Título: The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind
Autor: Melissa S. Kearney
Sinopse: The surprising story of how declining marriage rates are driving many of the country’s biggest economic problems.
In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity.
Based on more than a decade of economic research, including her original work, Kearney shows that a household that includes two married parents—holding steady among upper-class adults, increasingly rare among most everyone else—functions as an economic vehicle that advantages some children over others. As these trends of marriage and class continue, the compounding effects on inequality and opportunity grow increasingly dire. Their effects include not just children’s behavioral and educational outcomes, but a surprisingly devastating effect on adult men, whose role in the workforce and society appears intractably damaged by the emerging economics of America’s new social norms.
For many, the two-parent home may be an old-fashioned symbol of the idyllic American dream. But The Two-Parent Privilege makes it clear that marriage, for all its challenges and faults, may be our best path to a more equitable future. By confronting the critical role that family makeup plays in shaping children’s lives and futures, Kearney offers a critical assessment of what a decline in marriage means for an economy and a society—and what we must do to change course.
Contexto da obra
Como livro em inglês, esta obra costuma ganhar também uma camada própria de interesse editorial e linguístico. “The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind”, de Melissa S. Kearney, publicado pela editora University of Chicago Press, em 2023 e com 240 páginas, integra a categoria Livros em Inglês. Por isso, o interesse da obra tende a se ampliar quando o leitor considera também a relação com a língua em que ela circula.
Editora: University of Chicago Press
Páginas: 240
Ano: 2023-09-18
Edição: First Edition
Linguagem: en
ISBN: 0226817784
ISBN13: 9780226817781
Sobre a editora
Os livros da editora University of Chicago Press oferecem uma experiência de leitura que combina rigor intelectual e narrativa acessível, transitando entre temas como história da ciência, filosofia, literatura clássica e ciências sociais. As obras frequentemente exploram processos históricos complexos, como a evolução da linguagem científica ou debates filosóficos, com um tom que varia do didático ao ensaístico, mantendo clareza e profundidade. O catálogo revela também interesse por estudos culturais e sociais detalhados, como etnografias contemporâneas e análises de identidades de gênero, além de textos que dialogam com tradições filosóficas e literárias antigas. Em algumas obras, o ritmo é marcado por uma narrativa envolvente, enquanto outras adotam um estilo mais reflexivo e analítico, sugerindo uma diversidade que vai do relato histórico à investigação crítica.
