans, I mean, is there anything that can be done? Are there any research backed,
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uh, moves that can be done to help that improve that?
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I think there are really, uh, two big things that could be done. Uh, one is on the economic front
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to do more, both in, in the marketplace and in our, our public policies to strengthen
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job opportunities for men who don't have college degrees. Uh, so for instance, we can do, I think,
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a much better job in terms of vocational training and apprenticeships, um, on the public policy side
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of the, of the ledger. Um, and that would help make working class men, less educated men, you know,
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more economically attractive, I think, as husbands, both in, in their partner's eyes and also in their
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own eyes, which is important. Um, on the cultural side of, of things, I think it's important
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to stress that we need to do more in terms of public messaging like we have with, um, you know,
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with smoking for instance, um, and in the popular culture, you know, in our, our movies, our TV shows,
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our songs, now our vines to sort of basically show the power of marriage, uh, for younger adults,
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you know, the way in which, you know, marriage, even though it's, you know, it's demanding and
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difficult, um, does, you know, um, provide us with so many, um, important social goods and personal
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goods. Um, and then also just to stress, luckily if you're, if you're expecting a child, if you're
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looking to have a child, really the best thing you can do for that child is, is to, um, you know,
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is to be married before your child comes, you know, comes along and then to do everything you can to,
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to remain married, you know, once you have, you know, kids, um, to get those messages,
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I think to the broader culture, um, and in ways that are sort of accessible and engaging
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would be really helpful in strengthening, uh, marriage and the stability of family life and
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working class and poor communities. Are there any, uh, pop culture examples where you feel like
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they're doing a good job with that? Yeah, that's, that's a good question. I mean, I think,
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uh, this is us is one example of a recent show that does a good job of that. And, um, I think
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that there are others out there, but I just, um, you know, I don't have a bunch of those right at
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the sort of tip of my fingers here. So you also mentioned that young people are putting off marriage
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longer and longer. I think it's the highest since, you know, I think like the 1930s, right? The age of
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marriage, um, it was really low in the post-war era. Kids, you know, people were getting married
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in their early twenties. Um, and a lot of people feel like they need to put off marriage until they
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have like a job, they finish college, et cetera. Is that necessarily the case? Do you have to be
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financially stable in order to start a marriage or is it okay to start a marriage when you're
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poor, broke college students? I think, um, certainly, I mean, I know plenty of folks who have
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gotten married, um, in graduate school and they were relatively broke, um, and, you know,
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have done, done well. Um, but I think, I guess what I would say is that generally speaking, um,
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it's valuable to have, I think at least, um, you know, um, some experience in, in the,
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in the workforce before getting married. So I would, I would definitely say having, you know,
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had at least, you know, a year, um, of, of stable work is a good thing to have under your belt before
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you go ahead and get married. Um, and we do know that from both the perspective of, you know,
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of the man and of the woman that, you know, particularly his stable employment is a major
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predictor of, um, her willingness to go ahead and get married. Um, and then also kind of the
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stability of their marriage after that wedding day. So, um, I think it's important to do all you can
00:24:06.960
kind of find some kind of work, um, doesn't have to be, um, you know, a job that's bringing in,
00:24:13.040
you know, six figures. Um, but I think having had some experience in labor force, um, can be helpful
00:24:19.520
for kind of grounding people before they go ahead and get married. Is there an age where, you know,
00:24:23.780
where it's too late? Like, you know, when you, the longer you put off marriage, does it get harder
00:24:27.120
to actually settle down and find a partner? Well, I think it certainly is somewhat harder for folks
00:24:32.360
after they turn 30, you know, to get married and particularly as they approach their forties and beyond.
