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 Sunday, February 26, 2006
Stanley Kurtz, the Netherlands, and same-sex unions / Jon Rauch
I'm trying to get my mind around Stanley Kurtz's latest. He cites a 2004 Dutch paper as confirming that same-sex unions in the Netherlands sent the out-of-wedlock childbirth rate through the ceiling. Along the way, Kurtz makes the much narrower claim that same-sex marriage has not prevented or reversed the decline of Dutch marriage, a fair point and worth discussing. But then he segues seamlessly to the much stronger claim that gay unions caused an illegitimacy spike. "Why would a country with a notably traditional attitude toward marriage and parenthood all of a sudden experience such a remarkable and long-lasting spike in its out-of-wedlock birthrate? The answer is that, once marriage stops being about binding mothers and fathers together for the sake of their children, the need to get married gradually disappears" (italics added). He thoughtfully provides a link to the paper, by Jan Latten. I can't read Dutch, but I do know how to eyeball a chart. Kurtz appears to be relying on this one:  ...which shows the percentages of first and subsequent children born out of wedlock, 1960-2003. First, what "sudden spike"? There's a mild acceleration of a strong prior trend. Hunch: I suspect a statistician would say that these are asymptotic curves, pictures of statistical continuity, not disruption. Second, that trend dates to the late 1970s. Something very big and important began happening then. But that something was not same-sex marriage, which didn't begin until 2001. Nor was it the Dutch registered-partners program, which began in 1998. Those events were still 20 years in the future! Third, the 1990s acceleration comes--just as Latten says (in a translation provided by Kurtz)--in the mid-1990s. Two or three years before registered partnerships. Nothing happens in 1998, when partnerships begin. If anything happens after gay marriage begins in 2001, it's that the illegitimacy increase slows. I think it's childish to read data as if every bobble on a chart proved or disproved some monocausal theory. But if I did read data that way, I'd have to say that this chart patently refutes the claims Kurtz is using it to make. It suggests that same-sex unions cannot be more than a small factor in a much larger mix of social forces that date back to the 1970s. And it is obviously and facially inconsistent with Kurtz's interpretation. Or am I missing something? 
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It's possible that this is all just a coincidence anyway. Not that gay marriage was the tipping point for the death of marriage, but a perfectly logical symptom of the disease.
When we point turned the corner during the 70's, gay marriage was a nightmare scenario used to frighten children who opposed "women's rights"...
You should invert your graph -- it looks just like the slippery slope they warned us about. And here is SSM, right on schedule.
(PS: Babelfish gives the graph legend as "Proportion of extramarital births to rank number, first and second child")
The implications of the following charts is discussed here in comments about a previous post on Kurtz's article.
Although nonmarital births increased steadily since 1970, it was unprecedented for the share of nonmarital births to increase above 1.5 percentage points per year; and very unusual for both first and second order births to increase above this threshold. Something boosted the increase by an annual average of 2 percentage points in the mid-1990s.
--
Graph A3
Dutch non-marital births climbed by an unusual annual average of 2% points during 1997-2003
The 1.5 point threshold was hit in 1996 and breached in 1997. It was unprecedented.
The previous seven year period from 1990 to 1996 inclusive: 1990 - 0.7, 1991 - 0.6, 1992 - 0.5, 1993 - 0.7, 1994 - 1.2, 1995 - 1.3, and 1996 - 1.5.
Annual average point change: 0.9 points.
Previously, yearly changes hovered around 1 point and barely rose above 0.5 points prior to the mid-1970s.
The rapid change of 1997-2003 was a big deal in Holland given how low the share of non-marital births had been earlier, how little it moved, and given the strength of traditional family formation even in the face of liberalized laws prior to the mid-1990s.
The resistence [in The Netherlands] to the changes experienced in other countries was attributable to the strength of societal adherence [in The Netherlands] to traditional family formation. That seems to have been undermined during the mid-1990s.
