I can't add or detract to the main thrust of this piece. I certainly agree that Trump received a mandate to solve a vague, existential threat to middle-class security that he is no way qualified to solve but was merely speaking to in a way no one has before. But one of the arguments presented by the author is about the tight relationship between decreasing economic security and the decrease in marriages/kids being born to married families. This is an almost common sense proposition--the less secure you are financially, the less likely you are to get married because you're a worthless sot and married w/ children with you is a bad idea. Therefore, if we can all just have high-paying jobs, things would return to normal. And a look at America's golden age confirms the co-incidence of a multitude of high-paying middle class jobs and a prevalence of marriage/single digit percentage of children-born-out-wedlock. But I just learned of some interesting work that suggests we've passed the simpler times where economic security equates the namesake "America" of Trump's MAGA chant, i.e. if we get all these high paying jobs back, people will go back to marrying and having kids the right way. A pair of researchers looked into the fracking boom and its income-generating effect, and therefore a possible marital-childbearing effect, on communities. The communities that experienced a fracking boom are more or less randomly located. Yet, persistently, the high-paying jobs that came to these areas did not seem to cause a return to marriage and typical martial-childbearing family structure typical of the 50s and 60s. As I understand it, once the researchers came to this point, they basically said, "welp, we have no idea what changed but culture is different" and they're not wrong. But I bring this up because latently racist upper-middle-class Trumpers who want a return to Leave it to Beaver will never get it, even if Trump brings back the coal jobs. I'm not saying we shouldn't have high-paying jobs. But everyone has to accept the different face of contemporary culture, whatever the hell that is.
That's not how I read it - a fracking job, for example, will not make you an "elite" unless you already have the schooling and experience to go to management. It will provide you with a better income than you had before but notably, it isn't a stable income; the fracking fields of North Dakota are boom/bust dependent on where oil and natural gas prices are within the option cycle: Similarly, fishing jobs up and down the coasts are lucrative but a long way from stable. I knew that community better than I know the frackers and it was a long damn way from family-friendly. In a way, the whole gig economy goes a long way towards demonstrating the erosion of stability in employment because once upon a time, if you were union and there was a slowdown, there were mechanisms in place to keep you from failing out of life. I mean, the authors of your paper go as far as calling it the fracking "boom" and then comparing it to the Appalachian coal boom of the '70s, which was a lot less cyclical: There's a lot more capital investment in getting coal out of the ground than there is in fracking (or there was, until mountaintop removal). You can almost watch them getting more efficient: Nonetheless, there was a steady ten-year bankability there that simply doesn't exist with fracking. I don't know that the culture has changed. I do know that expecting your job to be there ten years from now is a very different feeling than wondering if you're going to be invited back next season. Been there, done that, got vested. They don't want a return to Leave it to Beaver. They want a return to Amos and Andy.As I understand it, once the researchers came to this point, they basically said, "welp, we have no idea what changed but culture is different" and they're not wrong.
But I bring this up because latently racist upper-middle-class Trumpers who want a return to Leave it to Beaver will never get it, even if Trump brings back the coal jobs.
Anecdote is not the singular of data, but I have a hypothesis. I have a circle of friends that involve people making six figures. They will NEVER get married. One guy will not even let women in his condo. Having watched a few people we know get divorce raped, and dealing with three of them sucking on a firearm in the aftermath, I'm wondering how many men my age and younger are looking at the risks of marriage and saying "No Fucking Way." Prenups in the USA are worthless and not worth the legal fees of setting them up and family courts hate fathers. Nobody gets married thinking that they are getting divorced, and not all marriages fail etc but that fear is there. I'd be curious to see if anyone has done any studies on the impact of the courts and divorce law on marriage rates.As I understand it, once the researchers came to this point, they basically said, "welp, we have no idea what changed but culture is different" and they're not wrong.
I will 100% assert that there's a bright dividing line at "college grad" on that one, too. The divorces I've watched among couples where both have been to college have been largely no-fault, no-contest, civil affairs. The divorces I've watched among couples where even one member has not finished a college diploma are trench warfare. I will even assert that as the assets go up amongst the uncolleged, the combat ratchets up. The college-educated side generally lawyers up more successfully but the lawyers on both sides get rich.
College degrees, even with all the art students are starbucks, still offer lots of open doors for jobs. People without degrees are being left behind. When the option is fight like a cornered animal or starve, the human survival animal kicks in. If you are like me, those couples got married later in life, say mid 20's. About the mid 20's is when the emotional cortex starts to take a second place to the thinking brain. The most horrible marriage I know of is a couple that got married at 16 and the whole relationship was based on the emotional lashing out of two people that never got the chance to develop the logic components of dealing with emotions. The couple is on the far outskirts of the friend group and every story I hear about them points to a home life of pure emotional torture and hell.The divorces I've watched among couples where both have been to college have been largely no-fault, no-contest, civil affairs.