The family structure debate has finally arrived on the right, and Elon Musk’s unorthodox (to put it mildly) pronatalism is the occasion.
Highlights
Children from wealthier families are more likely to graduate college and stay wealthy when raised in an intact family.
For some on the right, family structure is relatively unimportant, especially at the upper echelons of society. But this view is not consistent with the evidence.
Children from married intact families enjoy better mental health, graduate from college at higher rates, and earn more money. This pattern applies even to kids with every apparent material advantage.
Musk’s approach to family life indicates that some on the right do not think family structure matters for kids. Over the decades, primarily left-leaning commentators have discounted the importance of marriage and family structure. But now, on the other end of the political spectrum, there are those on the right suggesting that kids will do fine, so long as their parents have money or the right genes. From this corner of the right, family structure is relatively unimportant, especially at the upper echelons of society.
But this view is not consistent with the evidence. Children from wealthier families are more likely to graduate college and stay wealthy when raised in an intact family. As documented in Brad Wilcox’s book, Get Married, among children raised in upper-income families, those who lived with both biological parents are twice as likely to graduate from college as their affluent peers who did not.1 This comes from an analysis of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), a survey that followed the lives of nearly 9,000 teenagers into their adulthood. The same data also suggests that rich kids whose parents stick together have 73% higher odds of remaining rich as adults compared to their peers whose parents do not.2
