The Two-Parent Privilege: Take the Money, Leave the Norm Intervention

2024/01/07 by Philip N. Cohen · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Family Dynamics and Relationships #Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics

paper · pdf · doi:10.31235/osf.io/jt9ad

openalex publication_date 2024/01/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/14

Abstract

This is a review essay about Melissa Kearney’s book, The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind. The book ignores the vast body of sociological research on its topic, and breaks no new ground in research methodology or empirical findings. Nevertheless, it is an opportunity to consider the historical intellectual stream from which it emerges. I offer a sociological response to its evidence and argument. I conclude that, although this book is by no means the worst representative of the marriage promotion genre, the idea of retooling the norms of those on the receiving end of our inequality machine to fix their problems is at best a misuse of resources, and at worst a harmful misdirection from the social problems we face.

Citations

• Gender Identity and Relative Income within Households*

Discussions

• From my review of Kearney's The Two-Parent Privilege. If marriage is beneficial, why aren't poor parents doing it? Economics has an answer, but Kearney doesn't seem to like it. doi.org/10.31235/osf... [bsky, 8 points, 1 comments]

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• The Law of Social Reproduction
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• The fragility of marriage in matrilineal societies