If political affairs have begun to revolve around the working class and the family unit, it’s worth seeing where the two converge. As it happens, some blue-collar jobs are more conducive to this integration than others, and in ways beyond the reach of policy guidelines.
The Institute for Family Studies, a family policy think tank, has published a recent report on the link between men’s jobs and their family status. Its findings suggest that, of the industries that working-class men populate, qualities related to stability and salary seem to predict higher rates of marriage and family life. In effect, these qualities in blue-collar jobs mimic white-collar standards, and so bring those men closer to the marriage levels found in upper classes. The research produces a list: High rates of married family formation are topped by the armed forces, public safety, and trucking.
That is a good upshot, and it plays to the idea that the marriage decline has a lot to do with a shortage of willing or employed men. But as much as job quality speaks to family needs, it is not the sole determinant — if it were, the country might be rather successful in its current crisis areas of marriage and birth rates.
Community and overall culture answer for much of the rest. The report goes on to speculate, based on interviews with working men, whether existing hometown communities “where marriage is culturally prioritized” have as significant an effect on the rates the research observes. And when men from these communities marry and gain an even smaller circle, as in the home itself, the two community levels reinforce one another.
GEN Z POLITICAL GAP BODES WELL FOR MARRIAGE
I would suggest an added element — that of male-specific community. It is common for blue-collar jobs to be dominated by men, by virtue of the physical demands of the work, as well as uneven graduation rates by gender. With the exception of trucking as a much more individualistic occupation, jobs that top the report’s findings involve common, or once-common, spaces for male fellowship. At that, the armed forces and public safety are each 10 percentage points higher than trucking in married family formation rates. Construction and maintenance, Nos. 4 and 5 on the list, are each only 2 percentage points below the trucking industry.
In this regard, trucking might be a happy fluke. The job does not seem all that conducive to family time, but it does well consistently on the family front. As for the rest, the same rationale goes for all-boys schooling: It makes sense that men might benefit in productivity, steadiness, well-roundedness, and even fulfillment when their work involves guy time. We advocate as much for women, but for men, it’s a more difficult societal ask.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
