Much has been written about the growing “marriage gap” in the US. Data increasingly shows that those in lower social groups are experiencing both higher levels of marital breakdown and lower rates of marriage overall. The same applies here

Meanwhile, those who have third level education have seen marriage breakdown stabilise.  

Washington Post writer Robert Samuelson notes in a recent blog that the phenomenon is partly due to an economy which offers fewer and fewer opportunities for men and more economic freedom for women:  

“Even before the Great Recession, men with a high school diploma or less faced lower wages and a harder time finding work. This made them less attractive as husbands, contributing to the growth of single-parent families.”

He notes that there has already been a dramatic rise in the number of children being raised outside marriage: “In 1980, about 18 percent of births were to unmarried women; by 2009, the proportion was 41 percent. Among whites, the increase was from 11 percent to 36 percent; among African Americans, from 56 percent to 72 percent; among Hispanics, from 37 percent (1990) to 53 percent.  

“Or look at the share of children living with two parents. Since 1970, that’s dropped from 82 percent to 63 percent. Among whites, the decline is from 87 percent to 73 percent; among African Americans, from 57 percent to 31 percent; among Hispanics, from 78 percent to 57 percent.”

Incidentally, Irish figures show a similarly dramatic change: In 1986, 12.8pc children were being raised outside marriage, while the percentage of children born outside marriage was 9.6pc. By 2011, 29.3pc of children were being raised in non-marital homes, while 33pc of all births were outside marriage.

Samuelson notes research by two economists, David Autor and Melanie Wasserman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who attribute the decline of marriage to “the eroding economic heft of men compared with women”.  

He writes: “Women are more independent economically; men are weaker. Marriage has lost much of its pecuniary pull.”

Statistics back up the thesis, he says: “From 1979 to 2010, inflation-adjusted hourly wages for men age 25 to 39 with only a high school diploma fell 20 percent, while the wages of similar women rose 1 percent.  

“Among those with some college (but no bachelor’s degree), women’s wages were up 8 percent; men’s were down 8 percent. As important, fewer men and more women proportionally have jobs.  

“From 1979 to 2007 — prior to the recession — the share of male high school graduates with jobs fell 9 percentage points; job-holding by similar women rose 9 percentage points. For those with some college, men were down 6 percentage points, women up by 12 percentage points.”

Partly, this is because the economy is now more oriented towards the services industry and the rapid decline, in Western society of male-oriented factory and manufacturing work.

Samuelson says: “Autor and Wasserman fear these changes are now feeding on themselves. On average, children in single-parent homes do worse — have lower grades, do more drugs, have higher arrest rates — than similar children raised by two parents, who can devote more money and time to their offspring.

“Boys seem especially at risk because they often lack “a positive or stable same-sex role model,” say Autor and Wasserman. So boys will do less well in school and less well (later) in the labor market. They will then be less appealing as husbands.”