00:24:36.960
to, to marry. Um, and it's interesting when you look at sort of the link between agent marriage
00:24:44.760
and, um, divorce and the agent marriage and marital quality, you see somewhat different patterns in
00:24:52.680
terms of kind of what's the ideal age to get married. So when it comes to divorce, it looks
00:24:57.560
like kind of the ideal age to get married is in your late twenties or early thirties. Um, that's when
00:25:01.960
you see kind of the lowest divorce rates for the average American. When it comes to marital
00:25:06.480
quality, we've actually have a different story in there. It kind of looks like getting married
00:25:09.360
in your mid twenties is kind of ideal. Um, so couples who get married in their mid twenties
00:25:14.480
report the highest levels of marital quality. Um, and I think the, the, you know, the, the conclusion
00:25:22.340
that I would draw from that is that, you know, um, getting married a little bit older might
00:25:28.880
be associated with kind of a maturity orientation, um, that is itself, you know, linked to somewhat
00:25:35.760
lower divorce risk. Um, but getting married in your mid twenties sort of allows you as a couple
00:25:40.420
to establish a common life together. Um, and you know, sort of that tradition of, of vacations
00:25:47.720
or holidays or, um, you know, even kind of having kids and sort of establishing, um, you know,
00:25:55.940
kind of an agreed upon approach to, you know, to work in professional life can be, um, you
00:26:02.740
know, can be good. Right. I mean, in your research, have you come across anything about attributes
00:26:07.960
or qualities or, uh, that, you know, people should have before they go into a marriage? Cause I mean,
00:26:14.060
I get a lot of letters from guys asking me like, you know, I'm in my mid twenties. I'm thinking
00:26:17.520
about getting married, but like all my friends say I'm too young. How do I know if I'm ready
00:26:21.740
for marriage? So you mentioned, you know, have a little bit of working experience comes in handy,
00:26:25.380
but anything else that lets you know, yeah, you're, you might be ready for this commitment.
00:26:28.720
I think the guys who are, who really do feel, um, you know, uh, committed, deeply committed to,
00:26:36.020
to this person who are kind of, um, want to, you know, go all out for her is that's, you know,
00:26:43.540
pretty important as an ingredient to, uh, to marital success. Um, I think guys who are kind
00:26:50.060
of willing to cut back on other friendships to some extent, you know, and, and focus on,
00:26:54.560
um, this relationship in particular are also kind of signaling that they're ready for marriage.
00:27:00.260
Um, I think that, um, guys who have, you know, made an effort to, um, get to know, um, their future
00:27:09.820
spouse's, you know, parents and sort of signal their interest to them is also, that's a good
00:27:15.180
sign. Uh, we also see too, the couples who enjoy shared religious attendance are more likely to,
00:27:22.180
um, be doing well, both in terms of the quality of their marriages and in terms of the stability
00:27:27.540
of their marriages. So if you're, you know, if you're 22 or 23 and you're attending a church or a
00:27:33.340
synagogue or a mosque together, um, and you share that common religious orientation commitment,
00:27:39.800
um, that's going to tend to ground your marriage in ways that will, you know, put you in, um,
00:27:45.720
good shape for, uh, for a common future together.
00:27:49.480
So we've talked about like getting married, but like, what do you do once you're married?
00:27:52.820
Because like, you don't want to get divorced because I think there's statistics out there,
00:27:56.080
research is that divorce for men can just be devastating. I mean, it can devastate your finances,
00:28:00.000
obviously for obvious reasons, uh, but it can also devastate your mental and physical health
00:28:04.760
also. Um, so how do you avoid that? How can, what can men do to foster a happy marriage?
00:28:10.980
Well, you know, I think one thing of course, is when it comes to marriage that men need to be
00:28:15.320
sort of, you know, as, as do women need to be careful. You know, I think we often make marriage
00:28:20.160
decisions based upon how attractive someone is. And I'm not just saying physically, but you know,
00:28:24.960
that's what you part of, but sort of physical characteristics, you know, are they funny?
