The Success Sequence: Why Education, a Job, Marriage, Then Kids Is the Working Order

June 14, 2017

Ah, millennials. In some ways, they’re very traditional, suggesting that women should stay at home to raise their kids. In other ways, they are very Bohemian, doing as they please when the mood hits. But it turns out, the old-fashioned “success sequence” — a (high school or higher) degree, job, marriage, then children, in that order — is still the winning combination for securing financial well-being, even for this late-day-and-age group.

The term “success sequence” isn’t new. It was coined in the last decade by researchers looking for policy ideas that could help break the cycle of poverty. Of course, it was criticized for pointing out that the cycle of poverty is more likely to be perpetuated for kids born into poorly educated households without two parents and few economic opportunities. It has become rude to point this out even though that’s the problem the research is trying to solve.

But facts are facts, as it were, and a new study by W. Bradford Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, and Wendy Wang, of the Institute for Family Studies, found that the success sequence holds up as a guidepost for today’s Millennials as it did for Baby Boomers, even after adjusting for a wide range of variables like childhood family income and education, employment status, race/ethnicity, sex, and respondents’ scores on the Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT), which measures intelligence and knowledge of a range of subjects.

The study found that “diverging paths into adulthood” taken by 28- to 34-year-olds — the eldest of the Millennial age group — produce very different economic outcomes.

Among the findings:

  • Millennials who follow the “success sequence” almost always avoid poverty, with 97 percent of Millennials who married first not being poor by age 28, compared to 72 percent who had children first.
  • 71 percent of Millennials from lower-income families who put marriage before children made it into the middle class or higher when they reached adulthood. Conversely, 41 percent of Millennials from lower-income families who put children first made it into the middle class or higher when they became adults.
  • Among black young adults, those who married before having children are almost twice as likely to be in the middle- or upper-income groups (76 percent) than those who had a baby first (39 percent).

success sequence statistics

Since 55 percent of 28- to 34-year-old millennial parents had their first child before marriage, the economic and family impacts will be felt for decades.

Millennials are more likely than previous generations to delay marriage and parenthood, but that doesn’t mean that they have to forego the order of education, work, and marriage. Indeed, there’s a reason the success sequence works.

Why might these three factors be so important for young adults today? Education confers knowledge, skills, access to social networks, and credentials that give today’s young adults a leg up in the labor force. Sustained full-time employment provides not only a basic floor for household income but, in many cases, opportunities for promotions that further boost income. Stable marriage seems to foster economies of scale, income pooling, and greater work effort from men, and to protect adults from the costs of multiple partner fertility and family instability.

Moreover, the sequencing of these factors is important insofar as young men and women are more likely to earn a decent income if they have at least acquired a high school education, and young marrieds are more likely to stay together if they have a modicum of education and a steady income. So, it’s not just that education, work, and marriage independently seem to matter, but the sequencing of education, work, and marriage may also increase the odds of financial success for today’s young adults.

Wilcox and Wang point out that there’s no statistical model to perfectly predict a youth’s future success. Some who succeeded came from roots missing those steps. Others who lived in households that followed the sequence ended up in the bottom third of the income scale. Lastly, there’s no conclusive evidence that the “sequence plays a causal or primary role in driving young adult success.”

The researchers also note that it’s easier to follow the success sequence when one is born into it, as opposed to young adults who came from poor neighborhoods, bad schools, and less educated households. It’s also easier to follow the success sequence when one comes from a cultural background that adopts these ideals and expectations rather than those groups who hold these values in lower regard.

But there’s no mistaking that the numbers overwhelmingly favor those who do follow the course, and that’s where both one’s personal “agency” and public policy come into play.

This report suggests that young adults from a range of backgrounds who followed the success sequence are markedly more likely to steer clear of poverty and realize the American Dream than young adults who did not follow the same steps.

Given the value of the success sequence, and the structural and cultural obstacles to realizing it faced by some young adults, policymakers, educators, civic leaders, and business leaders should take steps to make each component of the sequence more accessible. Any initiatives should be particularly targeted at younger adults from less advantaged backgrounds, who tend to have access to fewer of the structural and cultural resources that make the sequence readily attainable and appealing. The following three ideas are worth considering in any effort to strengthen the role that the success sequence plays in the lives of American young adults.

