The United States has the world’s highest rate of kids being raised in single-parent homes. This is alarming, considering the benefits children gain when being raised by their married parents, including greater academic success, financial stability, and improved social outcomes. Married parents are key to children’s well-being and future. Yet, as a nation, we are denying the next generation the environment that is most likely to set them up for stability and success.
Generation Z is following the example of Millennials and concluding that marriage is uncool. As marriage rates have fallen, the percentage of children born to unmarried parents has generally trended upward. Nearly 40 percent of babies in the United States are born to unmarried parents. It’s time for states to think seriously about how they can incentivize family structures that help children thrive.
In Oklahoma, state Sen. Dusty Deevers has proposed a bill that would help more children in his state grow up in the environment where they are most likely to thrive, with their married mom and dad. The Promote Child Thriving Act incentivizes stable, two-parent households by extending a $500 tax credit for every child under 18 who is being raised by his married biological parents. For every child whose parents marry before he is born, the amount is raised to $1,000. This prioritizes the well-being of children, encourages choices that reduce poverty, and rewards choices that put children first.
Children Have a Right to Their Mother and Father
Throughout history, marriage has played a vital role as the institution that protects a child’s relationship with the two adults from whom he came. This connection is not simply good for children, it is their right. When considering what makes something a right as opposed to simply a desire, there are three criteria to keep in mind: A natural right exists pre-government, no one has to provide you with that right, and a natural right is distributed equally — no one is born with greater or lesser potential to exercise those rights.
Just like children’s right to life meets these criteria, so does children’s right to their mom and dad — the parent-child relationship is as pre-government as it gets. No one has to provide you with a mother and father; by virtue of your existence, you have them. And everyone naturally has exactly one natural mother and father.
The state has a clear, compelling interest in protecting the vulnerable. From an economic standpoint, the state also has a strong interest in encouraging choices that are least likely to land a child in foster care, on the streets, or in jail — all of which take a heavy toll on state budgets and resources — and more likely to put them on a track toward financial and academic success. States need to recognize that encouraging marriage is an important part of protecting children and reducing the economic strain created by fatherlessness and family breakdown.
Incentivizing the Success Sequence
Additionally, this bill incentivizes something known as the “success sequence”: graduate high school, get a full-time job, and get married before having children. A decade ago, the Brookings Institute reported that young adults who follow all three steps in this sequence have only a 2.4 percent chance of living in poverty.
More recent research continues to reinforce this pathway to thriving. The success sequence holds true across demographics. According to a 2022 report, 96 percent of black and 97 percent of Hispanic Millennials who followed the success sequence were not poor in their mid-30s. This sequence not only improves people’s financial outcomes — it is also associated with better mental health, and each step in the sequence has been shown to positively affect physical health. As Brad Wilcox has pointed out in Get Married, no group of men and women is as happy as married dads and moms.
Incentivizing the choices that lead to greater prosperity, well-being, and improved outcomes for adults and children alike funnels state resources toward supporting families and protecting the interests of children.
Answering Objections
This bill recognizes something important: Good family policy starts with safeguarding the best interests of children. By focusing on the child involved, the bill shifts the attention away from adult relationships and toward the best interests of the next generation. While some may argue the bill discriminates against some adults, it’s important to recognize that the bill is not about the adults involved. It is about the children. Regardless of sexual orientation or lifestyle, the only adults who qualify are those who are committed to preserving their children’s daily relationship with both parents through marriage.
While this bill is not focused on fertility rates, those who are concerned with the inefficacy of tax credits to incentivize birth rates may be inclined to question this bill for the same reason. However, the fact that child tax credits have not necessarily changed fertility rates does not mean tax credits do not affect the choices of those who benefit from them.
For instance, research demonstrates that women who stand to lose the earned income tax credit if they get married are more likely not to wed. Most unmarried mothers are instead cohabiting when their children are born. However, cohabiting couples have a 50 percent chance of breaking up by the time their child turns 9 — over twice that of married relationships. While divorce is far less common among younger generations, the rise in cohabitation means many children face the same upheaval as their parents’ cohabiting relationships break up. If losing a tax credit is reason enough not to marry, it is time to reverse that incentive, encouraging adults in serious relationships to get married for the sake of their children — a move that may also improve fertility rates.
There are safety nets in place for fragile families. State and federal resources exist to help struggling single parents and their children. But if our policy solutions always focus on the downstream effects of family breakdown, rather than going to the source and incentivizing strong marriages and healthy families, we will have an ever-growing government attempting to address a rapidly increasing litany of social ills. No matter how much government grows, it neither can nor should replace parents.
The truth is, no other institution protects children the way marriage does. If states want to address poverty, improve outcomes for children, and do more than simply react to higher rates of criminal behavior in communities with broken homes, they need to encourage raising children within marriage to the child’s other parent. Sen. Deevers’ bill is an excellent example of what that looks like.
Patience Sunne is the engagement director at Them Before Us, a nonprofit dedicated to defending children’s rights.
