In recent years, marriage has declined across all socioeconomic groups — except for college-educated, upper-income households. Although the causes of this trend remain debatable, Professor Melissa Kearney argues that the decline in marriage is a key driver of U.S. economic problems.
At this event, Kearney presented her book “The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind” (The University of Chicago Press, 2023), in which she proposes that a two-parent household provides more resources for children from time, financial, and emotional perspectives. Her data-driven analyses bypass the ideological and political debate, focusing on economic outcomes and inequality in the context of declining marriage — and what we must do to change course.
This event was part of the Baker Institute Center for Public Finance’s Book Forum. It was free and open to the public.
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Agenda
6:00 pm CDT — Reception
6:30 pm CDT — Presentation
Featured Speaker
Melissa Kearney, Ph.D., is Neil Moskowitz Professor of Economics at the University of
Maryland. Her research focuses on domestic policy issues, especially issues related to social policy, poverty, and inequality. Her work has been published in leading academic journals and has been frequently cited in the popular press. She has testified before Congress on the topic of U.S. income inequality. In addition, she is a member of several well-known research programs and serves on the editorial board of multiple academic journals. Professor Kearney holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
