By focusing on education and professional development in their twenties and delaying marriage and children until around age 30, blue states are often thought to provide children with more stable families and economic prospects than red states. But do red states deserve their bad reputation?
According to a new report by AEI’s W. Bradford Wilcox and Nicolas Zill, the states that vote consistently Republican and the states that vote consistently Democratic are both more likely to raise their children in stable, married homes–but for different reasons. Wilcox and Zill note:
Education and political ideology help to explain the links between geographic location and family stability. …Strongly blue regions like New England have high levels of teens growing up with married parents in large part because their populations are highly educated (but also because they have fewer minority residents). The blue state model works fairly well in Northeastern and Midwestern states like Massachusetts and Minnesota.
Strongly red states like Utah and Nebraska also have high levels of teens growing up with married parents, even though their education levels are not as high as in strongly blue states. But their residents are more likely to have deep normative and religious commitments to marriage and to raising children within marriage. And these strongly red states also have relatively low proportions of minorities. The red state model works fairly well in the West and the Midwest.
To read the full report, click here.
To arrange an interview with W. Bradford Wilcox, please contact AEI media services at mediaservices@aei.org or 202.862.5829.
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