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Isabel V. Sawhill

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Generation Unbound: Drifting into Sex and Parenthood without Marriage Hardcover – September 25, 2014

by Isabel V. Sawhill (Author)

4.2 46 ratings

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"

Over half of all births to young adults in the United States now occur outside of marriage, and many are unplanned. The result is increased poverty and inequality for children. The left argues for more social support for unmarried parents; the right argues for a return to traditional marriage.

In Generation Unbound, Isabel V. Sawhill offers a third approach: change ""drifters"" into ""planners."" In a well-written and accessible survey of the impact of family structure on child well-being, Sawhill contrasts ""planners,"" who are delaying parenthood until after they marry, with ""drifters,"" who are having unplanned children early and outside of marriage. These two distinct patterns are contributing to an emerging class divide and threatening social mobility in the United States.

Sawhill draws on insights from the new field of behavioral economics, showing that it is possible, by changing the default, to move from a culture that accepts a high number of unplanned pregnancies to a culture in which adults only have children when they are ready to be a parent.

"

Print length

212 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Brookings Institution Press
Publication date

September 25, 2014
Dimensions

6.25 x 0.75 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

0815725582
ISBN-13

978-0815725589
See all details

Editorial Reviews

Review

This superbly written book, drawing on insights from behavioral economics, provides clearheaded, actionable recommendations on how we can change course and ensure that every young person can achieve their full potential.―Mark Edwards, Executive Director, Opportunity Nation

No one is better qualified than Isabel Sawhill to tackle two of the most important questions facing America today. At a time of rapidly changing family structure, who is best able to raise children? And how can we do a better job of making sure the children who are born are welcomed by parents who are prepared to give them the love and sustained attention they deserve? Full of new research and analysis, this book will make you re-think what you know about both.―Judy Woodruff, PBS Newshour

Dr. Sawhill makes a thoughtful, fresh, rigorously documented case for reducing unplanned pregnancies. She pushes against a strong headwind to argue for two-parent families as often as possible. If she is right about the economic and cultural implications of our changing procreation behavior, we have a lot of work to do.―Donna Shalala, former Secretary of Health and Human Services

Forty years ago, Isabel Sawhill inspired a generation of scholars, including myself, with her landmark research on divorce. Now she does it again, turning her sharp eye on nonmarital childbearing with equal success. Free of ideology and comprehensive in scope, her story highlights how the decline in marriage is affecting children’s life chances and what might be done to reverse the trend.―Sara S. McLanahan, William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University

From the Inside Flap

Over half of all births to young adults in the United States today occur outside of marriage, and most are unplanned. This trend is driving a growing class divide. At the top are planners, who are marrying and having children only after establishing a career. At the bottom and increasingly in the middle are drifters, who are having unplanned children early, outside of marriage, and without the stable support of a second parent. This divide is contributing to rising inequality and decreased social mobility for both young parents andtheir children.

The political right calls for a return to traditional marriage; the left proposes more social programs to help less advantaged families. InGeneration Unbound, Isabel V. Sawhill offers a provocative third approach: turning drifters into planners and thereby ensuring that morechildren are born into families with the means and motivation to care for them and saving billions of dollars in social costs.

How do we make this shift? Drawing on behavioral economics, Sawhill offers recommendations for preventing unplanned pregnancy among young adults for example, by offering greater access to long-acting reversible contraception (such as IUDs) to helpstem the tide of children born to parents who are unprepared for the financial and social responsibilities of raising a child.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Brookings Institution Press (September 25, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 212 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0815725582
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0815725589
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 0.75 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,009,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #778 in Abortion & Birth Control
- #2,822 in Government Social Policy
- #3,485 in Sociology of Class

Customer Reviews:
4.2 46 ratings

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Isabel V. Sawhill

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Isabel V. Sawhill is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution. She serves as co-director of the Budgeting for National Priorities project and co-director of the Center on Children and Families. She holds the Cabot Family Chair. In 2009, she began the Social Genome Project, an initiative by the Center on Children and Families that seeks to determine how to increase economic opportunity for disadvantaged children. She served as vice president and director of the Economic Studies program from 2003 to 2006. Prior to joining Brookings, Dr. Sawhill was a senior fellow at The Urban Institute. She also served as an associate director at the Office of Management and Budget from 1993 to 1995, where her responsibilities included all of the human resource programs of the federal government, accounting for one third of the federal budget.

