Microeconomics Seminar with Mar Melissa Kearney (UMD)

This book draws on mounds of data and social science evidence to put a conversation about family and household structure at the center of our policy discussions around economic opportunity and class gaps. The share of children growing up with the benefits of a two-parent household has declined sharply in the past 40 years. Fewer than 2 out of 3 children in the U.S. now live with married parents. More than one in five children in the U.S. now live with an unpartnered mother. This generally means a household with fewer parental resources – in terms of money, time, and energy. This trend reflects a reduction in marriage among parents with less than a four-year college degree, including those with a high school degree or some college credits. The widespread erosion of the two-parent family outside the college-educated class has exacerbated gaps in childhood resources – and as a consequence, opportunities and outcomes – for children of college-educated parents and everyone else. This new reality undermines the promise of equal opportunity and social mobility. Improving the lives of our nation’s children and closing class gaps in children’s economic outcomes will require that we confront the critical role that family plays in shaping children’s outcomes, along with the widening class divergence in children’s family environments.

Seminar will be held in person in Monroe Hall 321.  Please sign up for our seminars listserv to receive the details.