Marriage matters for one simple reason. The psychology behind the act of marriage encourages greater commitment and stability among couples. This buffers couples and their children against the risk of poverty and other negative outcomes. Marriage is therefore especially important for the lowest income families.
What has been almost completely overlooked and ignored in discussion of the trend away from marriage – a 78% drop among men and 73% drop among women in marriage rates since 1972 – is the presence of a marriage gap between rich and poor. Quite simply, marriage is still the norm among the richest families but is increasingly the exception among the poorest families.
In 2015, we documented the marriage gap for the first time, identifying that among parents with children under five, 87% of those in the highest income quintile were married compared to 24% of those in the lowest income quintile.
This briefing note updates how the proportion of births to married parents has changed across the socio-economic spectrum from 1988 to 2022, using data from Office for National Statistics.
Among newborns in 2022, 71% of parents in high earning families were married compared to 35% in low earning families, leaving a marriage gap of 36%. Among parents ‘not classified’, marriage rates were just 20%, widening the marriage gap with the very poorest to 51%.
Since marriage provides such a strong buffer against poverty, politicians who embrace marriage in private should be enthusiastic promoters of marriage in public. Yet we cannot identify even one speech about marriage from any major politician in any party for more than a decade.
Much worse, the ‘couple penalty’ in the welfare system remains the biggest barrier to marriage among the poorest, a social justice problem whose existence is barely acknowledged by politicians. It could be addressed by refocusing the existing marriage allowance on low-income married mothers with children under three. We urge the Chancellor to rectify this urgently.