00:28:28.520
Are they engaging? You know, are they sort of good in a social setting? You know, so it's easy
00:28:35.400
to kind of put on a good, good front, you know, and, um, you know, in public and are out on dates
00:28:42.820
and things like that. But, you know, I think we have to be sort of discerning about whether or not
00:28:46.940
this person has the character. Um, do they have virtues like, you know, fidelity, their virtues like
00:28:52.420
charity, they have virtues like thrift, um, today, especially, um, because those virtues are going
00:28:59.000
to be much more predictive of a stable, happy marriage, um, than, um, looks or, you know, humor
00:29:07.220
or whatnot. So I think, you know, one needs to be thinking about, do we have the kind of, uh, virtues
00:29:13.740
and the kind of common interests, you know, um, whether it's sports or politics or hiking or,
00:29:20.880
you know, religion, whatever, that will help ground a marital friendship. And so couples that
00:29:26.460
have those virtues and that have those common interests who can see themselves as friends
00:29:31.040
when they're 75 old and ugly, um, will tend to do pretty well. Um, by contrast couples who I think
00:29:37.440
are just drawn together, um, by that sort of sexual romantic attraction, more like going to run into
00:29:45.240
trouble. Um, but then once you are married, I would say that generosity, um, is certainly an
00:29:53.300
important predictor of marital success. Um, shared faith can be an important predictor of marital
00:29:59.060
success. Um, also particularly the husband having a stable job, all these things tend to
00:30:07.120
reduce, uh, the risk of divorce, uh, for couples after the wedding day. All right. So love with
00:30:13.940
your heart and your head is what you're saying. Yeah. I would also actually, I would also add to
00:30:18.120
that your friends matter a great deal. Um, and I can remember reading that when Mark Sanford got
00:30:23.220
into marital trouble, um, down in South America, he was with a bunch of his male buddies and at this
00:30:29.040
ranch, um, in South America. And that's when he met, um, you know, the woman who helped break up his
00:30:36.320
marriage, um, with whom he, you know, um, had that affair. Um, but I was just thinking those guys
00:30:43.280
clearly were not invested, you know, in his marriage. Um, by contrast, you know, we all know,
00:30:49.100
uh, friends who, who take our marriage, who take our family life pretty seriously. And so, you know,
00:30:55.720
I think it's, it's also important to think about the kinds of people you're hanging out with. Are they
00:30:59.720
there for you and for your wife and your marriage, or are they likely to say things and do things that are
00:31:05.020
going to put your marriage, um, at risk? Um, and so again, we know that sort of your social networks,
00:31:09.580
um, they matter for a lot of things. One of the things that they matter for is your divorce risk.
00:31:14.480
And if you have a friendship network, that's, um, you know, it takes marriage seriously,
00:31:19.000
that's going to have a big impact on your own marriage. Great. So let's shift to fatherhood now.
00:31:22.740
Um, I think all of us have read or heard somewhere that, you know, fathers are important in a child's
00:31:28.040
development, but what, what specifically does a father bring to a child that a mother can't bring?
00:31:35.020
Well, you know, I was raised by a single mother and I think that, you know, moms can do many of the
00:31:40.160
things that dads can do, um, particularly in some kind of difficult situation as my mom was,
00:31:46.400
you know, was sort of put in when, um, my father died when I was three. Um, so, you know, moms can be
00:31:54.700
firm, they can be decent disciplinarians, um, they can certainly play with their kids and all those
00:31:59.660
things. But having said that, I think it's important for us to sort of understand that in the average
00:32:04.320
family, you know, with the average father and the average mother, dads tend to excel in at least four
00:32:09.920
different areas. Um, they tend to still today excel when it comes to breadwinning. And of course
00:32:14.320
that matters for, you know, educating your kids, you know, paying for kids extracurriculars and all
00:32:21.160
the kinds of financial things that go into raising children today. So, you know, the fact that he brings
00:32:25.900
typically more money to the table is still an important factor for the average American father.
