The marriage factor: reducing crime and poverty one family at a time

Caryn Lipson

November 18, 2024

More marriage less poverty

‍Research psychologist and senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, Nicholas Zill, recently demonstrated that communities with a higher percentage of children growing up in two-parent families experience less poverty and crime than those where fewer mothers are married.

Zill surveyed crime rates and the percentages of intact families—where mothers were married and living with their husbands and children—in several Ohio cities during the five-year period from 2018 to 2022. These are the statistics he cited for the rate of mothers married and living with their husbands and children:

Springfield: 44%
Cleveland: 33%.
Youngstown: 32%
Cincinnati: 46%
Cleveland Heights: 63%
New Albany: 91%

Across Ohio, the rate of mothers married and living with their husbands and children was 68%.

He correlates absent fathers with child poverty, stating,

For each 10-point decline in the percentage of married mothers, there is a 7.5-point increase in the percentage of children in poverty in the city.

His graph below shows the effect of single parenthood on poverty:

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Factors affecting crime rates in single-parent homes

Zill attributes the correlation between crime rates and single-parent homes to several factors:

Frequent residential moves, often to unsafe neighborhoods, increase the likelihood of becoming victims of property and violent crime.
Single parents who date often leave children alone at night or with poor supervision, “exposing children to strange (and sometimes dangerous) men.”
Adolescents in low socioeconomic neighborhoods are more likely to befriend troubled peers and wind up in problematic situations.
Children in single-parent families are more likely than those in two-parent families to have a father or sibling with a criminal record.

These are the statistics he presented for violent crime statistics (crimes reported to police per 100,000 residents in 2023). Note that the cities listed above with fewer married mothers are the same cities with the most crime.

Springfield: 1,298 incidents
Cleveland: 1,895 incidents
Cincinnati: 800 incidents
Youngstown: 699 incidents
Cleveland Heights: 267 incidents
New Albany: 99 incidents

The statewide violent crime rate in Ohio was 294 incidents in 2022. Below is his chart showing crime rate vs. married mothers for the period from 2018 to 2022:

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Ziull notes that many single mothers do their utmost to ensure that their children do not become victims of or commit violent crimes. Although many succeed, data show the best way of ensuring your children are safe and out of trouble is by maintaining a stable marriage in a traditional two-parent family with a father at home.

Public policy changes needed

Zill believes that public assistance for single-parent families can be counterproductive. He warns that financial assistance intended to reduce childhood poverty may inadvertently discourage responsible parenting:

‍Most of these [policy] prescriptions [for aiding families with children and reducing child poverty] involve giving money to new parents or even all parents of young children, without regard to whether the parents are married, have completed high school, or have a history of substance abuse, child abuse or neglect, mental illness or criminal behavior. While the intention is to reduce child poverty, the unintended consequence could be to reduce motivation for careful, responsible parenthood.

Instead, he advocates for public schools to encourage marriage before childbearing as a means of promoting successful parental relationships and the well-being of future children.

Two-parent households on the rise

The good news is that the percentage of intact two-parent families has been increasing. Zill highlighted this trend in his post "The Resurgence of the Two-Parent Family" and shared supporting statistics in the graph below.

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