Glenn Loury's objection over causality is suspect.
"You need to cause people to be resourceful individuals before you can get either of those things. The association that you’re calling attention to, that married people do better, is a confounding of those two influences."
How do you get people who have their stuff together? How do you get resourceful, disciplined individuals if they are coming from a family situation that is broken? It's not impossible but more difficult. The claim is that solid marriages provide stabler foundations for kids to grow up and become disciplined, etc. and have their crap together. Not a guarantee, but a better foundation. The example of the gang member is after the fact, after either a person who did not have a stable mom and dad, i.e., a statistic in favor of the original claim, or person who did have stable household but for some reason went astray, which does not contradict the original claim. No one is saying you take someone in a bad situation, force them to get married, and then everything magically gets better for the parents and children. Virtues are habits, so are vices. They take time to change.
Glenn Loury's objection over causality is suspect.
"You need to cause people to be resourceful individuals before you can get either of those things. The association that you’re calling attention to, that married people do better, is a confounding of those two influences."
How do you get people who have their stuff together? How do you get resourceful, disciplined individuals if they are coming from a family situation that is broken? It's not impossible but more difficult. The claim is that solid marriages provide stabler foundations for kids to grow up and become disciplined, etc. and have their crap together. Not a guarantee, but a better foundation. The example of the gang member is after the fact, after either a person who did not have a stable mom and dad, i.e., a statistic in favor of the original claim, or person who did have stable household but for some reason went astray, which does not contradict the original claim. No one is saying you take someone in a bad situation, force them to get married, and then everything magically gets better for the parents and children. Virtues are habits, so are vices. They take time to change.