Coffin Corner

Marriage and Babies: Good for Business?

Tuesday, October 4, 2011, 10:30 a.m - 12:00 p.m.

PARTICIPANTS
• W. BRADFORD WILCOX, National Marriage Project
• NICHOLAS EBERSTADT, AEI
• JONATHAN LAST, The Weekly Standard
• KARLYN BOWMAN, AEI

SUMMARY
A new report by the Social Trends Institute, "The Sustainable Demographic Dividend," looks at the relationship between marriage, fertility and economic trends. On Tuesday, a panel of experts gathered at the American Enterprise Institute to discuss the report’s findings in these areas and the related implications for American society. W. Bradford Wilcox, the director of the National Marriage Project and an author of the report, summarized the report’s argument, stating that certain sectors of the economy should act in their own self-interest to promote marriage and increase birth rates. He also noted that marriage has positive effects on society as a whole, highlighting that men are more likely to be productive when married and children are more likely to stay out of jail and avoid teenage pregnancies when their parents are married. Jonathan Last, a senior writer for the Weekly Standard, dissected the forecast of the ideal fertility rate, which describes how many children people would like to have, on average, in a perfect world. He pointed out that the ideal fertility rate in the United States is still relatively high at 2.6, which predicts stable, if not increasing, birth rates. AEI’s Nicholas Eberstadt addressed some unanswered questions, including the effect of birth rates on the macroeconomy (outside of the specific sectors addressed in the report) and the example of Scandinavia, which seems to be an exception to the correlation between traditional marriages and successes in health and education.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS
Supplemental materials from the event are available on the AEI website.

CONTACTS
• For more information, please contact Kelly Matush at kelly.matush@aei.org.
• For media inquiries, please contact Véronique Rodman at vrodman@aei.org.