Graph A1
Dutch women (age 18-44 years) by marital status (%) and marital births by first and second child of mother (%), Netherlands, 1970-2004
In the Netherlands, the decline of marital births accelerated in mid-1990s. The decline in the number of married women was less rapid at that time.
Nonmarital births increased rapidly during the mid-1990s in the Netherlands. The share of first order and second order births increased at an unusual pace at this time.
Graph A2
Share of married and never-married Dutch women and non-marital births by first and second child of unwed mother (%), Netherlands, 1970-2004
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Kurtz has now added to the discussion yet more data regarding trends in unwed cohabitation rates of couples whose first and second children have arrived. Family dissolution in those scenarios are "informal" and do not show up in the official divorce rates.
It may not be conclusive yet, but it is compelling and should caution those who are undecided about enactmentn of SSM (as if it was marriage) in other jurisdictions.
Jon, to get a rough idea of what has been going on, draw a straight line trend based on the data of the 1970s and you would see a slow drop in the share of marital births. [Footnote]
For example, draw a straight line from the 1970s and the share of marital births of first borns would have been forcecast to drop from almost 90% then to about 85% now. Draw the line from the 1980s and the drop would have been to about 75%. The actual share has declined to 60% today. Other comparable societies declined more steadily as there was less resistence to the nonmarital birth trend.
This illustrates that there were two bumps since the emergence of the trend in the 1970s. The bump in the 1980s contributed about 10% in the decline of marital births of first borns; the bump in the 1990s contributed another 15%. That the decline accelerated is not disputable.
What caused it is in contention.
The trends in delay of marriage and delay of childbearing do not fully account for the big bump of the 1990s in nonmarital childbearing -- first borns, second borns, or combined trends.
Some point to economics but cannot account for the size of this recent spike which has not been flattened or reversed. The negative trend continues unabated.
* * *
Footnote: I reiterate, this provides a rough illustration and is not definitive. But it addresses the idea that the trends of the 1970s or the trends of the 1980s fully account for the boost in nonmarital births of the 1990s and today. The accleration needs an explanation other than the vague "it was generally trending that way, anyway". Since Holland resisted the speed of decline of marital births, prior to the 1990s, it is reasonable to look at the very prominent campaign to replace marriage with the template that is taylored to fit the one-sex relationship. That replacement, rather than this or that particular gay couple's union, is a very good candidate for explaining the acceleration.
Chairm,
This is nonsense. Even if the trend in the decline in the percent of persons married was linear, which it was not, the rate of decline has actually decreased over the last ten years, the rate of children born out of wedlock would still increase at a geometric rate due to the compounding effect.
Trying to bamboozle the 99.9% of the population who don't understand the statistical interrelatedness of these two factors is dishonest.
Bill, you have misread my comment.
But on your diversion, perhaps you can clarify the "statistical interrelatedness".
In the meantime ...
Stanley Kurtz has responded to Jon Rauch.
RAUCH ON HOLLAND
"[W]hat Rauch calls a “mild acceleration” is the fastest continuous rise in out-of-wedlock birthrates in Western Europe in the past decade. It is neither usual nor expected, and it requires explanation.
[...]
"It is very rare for any West European country’s out-of-wedlock birthrate to rise at a rate of two percentage points a year for eight consecutive years.
[...]
"The question is whether gay marriage contributes to further decline. [...] You are simply using preexisting decline to dismiss any evidence of later worsening. But again, the whole question at issue is whether gay marriage will make a bad situation worse."
Interesting - not just that Kurtz can't refute the point Jon Rauch makes - which evidently he can't: but that Chairm evidently feels that Kurtz's flat contradiction is in any way meaningful. Were Kurtz able to show that Rauch had misinterpreted the data on the graph, I assume he would have done so: but all Kurtz could do, evidently, was stick his fingers in his ears and go "No, I'm right! Rauch is wrong!"
Well, it works to persuade those who already agree with him. Hardly seems worth the effort, though.