00:32:30.680
Uh, secondly, though, dads, um, also tend to have kind of a leg up and just kind of, again,
00:32:35.460
more of an old school point, but tend to have a leg up when it comes to discipline. Um, the size,
00:32:41.720
physical size of men, the tone of their voice and other kinds of features of men make them more
00:32:48.040
likely to be the more authoritative disciplinarian in the average family. Um, they're also more likely
00:32:52.900
to be sort of sticklers for rules than, uh, than our moms. And my point is not to say that men are
00:32:58.040
better disciplinarians than women, but they just, they provide a different kind of discipline, um,
00:33:02.120
to their kids typically than do moms. And it's actually good for kids to experience kind of
00:33:06.840
maternal discipline, which is a little bit more flexible oftentimes, a little bit less attentive
00:33:10.460
to the rules, more attentive to the situation, but also to experience dad's discipline, which tends
00:33:15.940
to be a little bit less flexible and more rule-based, you know, um, and whatnot. So kids get,
00:33:21.660
you know, I think a valuable experience by having both those, uh, styles of discipline.
00:33:28.040
Um, but thirdly kind of moving beyond those sort of traditional points about men as breadwinners
00:33:31.400
and men as disciplinarians in the home. We also are seeing today that, um, when it comes to play,
00:33:38.120
um, the power of play in kids' lives, um, that dads tend to be more likely to challenge their kids
00:33:45.080
to, um, sort of rough and engaging physical play. You know, so if you go to a local playground,
00:33:50.520
for instance, a local park, you're more likely to see, you know, the data of that toddler taking that
00:33:55.720
toddler and throwing him up, you know, into the air, catching him to the toddler's squeals and
00:34:01.160
laughter. And then, you know, and then doing that over again, mom's much more likely to sort of
00:34:04.600
attain to the toddler's physical wellbeing and security. So that kind of approach to play,
00:34:10.040
you know, is, is, is great for kids. In fact, we, we know that kids who rough house with their dads,
00:34:16.280
um, tend to be, um, more socially popular in elementary school than kids who don't do a lot of
00:34:24.280
rough housing with their dads. So kind of learning how to handle their, their bodies, um, you know,
00:34:29.960
and not bite, kick, you know, punch, et cetera, in that rough housing context, I think seems to,
00:34:37.240
you know, have some impact on, on kids' interactions on the playground and other places.
00:34:42.280
Um, and then fourth, we know that, you know, the dads do tend to kind of push, uh, their sons and
00:34:49.720
their daughters to embrace, uh, life's challenges and life's opportunities to kind of push them out
00:34:55.640
of the nest, if you will. Um, and so both again, young men and young women who have come from, um,
00:35:03.480
well-fathered homes, um, are more likely to flourish in school and they're more likely to flourish in the
00:35:10.440
labor force. Um, so there's even, I think a kind of a, almost a feminist case to make for, uh, for
00:35:16.440
having, um, you know, a good dad in the picture because he tends to, you know, help his sons and
00:35:23.720
his daughters, uh, prepare for, um, the world outside the home. So yeah, dads can provide a lot
00:35:29.720
of benefits to children, but, uh, do men get any benefits, emotional, psychological, or otherwise from
00:35:35.160
being dads? Well, I think, you know, for many men, fatherhood is enormously, uh, enormously generative.