Read the full report here.

Filed Under: Front-Page Feature, Life Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

‘Choice Feminism’: Equal Opportunity and Gender Specialization

April 13, 2017

Picture this: Dad heads out to work in the morning. Mom stays home to care for the kids and maybe works part-time while they are in school. While Mom is home, she cooks, cleans, and runs the domestic sphere of the family while Dad earns the money needed to pay the bills. And everyone is happy.

Gasp! That sounds like the 1950s! Except it’s not. It’s 2017. And in this scenario, “Everyone is happy.”

“Feminism” is a word that has been loaded with undertones and assumptions for decades. And while critics may have a legitimate bone to pick with some of the social, cultural, and political issues that were born out of the 1960s feminist movement, don’t assume that the “f” word automatically refers to the man-hating, bra-burning ideology.

In fact, if we stopped to look at how millennial women — and men — now increasingly prefer traditional, female stay-at-home roles and male bread-winning roles, we might consider the principles of a certain kind of feminism that explains this recent shift.

It’s called “choice feminism,” and it is a term that has been adopted to describe the belief that women are free to choose the lifestyle they want, whether at home or in the workplace, without judgment. That work may be as the homemaker or as the breadwinner, or as a worker whose responsibilities are part-time in both of those environments.

The key is that women get to make the decision whether they stay in or work out of the home. And it’s a natural fit for the newest generation of parents.

In a recent analysis, researchers Samuel Sturgeon and W. Bradford Wilcox explore why the enthusiasm for choice feminism has increased among the millennial set. Citing a new report by sociologists Joanna Pepin and David Cotter, they write:

The increasing popularity of intensive mothering in the 1990s, frustrations over the stresses associated with balancing work and family, and a media and pop culture backlash to feminism in the 1990s — think of the ‘you can’t have it all’ meme from the era — made 1970s-style feminism, with its insistence on moms combining full-time work and family life, less appealing to a growing minority of young adults.

Translation: millennials, who as children in the 1990s watched the backlash by women trying to be on 100 percent of the time at work and 100 percent of the time at home, think the early feminist rat race is an exhausting and undesirable way to live.

Rather than embrace a ’70s-style feminism where everything is supposed to be split 50-50 in the home, a growing share of young adults embrace an ethic closer to matching two-parent families as they really are in 21st century America: That is, millennials may take a more favorable view of gender specialization in the family because it remains quite common in their own experience and, in an era of choice feminism, less problematic.

Just as this helps explain, at least in part, why preferences in gender roles have morphed since baby boomers and Generation Xers were young, Sturgeon and Wilcox also propose what choice feminism now provides to women: equality and gender specialization.

Choice feminism allowed women to invest heavily in their children, juggle work and family responsibilities, and maintain a sense of feminist self-respect. It stands to reason that, in the spirit of this choice feminism, many young adults support an ethic of equal opportunity for women in the public sphere even as they embrace an ethic of gender specialization in the private sphere.”

The authors also note that cultural and racial shifts in demographics may have contributed to changing beliefs in the division of labor. Today, 22 percent of young adults in the U.S. are Hispanic compared to only 7 percent in 1980.

That matters, because young Hispanics (especially young Hispanic men, who prefer traditional family arrangements at higher percentages than Hispanic women) are more likely to embrace a traditional division of family and work responsibilities than other young adults.”

But since they argue that demographics are only a portion of explaining today’s millennial views, perhaps those who gasp at traditional family structures should consider the power of a woman’s choice at home and in the workforce.

Simultaneously, conservatives shouldn’t hyperventilate at the notion of supporting feminism – at least the kind that enables women to reach their full potential at work and/or at home because their pursuit of both wasn’t foisted on them. These women have made their choices, and are pursuing their happiness.

Filed Under: Front-Page Feature, Happiness Tagged With: , , , , ,

Irregular Work Schedules While Raising Kids: Can Congress Pass a Law to Help?

January 10, 2017

Does Congress need to schedule your time off? A proposed law aims to address the downsides of irregular work schedules, and is receiving support from a surprising group of voters.

