Is marriage becoming the preserve of the affluent?

[ChocolateWombat]

Having been a parent at a state school in a socially mixed area, and also a parent at an affluent independent school, I have noticed a real difference in whether parents are married or not.

In the independent school of almost 600 pupils, almost all of the parents are or seem to be/have been married - on the parents list, almost every mother is Mrs...
However, at the socially mixed school, probably 2/3 of the parents were unmarried. Those who were seemed to be the more middle class ones. It just got me thinking.

Now before this turns into a state school/independent school issue, I really don't want it to. My interest is in the role affluence plays in whether people marry or not - I can totally see that in state schools in affluent areas, similar numbers of parents are likely to be married.

Is marriage becoming the preserve of the affluent and something out of the ordinary for the less affluent? Is this the case and if so, why?

What about you are more likely to be able to afford private education if you are a couple than if you are not? rather than inherent affluence.

I have read that the trend in the marriage stats bear this out.

It does seem to be true that marriage is more prevalent amongst couples with higher incomes. Lots of research on this e.g. this it is long but look at the 'executive summary' on characteristics of those who marry or cohabit

I think the importance of marriage is quite a middle class value.

I was certainly taught by my parents to value myself highly enough not to settle for anything less than marriage before living together/having children.

It is quite a deep-rooted thing tbh, I'm heavily pg and feel really self conscious if I go out having forgotten to put my wedding ring on.

Yep it's correlation causation confusion!
Private school parents also tend to be older. It's more that people who spend their 20s working, then get married, then have children are more likely to have enough money to privately educate their children.

What I see on a day to day basis would seem to support this.

And people who have come from families where marriage is the norm are probably more likely to have the same values. Certainly true within my own family and friends.

Thanks for the link above to the IFS study.
It does seem to suggest that people who choose to marry are those who are more affluent.
If we went back 40 or 50 years, I suspect similar numbers in all classes married (or at least much closer numbers) so I wonder why there has been a decline in marriage amongst the less affluent. I guess there has been a decline amongst all groups, but moreso amongst the less affluent. Why is this?

In my highly-educated, left-wing, vaguely artistic group of friends, a lot of couples aren't married, or get married in their forties or fifties after long and stable relationships, and it's hard to tell who is married because they are mostly called Ms/Dr Maidenname regardless of marital status.

What about women who don't change their name on marriage?

I live in a very middle class/affluent area. My DC go to a private school. There are two divorced parents out of 240 children.
Both the mums are still single.

I don't think it's just affluence but also education. I can't recall the study but I seem to remember the higher the education of the wife the less likely the couple were to divorce. Affluent couples tend to wait until later in life to marry and perhaps know themselves better. Building a good solid marriage isn't easy. I imagine the more educated you are the more prepared you are to build a solid relationship.

I also agree education is a factor; the more educated you are, the more likely you are to have realised how much better the outcomes for DCs are with married parents.

...also to have realised how vulnerable is the partner who gives up their career to raise the DCs (which is usually the woman) without the protection of marriage.

Most of my friends are not married but have been with the same partner fir around 20 years. We all have children.

None of us are from very affluent backgrounds and all the money we have gas gone on a house, a car and holiday/travels/student loans. We are all graduates.

I've noticed younger people in their 20s/30s seem to be more inclined to have a big white wedding - my younger sisters friends are all having huge weddings - but they are also working class, did not go to university and work hard to earn a decent living in trade/service sector in London.

I'm hoping we manage a small wedding in the next few years because with three kids and middle age fast approaching we want security.

I'm from a working class background. My parents were married before they had children. I'm not married and have never felt the need to be married. Have never felt any stigma with regard to wedding rings etc. I have one dd who is about to go to grammar school after passing the super selective entrance exams.

When I was a little girl I dreamt of being a Dr. Hopefully that dream will become a reality soon as I start my MA next year

I live in an affluent area where the parents are quite young and about half are married. In my previous area (also affluent) further north the majority of parents were married but in their 40s.

No, but divorce certainly is - it costs a fortune.

I think MC people care more about what other people think. So they get married to keep up appearances,

My friend reports that her private school call and list all the female parents Mrs and by the child's surname even if they're not married!

how do you know? I'm married but I'm not a Mrs.

I would say it's more representative of how right-wing/conservative the sample is rather than how affluent.

Jasper has a good point...and I think the decline in marriage stats is more down to the rise of feminism & liberalism rather than a sudden decline in affluence/education. I worked for a left-wing organisation for several years, and plenty of the affluent, middle-middle class double-parent families who were our clients were either not married or didn't change their names upon marriage.

My Facebook news feed of a smaller but more socially representative sample backs this up my working-class, Northern friends vary wildly in their marital status, just as my middle-class, London friends do. It's the more conservative among both groups that are married by their 30s. A substantial number out of both (me likely included) will either not get married or not make a big deal out of it (no name changing etc., and will probably just do it for the tax break/party/in-laws).

How do you know they are married from the roll-call of parents names? I have a completely different name than my husband and I also don't go by the title Mrs (but am married).

The parents had to give their titles, but I just assumed that anyone still using 'Miss' wasn't married. I thought they'd use 'Ms' if they were married but didn't want to be 'Mrs'.

Perhaps I'm about to be inundated by posters insisting that 'Miss' is very common among married women though

I've noticed this.

Almost everyone I know who went to private school themselves got married at 30 before having DCs 2, 2 years apart .

With everyone else it does still often run along class lines. I notice it amongst my peers and at the different schools my DCs have been to.

The monetary reasons are pretty obvious.

1. traditional weddings are very expensive
2. inheritance tax
3. personal pensions
4. sahm right to live in a big house a high salary man pays for

Marriage doesn't have much to offer NINAs (no income, no assets)

Educated, affluent people don't give a toss what anyone thinks, why would they? They have nothing to prove. But I do think they value a stable environment to bring up children in which may have something to do with it. Obviously that's not a given but if you've waited until your 30s to get married and have DC then you're probably upping the likelihood of it working out.

Having said that, I must say I'm surprised at how many people I know who did things the traditional way, ie marriage then kids. We're both educated and MC though not affluent and we had DD first then got married. But then I had one failed marriage behind me and DHs parents went through a miserable divorce when he was in his Kate 29s which now doubt had an impact.