Some truths span cultures, even if we forget them from time to time. When somebody rediscovers one of these truths, it starts to show up everywhere. Consider the importance of waiting to have children until marriage, which should come after completing education and beginning work (or post-secondary education). The Journals of Wall Street and Carolina printed versions of the truth this week.
Wendy Wang of the Institute for Family Studies wrote for the Wall Street Journal:
‘You should wait until you are older to date.” Growing up in a working-class family in China, I learned this at an early age. Like many Asian parents, my mother stressed the importance of working hard and getting a good education before beginning a family.
Having a child outside marriage never crossed my mind. In the small city where I grew up, it isn’t done. Even today, less than 4% of births in China are out of wedlock, and the same is true in India, Japan and South Korea. For the vast majority of young adults in Asia, the path to success clearly runs through education, work and marriage—in that order. Families, schools, media and society at large all reinforce that message.
Some guy named John Hood wrote for Carolina Journal and his syndicated column:
In a new peer-reviewed study, scholars from the Urban Institute, Cornell University, Brigham Young University, and the University of Virginia found that, all other things being held equal, states with higher-than-average marriage rates among working-aged adults had higher-than-average economic performance.
They also found that if marriage rates for households with children were the same today as they were back in 1980, median income in the average state would be nearly 11 percent higher and child poverty would be about 25 percent lower.