Her research has spanned a wide array of economic and social issues, including fiscal policy, economic growth, poverty and inequality, welfare reform, the well-being of children, and changes in the family. In addition, she has authored or edited numerous books and articles including Creating an Opportunity Society with Ron Haskins; Restoring Fiscal Sanity 2005: Meeting the Long-Run Challenge and Restoring Fiscal Sanity: How to Balance the Budget, both with Alice Rivlin; One Percent for the Kids: New Policies, Brighter Futures for America’s Children; Welfare Reform and Beyond: The Future of the Safety Net; Updating America’s Social Contract: Economic Growth and Opportunity in the New Century; Getting Ahead: Economic and Social Mobility in America; and Challenge to Leadership: Economic and Social Issues for the Next Decade.

Dr. Sawhill helped to found The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and now serves as the President of its board. She has been a Visiting Professor at Georgetown Law School, Director of the National Commission for Employment Policy, and President of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. She also serves on a number of boards. She attended Wellesley College and received her Ph.D. from New York University in 1968.

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4.2 out of 5

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Lord Gord

Sawhill tells the politically incorrect truth about the adverse consequences of the rise of illegitimacy in American life.

Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2017

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This book cements what I have believed for a long time; illegitimate births are closely linked with delinquency, crime, and poor school performance. This a book that policy makers, educators, and young people need to make ethical decisions. The number one cause of income inequality in the 21st century, according to the facts detailed in this book, is marriage. While the college educated and the rich are marrying, others aren't. Their decisions are costing us money and are creating dysfunction in our society. An essential read. Reckon its arguments and share them.

3 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

This seems like a very good way of helping children be wanted ...

Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2015

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American family life has changed remarkably in my lifetime. I wonder what the changes mean for our future. This is a complex book because it covers so much ground: adult-adult relationships; adult-child relationships; contraception and abortion; related family law; economic and workplace changes; and public policy. The subject matter is changing almost daily, but it involves lifelong commitments, especially to children. A Washington Post review got me interested in the book.

Dr. Sawhill shows the convention of marriage, arising over thousands of years, unraveling in the past fifty. She supplies plenty of data, especially regarding adverse effects on low income, single-parent children. Two results seem clear. First, low-income children face new challenges in preparing for and succeeding in adulthood. Second, the man-woman, “till-death-do-us-part” marriage no longer reflects living arrangements for most Americans—especially those with assets below the top 25 percent. I found the adverse impacts on children surprising. Low income children in single parent families probably have a high likelihood of repeating the same economic struggles as their parents. Their plight affects all Americans.

Dr. Sawhill seeks public policies that change the game. She hopes that parents will plan for children and welcome them into nurturing homes. She supports existing education, health, and income supplements but notes these are not enough. Her key finding is that a high proportion of parents drift into unplanned and sometimes unwanted children. Existing contraception policies are not working. She calls for a shift to long acting reversible contraception (LARC), probably offered under the Affordable Care Act. She asserts that LARCs are safe and cost-effective and that Americans have been very slow in making the shift. This seems like a very good way of helping children be wanted and planned and relieving adults of premature childcare burdens they are not prepared to accept.

In analyzing family change, I think Dr. Sawhill overstates new freedoms for women and understates broader economic shifts. I think she embraces a kind of stereotypical male view that unduly blames men for family change and the collapse of marriage. I think employment prospects for men and women will eventually resolve, but I’m afraid the present trajectory will not help middle or poor Americans. The challenge is creating sustainable employment with livable wages and finding people who can fill the need.