A recent focus group organized by the Institute for Family Studies was asked to look at ways for government to make it easier for working parents to succeed. This particular focus group, based in a small town in southern Ohio, was composed of 10 white, working-class Millennials who mostly expressed support for President-elect Donald Trump.

Like every adult-age youngest generation before it, Millennials are the favorite target of older generations who like to tell them they don’t understand how the world works. But this focus group may be on to something. It has been coping with the way the world works for a while now, and has a diverse set of viewpoints despite their demographic similarities.

Their recent free-wheeling discussion suggests that while they backed the conservative presidential candidate, they are willing to explore a liberal lawmaker’s solution to problems they face. Gasp, could bipartisanship come back in vogue?

The group’s post-election conversation hit such heady topics as paid parental leave, payroll taxes, marriage penalties in public assistance programs, and other issues that tend to divide policy agendas in Washington. A common theme that emerged was that they are willing to work hard, and in exchange they want economic independence couched in fair treatment from employers and government.

The conversation spilled into the minimum wage debate , but a couple issues that struck a chord came down to adequate scheduling of work hours and promoting a “success sequence” for young people (finish school, get a job, get married, have children, in that order). The success sequence may be popular, albeit difficult to implement, but a proposed bill in Congress already captures what the Millennials said about adequate scheduling — they want the ability to plan their day-to-day lives.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, almost 10 percent of workers report that they have irregular schedules, which makes it harder for them to do typical activities like planning to attend functions at their kids’ schools or, as one couple in the focus group shared, scheduling their wedding. Another 7 percent of workers interviewed in the EPI study said they split or rotate shifts.

EPI reported that full-time employees in the retail and food service industries tend to have the most irregular shifts, but so do a significant proportion of workers in entertainment, repairs, transportation, and agricultural sectors.

What is concerning with the irregularity in scheduling, which inordinately hits lower income households, is the impact it has on the family. In essence, irregular schedules contribute to instability at home. For EPI, some of the solutions include implementing laws enabling workers the right to request changes and longer advance notice of what their schedules would be.

One bill on the table in Congress comes from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. It would do just what EPI supports. The legislation, called “The Schedules That Work Act,” would give workers in service industries the right to request changes to their schedules without fear of retaliation and would require employers to distribute schedules two weeks in advance.

It’s seems counter-intuitive that more law gives people greater freedom, but it has been done before. You’d be surprised what these Trump supporters in southern Ohio said about the idea.

Read the focus group’s response “The Schedules That Work Act.”

Filed Under: Front-Page Feature, Life Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The American Dream Still Lives Despite Growth Rate of Millennial Incomes

December 15, 2016

Researchers from Stanford, Harvard, and the University of California recently proclaimed that the American Dream is “fading” because millennial incomes are not as high as their parents’ incomes were when they were their children’s age. The American Dream may have taken a beating recently, blogger and Jeopardy champ James Pethokoukis concedes, but mobility is not the deciding indicator of whether the dream is alive.

Why not? Guess it comes down to definitions. The Equality of Opportunity Project defines the “American Dream” as “absolute income mobility,” meaning that kids are doing better than their parents. The project found that just 51 percent of American 30 year olds earn more than their parents did at their age, a decline from 92 percent of 30 year olds in the early 1970s who earned more than their parents did at their age.

Several factors are at play when it comes to a slowdown in absolute mobility: automation, trade, slower economic growth overall in the U.S., and greater disparities in income. But the forlorn conclusions are not as severe as suggested when looked at with regard to the overall picture.

Pethokoukis points to Scott Winship for a deeper explanation. Winship who used to manage research for the Pew Economic Mobility Project, says the project’s data are probably accurate. Absolute mobility is slower now than in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. But this has been true for decades so should not come as some tragic surprise, especially since the research is concentrating on the trend and not the actual level of absolute mobility, as reported in breathless newscasts.

What is surprising, however, is the number of variables that the research paper does not include in its analysis when it comes to measuring that level. Among selected measurements excluded, Winship notes, the adjustments for cost of living, which if counted would suggest that the absolute mobility rate would rise 3-4 percentage points. Additionally, government transfers and taxes are not accounted for and baseline incomes are probably higher than what is reported in the research.

