Lessons Learned

I should probably say something with regards to Stanley Kurtz's latest article in the Weekly Standard, Going Dutch?: Lessons from the same-sex marriage debate in the Netherlands.  And I will share a few observations, but many will probably sound familiar. 

The first thing that struck me about the article was the leading graphic showing the rate of out-of-wedlock birth in the Netherlands from 1970 to 2003.  It's a bar graph and the bars are blue until 1997, the year when a registered partnership bill passed, at which point the bars become red.  Before looking at the text, I would have thought the red bars were a projection based on the trend of the blue bars.  I was thus a little suprised that this was supposed to be evidence of an effect of registered partnerships.  It turns out that the red in the graph represents those years in which "the annual increase was two percentage points, double the average annual increase of the previous 15 years."  Based on the graph, which rounds rates to the nearest percent, I was curious as to why 1995 was not shaded red.  I was also curious as to which was the criterion, the annual increase of two percentage points, or an annual increase that was double the average of the previous 15 years.  So I decided to check Kurtz's source, the Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics.  Those are available online for 1970-2002 (given as a rate per 1000 live births and shown here in a bar graph) and for 2003-2004 (you need to do the division yourself).  The first thing I noticed is that the criterion was certainly not an annual increase which was double the average annual increase of the past 15 years.  If it were, all the years 1974 through 1984 inclusive would be red and the years 1998, 2002, and 2003 would be blue.  Nor was the criterion actually an annual increase of two percentage points.  If it were, 1998, 1999, 2002, and 2003 would be blue.  The best I can figure, the criterion used was an annual increase of 1.5 percentage points or greater, that is an increase of two percentage points if we round after taking the difference. 

Now that I understood better what the graph was actually claiming, I could start to consider its significance.  Using the direct CBS numbers I noticed that the illegitimacy rate has risen every year since 1973.  So the claim must be that registered partnerships exacerbated this trend.  We do see from the numbers that while the rate of increase rose drastically during the 70's, the rate of increase stabilized during the 80's before rising drastically again during the 1993-1998 timeframe and  then stabilizing again.  Again let me emphasize I'm talking about the rate of increase.  Throughout this entire period the out-of-wedlock births as a percentage of total births rose.  (I should also point out that in the CBS numbers an out-of-wedlock birth is one where the mother was unmarried 307 days before the birth.)  So what might have been some of the causes of this acceleration during the time frame 1993 to 1998.  I don't know, but it wasn't registered partnerships and it certainly wasn't same-sex marriage.  The former didn't occur until the end of that time frame (it passed in 1997 and became law in 1998) and the latter not until after it.  It seems like Kurtz might realize this because he labels his graph as "Out-of-Wedlock Births and the Campaign for Same-Sex Marriage."  So it seems at times that Kurtz is arguing not that same-sex marriage will lead to an increase of out-of-wedlock birth, but rather the campaign for it will.  I don't know how he proposes to stop people from campaigning for same-sex marriage, but perhaps, as the subtitle of his article indicates, we can learn some lessons from the Netherlands. 

In his article Kurtz refers to the danger of a menu of relationship options.  Sure enough the Dutch do have four types of living/partnership arrangements recognized under family law.  And all four options are open to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples.  It does seem natural to me that now that marriage has to compete with three other arrangements, less people will choose marriage.  So the question then becomes how do we avoid this "menu" of living arrangements.  One solution that seems obvious to me is to adopt same-sex marriage to begin with.  That would weaken the drive for civil unions, registered partnerships, legally recognized cohabitation, etc.  It wouldn't necessarily kill such movements entirely, but it does knock out a large argument for them.   In most cases these programs were designed as a way of helping same-sex couples who had no other means of legal protection for their families.  They were often opened up to opposite-sex couples as well for fear of discriminating against them.  Kurtz seems to think that same-sex marriage is itself offering another menu option.  Well yes, people could choose between opposite-sex marriage and same-sex marriage, but people can already choose from a wide variety of spouses just within an opposite-sex marriage. The choice of spouse is not a threat to marriage.  It's the choice of alternative living arrangements with the same spouse.  Regardless of whom one chooses for a spouse, one should be expected to take on the same obligations.  The problem comes when one loses the incentives for taking on these obligations  by making the same benefits available under a different obligation scheme.

