Inductivist

The General Social Survey (GSS) asked American adults if they agreed with the following: "Having children increases people's social standing in society." Answers ranged from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree." The answers looked like this (sample size = 1,248):

Percent distribution

Strongly Agree  3.7
Agree  29.4
Neither  30.5
Disagree  31.3
Strongly Disagree  5.0

Answers are pretty normally distributed. People simply disagree on this issue.

I looked at a list of variables to see what predicted agreement--age, sex, race, city size, South v. North, income, education, IQ, church attendance, and political orientation.

The only three variables that matter are sex, income, and education: 39.6% of men agree or strongly agree that children increase one's social standing compared to only 27.7% of women. Perhaps women are more likely to see kids as obstacles to status since conventional status comes from education and work; activities that, for women anyway, conflict with raising children.

43.2% of people who dropped out of school agree or strongly agree that children give status, while only 31.8% of people with advanced educations feel the same.

Income is similar: 34.7% of low-income but only 25.2% of high-income people agree or strongly agree with the statement.

Since there is some tension between energy devoted to kids versus education and work, it looks like people who have earned lots of education and income status tend to devalue children, while the opposite is true for people with little conventional status.

I once discussed this issue with my physician brother-in-law. I told him that the most accomplished people are having the fewest children and that he and I were exceptions with our large families. I added that in an evolutionary sense, all these successful people were losers but didn't realize they were losers. My brother-in-law then responded, "That's right. We've got them right where we want them."

Having children has made me more concerned about issues of safety, and protection from criminals is part of that.

The GSS (2008) asked respondents if the courts are too easy on criminals. 62.1% of non-parents think so; 71.4% of parents do (sample size = 1452, whites only). The difference is statistically significant.   

I suspected that having a daughter might have an additional effect, but I didn't find a difference.

Kids and happiness II: Once again, Jason Malloy has brought an interesting article to our attention which challenges the traditional idea that having kids will make you happy. I had read research before suggesting that marital satisfaction drops a bit during the years you are raising children, especially when they are very small or very big, but I hadn't run across studies indicating that people are less happy in the moments they are caring for kids. I wouldn't be shocked if this were true because I have children and know how difficult it is to be a parent.

While the General Social Survey does not have anything like daily data, it can address the question about the relationship between happiness and having kids of certain ages. Following the same scoring method I used the last post, here are the means:


Mean happiness score by number of children of certain age ranges

Number of kids under 6

Women
0 1.20
1 1.19
2 1.21
3 1.13
4 1.12

Men
0 1.19
1 1.21
2 1.24
3 1.21
4 1.13


Number of kids ages 6 to 12

Women
0 1.21
1 1.17
2 1.22
3 1.16
4 1.17
5 0.91

Men
0 1.19
1 1.21
2 1.24
3 1.26
4 1.24
5 1.44


Number of kids ages 13 to 17

Women
0 1.21
1 1.17
2 1.16
3 1.12
4 1.22

Men
0 1.19
1 1.20
2 1.21
3 1.24
4 1.04


Regardless of the age of the children, their number, or whether we're talking about mothers or fathers here, children just don't seem to predict anything one way or the other--at least according to the GSS.

Kids and happiness: Jason Malloy in the last post raises an interesting issue about the connection between having children and happiness. The traditional viewpoint claims that kids are essential to being happy, but he links to evidence and arguments for the alternative view that children work against happiness.

First, my opinion on the subjects treads the middle ground that it's basically a wash, and that common sense dictates that people are happy when they are doing what they want to do ( in fact the statement is almost tautolgoical). In my view, what people want to do is influenced by what their culture tells them is worthy of pursuit, and unfortunately American society is telling women of all types that stay-at-home mothers are brood mares, while Hillary Clinton is what it's all about.

So, in the last analysis, my approach is to... umm... analyze. Data, that is. So, let's see what the crystal ball called the General Social Survey has to say.

I looked at more than 2,200 people ages 40-60 (presumably they're reached the point where the parent/non-parent choice has become final) for the survey years 2000-2006 in order to get the most current pattern. On happiness, people were given a 1 for "very happy", 2 for "pretty happy", and 3 for "not too happy." I calculated the means and subtract them from three so that high scores indicate greatest happinness:


Mean happiness score by number of children

Women
0 1.19
1 1.16
2 1.21
3 1.12
4 1.07
5 1.15
6 1.18
7 1.42
8 1.38


Men
0 1.08
1 1.10
2 1.24
3 1.30
4 1.18
5 1.10
6 1.24
7 1.30


There is no evidence here that happiness is undermined by having children, but neither does it help much either. There is basically no difference between a childless woman and one with two kids, and a father of two is only a quarter of a standard deviation above the childless man.

From studies I've read and some data analysis I've conducted as well, relationship and work satisfaction are the most powerful predictors of being happy: there is no obvious pattern with respect to kids, at least in contemporary American society. In a culture where women are given high status for raising a large family, the results might be different.

Gay men are having significantly fewer children: A reader named Old Pete suggested in the previous post that greater homophobia could pressure gay men into getting married and having children predisposed to homosexuality, thus increasing their numbers. (This reminds me of the argument that anti-Semitism keeps the Jewish community from intermarrying and disappearing). I wondered if the opposite is happening now. Looking at the General Social Survey, I calculated the mean number of children for men 40 and over by sexual orientation and decade:


Mean number of children

1980s
Gay men 1.90
Straight men 2.65

1990s
Gay men .96
Straight men 2.38

2000s
Gay men .93
Straight men 2.17

The average number of kids has come down for both groups, but from the 80s to the 90s, it dropped dramatically for gay men. Things have levelled off in this decade, suggesting that for now gay men will average a little less than half the kids that straight men have.