00:35:41.320
Um, and there's certainly ways in which I think when you are a father, um, you know, you can be
00:35:46.920
stressed out. Um, you can, you know, be, um, temporarily unhappy by, you know, whatever challenge
00:35:54.440
you're facing in terms of a child, you know, up at night or a teenage, um, you know, daughter or son
00:36:00.840
who's giving you a lot of difficulty at home. Um, but kind of from a longer term perspective,
00:36:06.600
uh, we see that, uh, dads more likely report that their lives are meaningful, um, compared to men who
00:36:12.600
don't have, um, who don't have kids. Um, and so I think that's that kind of, you know, that sense of
00:36:19.000
meaning and purpose that one derives from fatherhood that, you know, is enormously important to, uh, you
00:36:24.960
know, to many of us. Yeah. So you make a distinction between meaningfulness and happiness. Cause I've seen
00:36:29.680
that study that shows that, um, couples who have children, like their happiness level, like goes
00:36:35.760
through this trough when they have kids and when their kids leave their home, it goes back up. So
00:36:40.240
so you're, I guess that's tracking like emotional happiness, like how well you feel on a day-to-day
00:36:46.760
basis, not meaningfulness. Yeah. I mean, I think it also, it's important to note, you know, that there
00:36:50.820
is a lot of what we call kind of heterogeneity or a lot of variation and sort of the impact that kids
00:36:56.180
have on couples, um, and on individual, uh, mothers and fathers. But, you know, you have for many
00:37:01.620
people, you know, having a kid can be obviously stressful and difficult. Um, and it's particularly
00:37:08.060
that first child that seems to be, um, you know, something that kind of reorients your whole life,
00:37:13.740
um, and makes you kind of, um, transition, um, into a new mode. What's interesting, I think,
00:37:21.280
and surprising though, is that, um, work that I've done with some colleagues suggests that
00:37:25.520
fathers of married fathers of, of larger families, four or more kids, um, seem to be more happily
00:37:30.980
married than married dads with fewer kids. And I, and frankly, this, that could be entirely
00:37:36.180
a selection effect by which I mean, the kinds of men who are, you know, stably married and
00:37:42.260
have lots of kids may just be, you know, more likely to enjoy a family life, you know, more likely
00:37:48.940
to, um, you know, um, to be intentional about, um, investing on the home front. Um, but it does
00:37:58.660
suggest to us that, you know, it's not necessarily sort of, um, the number of kids always, but maybe
00:38:06.700
the approach one takes to family life that can be important here. Are women with large families
00:38:12.540
just as happy as men? Cause I mean, I imagine they're, they're the ones at home with watching
00:38:16.600
the kids probably. So in a report that the national marriage project did called when baby makes three,
00:38:21.800
uh, we found that when it came to, um, sort of happiness, um, in marriage that married couples
00:38:30.160
with, uh, with no kids and with four or more kids were happier. And this is true for both husbands and
00:38:37.040
wives. So again, you know, it's not clear here if having a large family makes you happier, um, or I think
00:38:45.020
it's actually probably more likely if the kinds of couples who remain stably married and have lots
00:38:51.020
of kids, um, they're probably just more intentional about, you know, family vacations, family traditions,
00:38:59.280
you know, um, really investing in their, you know, in their common life together as a family doing,
00:39:05.820
you know, fun things, crazy things, et cetera, are probably the kinds of people who just are,
00:39:09.540
you know, end up having, um, more children and reporting happier marriages, um, as a consequence.
00:39:15.840
Is there any research out there about, you know, when a couple knows when they're ready to have
00:39:21.240
children, like are there attributes that a couple should have before they're like, okay, we're going
00:39:25.760
to bring a kid into this relationship? You know, I haven't seen anything really good on that score.
00:39:29.180
I mean, I think that, um, you know, from probably from my perspective, you know, once you've
00:39:35.400
made that commitment to, uh, to marry, um, and gotten married, you know, and you have,
00:39:41.560
you know, both sets of in-laws in a sense in your corner, um, you know, you're ready to go ahead and
00:39:46.760
have that child. Um, but I honestly haven't seen anything that kind of really looks carefully at
00:39:52.140
the timing of childbirth and it's, you know, impact on the quality or stability of, uh, married life
00:40:01.340
I'm just curious, is there any piece of research that you came across or have, you know, done that
00:40:07.660
the results surprised you in terms of men in marriage and men in fatherhood where you weren't
00:40:13.420
expecting this result, but like you got it and you're like, wow, this is, this is crazy.
00:40:17.440
The thing that's kind of most surprised me is that we haven't, this is, we've done some work
00:40:22.500
internationally, um, a number of colleagues and I have, and I kind of assumed that across the world,
00:40:29.620
um, kids would be more likely to be flourishing in school if they were part of a stably married
00:40:35.020
family. And, uh, what we found is in parts of, uh, the developing world in parts of Latin America
00:40:41.180
and Southern Africa and in Southern Asia, uh, that wasn't always the case. Um, sometimes kids would do
00:40:49.680
as well or better if they were being raised by, you know, a single, a single mother.
