Buy the cow?

June 26, 2002

Here’s a great example of a “study” based mostly on political agenda and just a teesny-tiny bit of research. Covered in USA Today: Why men drag their feet down the aisle.

David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers suggest in their new study that men don’t want to commit to marriage because they are already living together with their girlfriends and have many of the benefits of wedlock without the responsibilities of wedlock. In other words, why would they buy the cow if they get the milk for free?

This kind of surprises me, actually, since I’m a man living with his girlfriend and we’re neck-deep in planning a wedding. And a lot of my friends have also lived together before committing to marriage. But I and my friends are hardly a statistical sample, right? Surely “State of Our Unions” does a better job?

Perhaps not. The “State of Our Unions: 2002″ study draws its conclusions on a “focus group” of sixty men, aged 25-33, from New Jersey, Chicago, Washington DC, and Houston.

Furthermore, the “State of the Union: 2002″ is based not on a survey but “discussions,” which, I assume, would be very open to interpretation on the parts of the academics running the study.

The USA Today article cited above mentions the tiny and mostly urban sample, but says Popenoe thinks the study “gives a sense of what is happening around the country.” Really? What makes him think his statistics and his “top ten reasons men won’t commit” are relevant and apply to the population at large? Is it the depth of the study? With only sixty people, probably not. Was it the variety of backgrounds in the study? With everyone from an urban environment, probably not. Was it the detailed questions in the survey? Ooops. There wasn’t a survey. It was a discussion. He must be “trusting his gut.” Yes, I’m sure that’s it.

Speaking from my own gut and unscientific sample, what I have learned is that there are picky women and picky men, and not-so-picky women and not-so-picky men. Sometimes the woman wants to commit early, sometimes the man does. The reasons for getting married, moving in together, and the order those events occur have a lot to do with family, culture, economic decisions, and religious beliefs. Faced with that, extrapolating “what men think” from discussions with sixty guys from metropolitan areas is sure to give you distorted results — most likely a reflection of whatever it was you had hoped to find in the first place.

Unfortunately, stuff like this — which is close enough to fiction as makes no difference — guides our public policy. It’s what Bush uses when he talks about how important it is to get unwed welfare mothers a man, for example. And it drives me nuts.

/* It’s interesting to note, by the way, that because Sarah and I have lived together prior to the wedding, I’m more likely to hit her, sexually abuse my children, and/or divorce her. Also, we’re not as happy as we would be if we were married. So the National Marriage Project says in Should We Live Together. I wonder what the sample size of THAT research was. */

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