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TechnoratiThe Pew Center’s most recent findings are from a telephone survey conducted from Feb. 16 through Mar. 14, 2007, among a randomly-selected, nationally representative sample of 2,020 adults.
Other findings include:
• A generation gap in behaviors and values – Younger adults attach far less moral stigma than do their elders to out-of-wedlock births and cohabitation without marriage.
• A public concern over the delinking of marriage and parenthood – Adults of all ages consider unwed parenting to be a big problem for society.
• The public view of marriage as an ideal, albeit a more elusive one – Even though a decreasing percentage of the adult population is married, most unmarried adults say they want to marry. Furthermore, married adults are more satisfied with their lives than are unmarried adults.
• The standing belief that children are vital to adult happiness – Although children may be perceived as less central to marriage, they are as important as ever to their parents. “As a source of adult happiness and fulfillment, children occupy a pedestal matched only by spouses and situated well above that of jobs, career, friends, hobbies and other relatives,” the Pew Center reported.
• The increased prevalence of cohabitation – Today about a half of all nonmarital births are to a cohabiting couple; 15 years ago, only about a third were. Cohabiters are ambivalent about marriage – just under half (44 percent) say they to want marry; a nearly equal portion (41 percent) say they aren’t sure.
• The public’s preference for divorce over unhappy marriages – Americans by lopsided margins endorse the mom-and-dad home as the best setting in which to raise children. But by equally lopsided margins, they believe that if married parents are very unhappy with one another, divorce is the best option, both for them and for their children.
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