00:40:54.100
And as I explored that issue, uh, with some colleagues, what it looks like it might be
00:40:59.820
is that, you know, in some places there's not a great expectation for the father to be really
00:41:04.920
involved with his kids, um, education or to devote his, um, you know, his money to, um, you know,
00:41:15.040
to the kids, uh, education. So in those contexts, perhaps, you know, having a father in the household
00:41:20.980
isn't always going to be helpful on the educational front. So that was kind of, was eye-opening for me
00:41:25.740
just basically signaled that when we're thinking about something like marriage and family structure,
00:41:30.600
we also have to attend to the culture, you know, and to the family process. Um, and so a culture
00:41:37.740
that basically encourages men to be, um, considerate, responsible, self-sacrificing husbands and fathers,
00:41:46.540
um, is going to be one where I think generally speaking, you know, women and children are more
00:41:52.920
likely to flourish. Um, but if a culture encourages men to be more macho or, you know, um, you know,
00:42:02.420
not to really attend, you know, in, in deep ways to, um, you know, to their wife or to their children,
00:42:10.620
you know, we can't expect that the presence of a father will always, you know, or will typically
00:42:15.780
always be linked to better outcomes for, for, you know, for women or children.
00:42:20.960
So what's the state of American fatherhood today? I mean, has it, has it changed like what,
00:42:25.500
what we expect from dads? Has it changed from say 1950s? Like what's the cultural expectation,
00:42:32.100
Yeah. So in terms of American fatherhood today, I would say it's the best of times and it's the
00:42:35.360
worst of times. And a lot of, you know, whether it's the best of times, you know, for, for kids,
00:42:39.680
it's the worst of times for kids depends upon your zip code. Um, and so if you're in a zip code,
00:42:45.120
that's more affluent and more educated or more religious, you know, you're, you're in a place
00:42:50.540
where typically fathers are, um, you know, spending more time with their kids than ever. Um, and,
00:42:57.860
you know, in some ways are more, you know, more affectionate and more attentive to their children
00:43:03.580
than ever. And in many respects, that's a, that's obviously a good thing. Um, but if you're in other
00:43:08.220
zip codes, um, it's true for, you know, African-American kids, white kids, Hispanic kids,
00:43:14.080
um, you know, you're going to find a world where, um, you know, dads are not stably connected to
00:43:20.500
their children. They don't necessarily live with their kids. Um, they often might not see their
00:43:25.500
kids on a weekly basis. And, you know, in those working class and poor zip codes, um, in some ways,
00:43:31.980
it's the worst of times, you know, for American fatherhood, because kids are not able to have
00:43:36.260
strong and stable and abiding connections to their fathers. They don't wake up in the morning with dad,
00:43:42.580
you know, um, next to them or dad in the next room. And, um, and those kids, you know, um, are more
00:43:49.940
likely to flounder in school and more likely to end up, you know, incarcerated, more likely to have
00:43:54.860
difficulty in the labor force, um, because they, you know, they didn't have the opportunity or the
00:44:00.320
privilege of having a, um, you know, a good relationship, a stable relationship with, uh,
00:44:05.540
with their dad. So, um, you know, it really is a kind of, uh, um, the picture for American
00:44:11.920
fatherhood really is, um, pretty, uh, schizophrenic, if you will. And, you know, part of what you're
00:44:17.920
doing with your work with the Institute of Family Studies and the Marriage Project is to help,
00:44:21.840
you know, provide policy suggestions to promote marriage. Um, we talked about that, but like anything
00:44:27.880
that you, your all's Institute has, um, suggested is for policy changes to encourage fatherhood or
00:44:35.220
that sort of, uh, ideal of father that we're, that you're striving for? Well, I think in terms of
00:44:39.680
public policy, um, you know, measures, it's important to note that at the end of the day,
00:44:44.620
what happens probably in Los Angeles is more important than what happens in Washington, D.C.,
00:44:50.180
you know, to recognize that the culture, pop culture has a bigger role in affecting, you know,
00:44:56.440
how, um, Americans sort of approach family life than does what happens, you know, um, up on Capitol
00:45:03.620
Hill in Washington, D.C. or in the White House. Um, but having said that, it's important to recognize
00:45:08.200
that we could do, I think, a better job on the policy front. And, um, I think in particular,
00:45:14.340
um, you know, there are two things that we could do, um, better. One is, I think, as I mentioned
00:45:19.260
before, just to do a better job of, of educating, um, young women and young men who are not in that
00:45:24.700
college track, um, in terms of better vocational education, better apprenticeship training, um,
00:45:30.820
you know, better efforts to connect them to, um, jobs out there that pay a decent wage, whether it's,
00:45:36.340
you know, being a plumber, being an electrician, um, doing advanced IT work or advanced manufacturing,
00:45:42.020
or some other kind of job that, that pays a decent, you know, a good wage, um, and makes,
00:45:49.000
you know, our young adults more likely to, um, to be, uh, good prospects for marriage.