If we assume that the incomes of everyone not experiencing absolute mobility in the baseline numbers actually are higher by $5,000 than the baseline figures indicate, that would push up the share of the 1984 cohort achieving upward mobility by about 5 percentage points. Why might that be a reasonable assumption? Health benefits and other nonwage compensation are one factor. Nothing in the Chetty paper includes such benefits as income. Cohabitation is another. Two cohabiters will be two ‘families’ in the Census Bureau data used in the paper (and will be two ‘tax units’ in the paper’s tax data). In reality, cohabiters pool their incomes, just like married couples.

Undercounting of income is a third reason to think that the reported incomes in the Chetty paper are too low. Undercounting is a pretty bad problem in the bottom third, especially in the CPS and census data, but also potentially in the tax data, where people don’t report under-the-table earnings. (I reviewed this evidence in Appendix 3 of my recent paper on poverty trends). A caveat here is that parents also have understated incomes because of these issues, but nonwage compensation, government health benefits, cohabitation, and undercounting of income have all increased over time, so their impact is greater on children.

Put all this together and it looks to me like size-adjusting pushes the absolute mobility rate up 10 points, using the PCE deflator another 3 to 4 points, taxes and transfers another 2, and the rest (plausibly) another 5 points. That’s 20–24 percentage points, which would put the absolute mobility rate at 70–74 percent. Two-thirds seems like a safe conservative estimate.

For adults who were poor children, absolute mobility rates almost certainly remain above 90 percent. This is hardly evidence that the American Dream is ‘fading,’ as the paper’s title claims. The period from 1939 to 1969 was one of exceptionally strong income growth. That growth translated into very high absolute mobility rates. Income growth has slowed since then, though it has not reversed. Thus, absolute mobility rates have fallen, though most people still do better than their parents did at the same age.

What does it all mean? Pethokoukis notes that a 2014 study concluded that the probability of mobility — the chance of moving up or down the income ladder — is about the same as when the parents of today’s millennials were in their shoes.

He optimistically adds that policies that promote work and opportunity, policies that may be coming back into vogue, are a likelier method to faster and more inclusive economic growth than any redistribution methods, an outlook shared by the study’s “superstar” author.

So, as Pethokoukis concludes,

The American Dream still exists, although it’s a bit dinged up. And the United States remains the Land of Opportunity, although it could definitely be better. All of which should pass for good news in a year with precious little of it.

Read James Pethokoukis’ article on the American Dream.

Read Scott Winship’s analysis of the study’s conclusions.

Filed Under: Front-Page Feature, Life Tagged With: , , , , ,

Millennials and Democracy: They Do Want It, Don’t They?

October 23, 2016

A recent survey of Millennials and democracy suggests they prefer authoritarianism to freedom and liberty, but a very enlightening look at the concerning phenomenon by a Russian citizen leaves hope that American democracy could actually benefit from the younger generation’s seeming rejection of it.

As America’s youngest adults search for the best future for themselves, the position of government as the go-to answer for life’s everyday problems could lose its dominance.  That may not have been the intention of author Leonid Bershidsky, but it does create the sense of relief from the head-shaking conclusion that Millennials are creeping toward totalitarianism.

First, the scary part: A look at the data that has triggered the widespread talk of Millennial rejection of democracy. Bershidsky reports on the findings in a July paper by Roberto Stefan Foa, a principal investigator of the World Values Survey, and Harvard political scientist Yascha Mouk.

More than two thirds of American Millennials do not consider it essential to live in a country that is governed democratically. About a quarter of them consider a democratic political system a ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’ way to run the country. At the same time, support for authoritarian alternatives is rising. In 1996, only 1 in 16 Americans said it would be good if the military ruled the country. By 2014, it was 1 in 6. Only 19 percent of Millennials say it wouldn’t be legitimate for the military to take over if the government proved incompetent or unable to do its job. A growing share of young people is in favor of a ‘strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with parliament and elections’ and a government of ‘experts’ rather than politicians.

Yeah, definitely scary, but the conclusions may have been misinterpreted, to everyone’s relief.