I recommend reading this book for an update on American families. I found it hard reading but managed to finish and think it was worth the effort. I frequently found myself thinking about the observations and findings and agree with most.

13 people found this helpful

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Conniemark2

Makes me very glad that I was born to two married people that ...

Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2016

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Surprisingly captivating book on a subject that I wasn't aware of. Makes me very glad that I was born to two married people that didn't divorce. I lived in a stable home and came away comfortable with myself largely as a result of that. A darn shame that that is not the norm anymore.

One person found this helpful

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MrBethesda

Extreme; y interesting book---and in some ways depressing because ...

Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2016

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Extreme;y interesting book---and in some ways depressing because of the facts: More than half the children born to women under 30 are from unplanned pregnancies. Is that any way to bring a child into the world?

3 people found this helpful

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M.S. ABEL

... very relevant for policy makers and those who would like to assist

Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2014

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Interesting discussion and very relevant for policy makers and those who would like to assist.

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Tammi Fleming-white

Why and how to interrupt early and unintended pregnancies

Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2017

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I loved that arguments were made for and against conventional wisdom. The facts are the facts and reading this book will make you better informed of both sides of the equation.

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Mmmmkay

Everyone (liberals and conservatives) should read this book.

Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2015

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Excellent book. Sawhill goes into great detail about the breakdown of the American family and its impact not just on the family, but on American society on the national level. This book is eye opening.

2 people found this helpful

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peejay

I think it would be great, as the author suggests

Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2015

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I work with first-time pregnant women in my job, so this book was of particular interest to me. I think it is astonishing that greater than 50% of all births in the U.S. are "accidental." We are supposedly a developed country, but I do not see that so much in my work. Absolutely anyone, it seems, can have sex and conceive a baby they are not ready for (except, of course, those who are struggling to get pregnant and spending thousands of dollars to do so). I think it would be great, as the author suggests, to become a society in which the default is sex without pregnancy, but I do not see how that can happen given the lack of sex education, and the lack of ACCURATE sex education, available in most states (I live in Texas and am from Missouri, BTW). We can't even get money for basic prenatal care in many states--how are they going to be amenable to coughing up cash for birth control???

I also have issues with the author's statements about how unwanted pregnancies are going to break the bank, bla, bla . . . We seem to be able to cough up billions of dollars to save the ass*s of superrich bankers at any time, but somehow single moms are leading the country to bankruptcy . . . whatever . . . The author has a right-wing perspective without a doubt, which I am NOT sympathetic to.

On the other hand, like I said, I work with first-time pregnant moms, and I find it incredibly difficult to look objectively at a pregnancy which is unplanned in a woman who really is not emotionally and financially prepared for motherhood. My husband and I are older adoptive parents, and while I would not say that we have a perfect marriage, I cannot imagine a) raising our son without his father; and b) deciding that I could just do it on my own, willy-nilly. I consider myself a feminist, and I do not think that the American workforce is very supportive (well, basically, not at all) of working mothers, but I find the ease with which men decide not to care for their biological offspring and the certainty with which unattached women decide to raise their children on their very own very unsettling.

Making career choices and living choices are fundamentally important (and all of us make mistakes), but the most important and fundamental choice that anyone will ever make is to bring another life into this world. Unfortunately, I do not see people treating this responsibility with the thoughtfulness that is necessary. But I do not think the author offers much in the way of solutions, given how divided our society is about women's sexuality and the role that men play in children's lives.

10 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Gracia

Outlines the problems with people "drifting into sex and parenthood ...

Reviewed in Canada on May 18, 2015

Verified Purchase

Outlines the problems with people "drifting into sex and parenthood without marriage" (increased poverty and inequality for children) and a solution (which essentially boils down to long-acting reversible contraceptives being more widely promoted to adolescent and young adult women). This book provides well-written research results that can provide a basis on which to have a discussion - it defines the problem quite clearly and provides a solution. This thus allows the rest of us to discuss the problem and generate other solutions as well. Well worth the read if you are interested in reducing poverty and inequality for children!

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