Kurtz also argues about the risk of separation of marriage and parenthood.  I don't believe there is a problem with claiming parenthood is not an essential component of marriage.  Marriages are recognized even when there is an understanding the couple won't be having children.  Marriages are recognized even when they end before any children are born.   We do not need to equate marriage with parenthood, and there is no harm in pointing out they are obviously not the same thing.  What is a legitimate concern is emphasizing the importance of marriage for raising children.  One does a great disservice by asking people to conflate this issue with its converse because when people see the obvious, that it is not necessary for married couples to raise children, they could end up rejecting out-of-hand valid arguments for how it is important for children to be raised by married couples.  Perhaps this is another lesson from the Netherlands.  Instead of arguing how married couples must have children, try focusing on how marriage helps those couples that do have children.  The answer is not that it gives the child a mother and a father.  A couple can cohabit and do that.  They can even live apart and do that.  What is probably meant instead is that marriage makes it more likely for the mother and father to stay together which is good for the child.  That seems like a natural argument and one can even explain how marriage helps to keep the couple together, and how that is good for the child.  But then one might ask, isn't it better for a child being raised by same-sex parents for those parents to stay together?  And couldn't marriage increase the chances of that couple remaining together?  Likewise there are many other ways in which marriage helps children, and one can explain to people in detail how it does this.  A focus on these arguments in the debate could--and hopefully would--have the effect of convincing people of the importance of getting and remaining married.  I believe such arguments would also lead more people to the conclusion that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry as well.  (This goes even for same-sex couples without children as, upon examination, many of the reasons marriage is good for children are also reasons it is good for the couple and the broader community.)

I am all for learning lessons from other countries with regards to the debate over same-sex marriage.  That we should not be having the debate in the first place, though, is not a very practical lesson.  The debate is here and it is unavoidable.  Instead we should be looking for lessons on how to conduct the debate and consider carefully the alternatives for dealing with the situation.  One lesson I would ask all to consider is that those who value marriage should explain in detail why marriage is so good, even if extolling its virtues might lead some to believe that same-sex couples should not be excluded from such an important institution.

Comments

[Zip]

Kurtz's arguments keep getting destroyed, yet, rather than be intellectually honest, he becomes more and more dishonest about the whole thing.

[lucia]

So it seems at times that Kurtz is arguing not that same-sex marriage will lead to an increase of out-of-wedlock birth, but rather the campaign for it will. Translation: So shut up about it, already!

[lucia]

I have a dumb/obvious question. Now that the Netherlands has several "marital-cohabitation" statuses, what does the Netherlands mean by non-marital births? If a child is born to registered partners, is that a marital or non-marital birth?

[Galois]

I believe a non-marital birth is still as defined before. One in which the mother was not married 307 days prior to the birth. So if at that time the couple was only in a registered partnership I believe the birth would still be classified as non-marital. I have no confirmation of this, but that is how I read the CBS definition. It is clear in other areas that they distinguish between RP's and marriages.

Now chances are that will not effect the numbers too much. It seems RP's are most common as a step leading to a quicker dissolution as explained here (link courtesy of Justin Katz). Still there are a few thousand RP's that do not appear to be for this purpose and as I said it would seem any children born into them would be non-marital even if the RP was converted into a marriage before the actual birth.

[Zip]

The other issue here is that who cares about the number of marriages going on or the trend? It's a meaningless statistic.

Here are some meaningful statistics: Scandinavian countries have a lower number of abortions per capita than the US, have lower infant mortality rates than the US, have higher average lifespans than Americans, and have a higher literacy rate than the US.

So perhaps people aren't getting "married" quite so much in Scandinavia (though I think it has little to do with gays marriage), but on these meaningful stats, Scandinavia is doing better than the US.

[lucia]

I have to admit, the idea that marriages could be converted into registered partnerships at all never occurred to me! (I find this a weird idea. But, it's obviously going to be a convenience to couples who wish to divorce.)

The page says "more than half" the registered partnerships are converted marriages.

Zip-- btw, I agree with you that it is very difficult to compare marriage rates in the US and in Scandinavia. I was asking the detail about the statistics, because I'm just trying to figure out what the number might mean-- even in Scandinavia.

There are so many possible questions:
1) In the US a fairly large fraction of non-marital births are to unmarried women who do not cohabit with the fathers. (Although, fortunately, our teen pregnancy rate has dropped. I think it the discussions of Same Sex Marriage in Hawaii must have caused this.)

2) Do parents stay together for a long period of time? (In the US, cohabiting parents who don't marry tend to split up. Is this the case in Scandinavia? Or do they cohabit for extremely long times without getting married?)

3) Do the children get health care, schooling etc. (In the US, children with only one parent tend to have few financial resources and live in neighborhoods with poor schools.)

You can add a whole list of questions when figuring out both what caused any non-marital births or what effect it will have in Scandinavia compared to the US.

I'll admit, I'd prefer parents to marry, because I think it does communicate something about a commitment to each other and a bond even if it has relatively few financial benefits in a socialist country. I think this idea benefits society and kids. But that doesn't mean lower marital rates in Scandinavia means exactly the same thing that they would here in the US.

[Michiel Sonius]

About the value of the "evidence", I once so a graph clearly showing the correlation between stork population and birth rate in Germany. The science of Kurtz (sure it's not Kuntz?) is like the Bermuda triangle theory.
At the risk of jumping similarly to hasty conclusions, I think the increase could well be related to the growing immigrant population in the larger cities. (Also linked with increase in domestic violence and other crimes in the Netherlands).

The trouble is that all this (common sense) is preaching to the believers. Politicians are not interested in the truth, but in what they think that their voters think is the truth.

[ghkl]

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