As I covered the U.S. presidential campaign, I saw much that appears to contradict Foa and Mouk’s dire warnings. Bernie Sanders’ movement, still alive despite his primary loss, has persuaded many young people that traditional politics can be used to further their goals. These Millennials and younger Generation Z-ers follow a strong leader, and much of the grassroots campaigning they do is outside the political system as we know it — but they don’t seem drawn to authoritarianism or a government of ‘experts.’

For those who think Sanders’ democratic socialist approach to governing is nothing to feel relief about, here’s where Bershidsky’s observations become more encouraging.

Democracy isn’t meritocratic enough for the Facebook generation, which deifies tech capitalists and social media stars. None of their heroes are elected. Democracy throws up people like (Donald) Trump and (Hillary) Clinton, not Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk. The proponents of raw democracy these days are anti-technocratic, like Michael Gove, Brexiter extraordinaire, who says Britons have ‘had enough of experts.’

Young people assume there are other ways for a talented leader to get to the top than by rising through political ranks — and the tech billionaires support that intuition by trying to bypass government as they fight disease (Zuckerberg) or prepare to colonize Mars (Musk). A world run by these well-meaning people wouldn’t be democratic, though their support comes from below. …

So, the conclusion is that young people don’t reject democracy per se, they reject the brutal game of politics and an electoral system that foists up candidates more interested in “gotcha” moments than on governing. It’s the very bureaucratic nature accompanying the growth of government that is anathema. Young people want to choose their leaders, but want those leaders to make the economy grow, increase innovation, and reduce the technocratic nature of goverment.

If millennials feel they are represented by smart people who understand their agenda and have the necessary expertise to implement it, they may like politics better than they do now. And so may the older generations: They, too, are not immune from the irritation caused by crude election battles such as this year’s.

That doesn’t suggest Millennials want authoritarian government. It suggests that they want the choice for creative problem-solvers in government. And who can argue with that?

Filed Under: Front-Page Feature, Happiness Tagged With: , , , ,

Social Security Calculator Lets You Decide Reform Policy

August 15, 2016

At first, the news report that said that the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget had created a Social Security calculator to determine how old readers will be when the Social Security Fund becomes insolvent seemed like a joke.

The report showed a Social Security calculator where readers submit their birth year. It notes the projected year of insolvency for Social Security is 2034. It appeared quite the sad interactive tool to ask people to use a calculator to see how old they will be when Social Security runs out when only two variables are at play. Did we really become such dullards that we couldn’t subtract our birth year from 2034? It’s simple math.

Well, turns out there’s more to the CRFB’s “Social Security Reformer” than just calculating your age in the year the retirement system goes bankrupt.

The CRFB’s interactive program “allows users to choose from a number of options to modify Social Security tax and benefit levels in order to close the program’s 75-year shortfall and keep it sustainable for future generations.”

In other words, it’s a do-it-yourself experiment for fixing Social Security.

CRFB offers a lot of suggestions on the revenue and distribution sides of the equation, including some that don’t get much mainstream attention, like requiring state and local government workers who are exempt from paying into the system, but who receive benefits from the system, to pay. Or indexing the retirement age to longevity projections. Certainly, seniors are living longer, which contributes to the strain on the system, so that’s an option ready for a correction.

Several suggestions are available that will raise and lower the bar graph’s lines on projected outcomes to determine how long Social Security can be extended.

The tool should be particularly engaging for young workers, those who are certain to lose out.

Many millennials live their lives differently than previous generations — they work fewer hours in the work week, and say they are the “experience” generation which prefers “tiny houses” and free time to large homes and luxury cars. But living fanciful experiences means many are neither savvy nor realistic about their retirement savings, and they are not saving what they need. They are also over-reliant on employer contributions to retirement plans, if and when they get them.

If Social Security isn’t reformed, and is left on its current trajectory, in 2034, “all beneficiaries regardless of age and income will face an immediate 21 percent benefit cut.”

Some in the Millennial and Gen X generations who are contributing to the system and are doing the math realize they are going to come up on the short end of the stick. So, at this point, just 18 years from insolvency, is it too late to fix Social Security?

Probably not, but why not be part of the solution? Play with the “Social Security Reformer” and become a fixer. You can even submit your work for review at the CRFB calculator.

Filed Under: Front-Page Feature, Life Tagged With: , , , , ,