单选题
This fall the Pew Research Center, in association with TIME, conducted a nationwide poll exploring the
contours
of modern marriage and the new American family. And of all the transformations our family structures have
undergone
in the past 50 years, perhaps the most
profound
is the marriage
differential
that has opened between the rich and the poor. In 1960 the median household income of married adults was 12% higher than that of single adults, after adjusting for household size. By 2008 this gap had grown to 41%. In other words, the richer and more educated you are, the more likely you are to marry, or to be married — or, conversely, if you"re married, you"re more likely to be well off.
To begin the question of why the wealth
disparity
between the married and the unmarried has grown so much, it might be useful to take a look at the brief but
illustrative
marriage of golfer Greg Norman and tennis star Chris Evert, who married in June 2008 and divorced 15 months later. From all reports, their union had many of the classic
hallmarks
of modern partnerships. The bride and groom had roughly equal success in their careers. Being wealthy, sporty and blond, they had similar interests.
This is typical of the way many marriages start. Americans are increasingly marrying people who are on the same
socioeconomic
and educational level. Since more women than men have graduated from college for several decades, it"s more likely than it used to be that a male college graduate will meet, fall in love with, wed and share the salary of a woman with a degree. Women"s advances in education have roughly paralleled the growth of the knowledge economy, so the slice of the family bacon she brings home will be substantial.
On the face of it, this might explain why fewer people are married. They want to finish college first. In 2010 the median age of men
getting hitched
for the first time is 28.2, and for women it"s 26.1. It"s gone up about a year every decade since the "60s.
But
here"s the rub
. In the past two decades, people with only a high school education started to get married even later than college graduates. In 1990 more high-school-educated couples than college graduates had made it to the altar by age 30. By 2007 it was the other way around. What has brought about the switch? It"s not any disparity in desire. According to the Pew survey, 46% of college graduates want to get married, and 44% of the less educated do.
P
romising publicly to be someone"s partner for life used to be something people did to lay the foundation of their independent life.
It was the declaration of adulthood. Now it"s more of a finishing touch, the last brick in the
edifice
, sociologists believe. Marriage is the
capstone
for both the college-educated and the less well educated, " says Johns Hopkins" Cherlin. "The college-educated wait until they"re finished with their education and their careers are launched. The less educated wait until they feel comfortable financially. " But that comfort keeps getting more elusive. "The loss of decent-paying jobs that a high-school-educated man or woman could get makes it difficult for them to get and stay married, " says Cherlin. As the knowledge economy has overtaken the manufacturing economy, couples in which both partners" job opportunities are disappearing are doubly disadvantaged. So they wait to get married.
单选题
The marriage between Greg Norman and Chris Evert is used to illustrate ______.