Jesurgislac, please state in your own words your understanding of the point that Jon Rauch has made and which you imagine Stanley Kurtz has not answered.
If not to enlighten poor ole me, then, to inform the readership here.
Nuts and bolts, Jesurgislac. Go for it.
not just that Kurtz can't refute the point Jon Rauch makes - which evidently he can't:
No one can accuse you of not trying hard enough. You couldn't even finish a sentance without showing prejudice -- twice :)
but all Kurtz could do, evidently, was stick his fingers in his ears and go "No, I'm right! Rauch is wrong!"
This cartoon you paint in the world around you is sometimes entertaining to read on its own. As far as valid or pertinant commentary, it is lacking. As follows:
Chairm evidently feels that Kurtz's flat contradiction is in any way meaningful
No such flat contradiction is referenced or specified.
Were Kurtz able to show that Rauch had misinterpreted the data on the graph
Apparently they are in agreement to a degree. Rauch calls it a "mild accelloration", Kurtz feels it is more striking than that. This conflict is over commentary, not interpretation.
Well, it works to persuade those who already agree with him. Hardly seems worth the effort, though.
Seems with the blinders many use, even dead on facts as Kurtz has presented is unable to pursuade. If you are presenting your own inability to get the point as proof of Kurtz's failure, as I read your commentary as doing, then kudos you win. Your inability to accept reason and knowledge is your own undoing though, not Kurtz's.
Chairm: Jesurgislac, please state in your own words your understanding of the point that Jon Rauch has made and which you imagine Stanley Kurtz has not answered.
I "imagine" Kurtz hasn't refuted Rauch?
Rauch points out that the trend Kurtz identifies dates to the late 1970s. Something very big and important began happening then. But that something was not same-sex marriage, which didn't begin until 2001. Nor was it the Dutch registered-partners program, which began in 1998. Those events were still 20 years in the future!
Kurtz doesn't refute this point: he doesn't even address it. All he can do is claim that what Rauch (rightly) identifies as an "asymptotic curve" - a "picture of statistical continuity, not disruption" really is a "sudden spike". Yet the graph - showing a curve, not a spike - stands mutely there to show Kurtz wrong.
It is genuinely really funny: Kurtz was trying to argue that events 20 years in the future somehow "caused" a trend in the 1970s. And when called on this surely rather basic error, he can't even bring himself to acknowledge he made a mistake.
Something very big and important began happening then [in the 1970s].
And something with even greater impact on Dutch society occured in the 1990s.
Jon Rauch, do you dispute the acceleration or do you merely not recognize its extent? The graph, and the graphs I've linked to, show a boost that is unprecedented in The Netherlands. I see it clearly but perhaps you do not see it at all?
Stanley Kurtz:
"We already know that marriage has been in decline throughout the Western world since the 1960's. The question is whether gay marriage contributes to further decline. If you won’t accept a continuous eight year doubling of the rate of marital decline (a rate higher than any in Western Europe during the same period) as a significant problem, you are really saying that you are unwilling to consider anything a problem. You are simply using preexisting decline to dismiss any evidence of later worsening."
What a pathetic display ol Chairmed has going here. What is clear from these discussions is that people see what they want to see in the numbers. If they weren't already against SSM they wouldn't need to do this dance. But deepseated prejudice is all about justifying itself "scientifically." Sad but entirely human. Reminds me of the segregationist arguments about how much better darkie did in their own schools. There was a lot of statistical argument for that too.
Sex segregation based on sexual identity is the basis for SSM. Identity is raised above integration of the sexes (which is at the core of marriage) along with contingency for responsible procreation.
But that's not depicted directly the statistics we are examining. Read the cultural context as background to the divergence from the past that is evident in the charts.
Ad homs do not an analysis make. FWIW I think that Rauch has gone a good way in showing more good faith than some commentators I've come across in discussing (or rather thier avoiding the discussion) of the trends.
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