00:45:57.240
Uh, a second point, though, I think is to sort of think very seriously and deeply about the way in
00:46:01.860
which, um, our welfare system, and using welfare in the, in the broadest possible, um, sense of that
00:46:08.280
word, you know, may unintentionally, um, discourage or penalize marriage. Um, and so, because we do have,
00:46:15.000
um, income, you know, thresholds, if you will, um, where if your income goes above a certain
00:46:23.000
threshold, you tend to lose access to a, um, you know, to some kinds of assistance, or it tends to
00:46:29.840
taper. Um, what that means is that in practice, policies like, uh, Medicaid or, uh, food stamps,
00:46:38.400
um, or in fewer cases, cash welfare can end up, um, you know, subtly, I think, um, discouraging or
00:46:46.440
not so subtly discouraging marriage, you know, talking to people who working class couples who,
00:46:52.120
who say, you know, we were sort of thinking about marriage, but we, you know, we're sort of concerned
00:46:56.980
too, that we're going to lose access to Medicaid, you know, if, um, if we go and get married and,
00:47:03.400
you know, that can be a big, obviously concern when you're having a child, um, or when you already have,
00:47:08.160
um, one or two kids. So from a public policy vantage point, I think we should do more to try
00:47:13.740
to minimize or eliminate the marriage penalty facing, um, working class and poor families,
00:47:19.700
you know, as one way to make, um, our public policies more marriage friendly.
00:47:24.740
Well, Brad, this has been a great conversation. We scratched the surface. Where can people learn
00:47:29.720
I think the best place to go to really understand the work of Institute for Family Studies
00:47:33.680
is, uh, family-studies.org, um, on, um, you know, on the internet. I'm also on Twitter at
00:47:41.080
WilcoxNMP. Um, and those are two good places to sort of learn more about the research, um, that
00:47:46.940
we're doing on marriage, uh, cohabitation and fatherhood, both in America and around the globe.
00:47:52.260
Fantastic. Brad Wilcox. Thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.
00:47:56.980
My guest today was Brad Wilcox. He's the director of the National Marriage Project. You can find more
00:48:00.740
information about that at nationalmarriageproject.org. He also works with the Institute of
00:48:04.540
Family Studies and you find more information about them at family-studies.org. And you can
00:48:09.180
download that study about men in marriage there, um, that we referenced. So go check that out.
00:48:13.980
And also make sure to check out the show notes at aom.is slash men and marriage,
00:48:18.700
where you can find links to resources, um, that we discuss in this topic. So you can delve deeper
00:48:22.760
into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For
00:48:35.540
more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com.
00:48:39.760
This show is recorded on clearcast.io. If you're a podcaster, go check it out. Something I developed
00:48:44.020
to make recording remote podcasts a lot easier and sound better for your listeners.
00:48:48.940
As always, appreciate your team support. And one of the ways you can do that is give us a review on
00:48:52.000
iTunes or Stitcher. It helps that a lot. Until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.