It is not a question of being negative it is one of not trying to do brain surgery with a chain saw, leaving aside deliberate advocacy research done by ABS such as the 95/6 Women's Safety Survey there are enormous anomalies in ABS data, for example fifteen per cent of people do not fill in their income at all. If you look at their time use survey women claim to spend (from memory) thirteen hours more a week with their partners than do men. When I studied national accounting at uni the lecturer pointed out the discrepancy between Household Expenditure Surveys (which are extremely intrusive and change respondents behavior via what is called Hawthorn Effect) and actual excise figures twenty per cent of beer is poured down the drain, that figure is now closer to forty per centt

In earlier years C of E was a euphemism for agnostic, what I have not seen is how many people do not answer that question at all. It was only recently introduced into the English Census which gave rise to the Jeddi movement. When you ask intrusive questions you should expect a large number of flippant answers, sometimes known as Margaret Meade effect going back to the debunking of her social anthropology of Coming of Age in Samoa. By the way something I forgot to mention is that in every Australian Census there have been more married women than men!

John, your last comment is very easy to explain - and I wish to all the gods that mankind ever invented that it were not so:
we women outlive you blokes.
Ecco...

Are you serious? When your partner dies you are no longer married or you would have to divorce them prior to re marrying or it would be bigamy!

Byron,
Next to no research has been carried out into de facto relationships, even though nearly 30% of children are now born outside of marriage.

But de facto relationships appear highly unstable, particularly for raising children. Estimates are that 50% of children born to parents in a de facto relationship in the UK, will only have 1 parent by the age of 5.

In the US, nearly 70% of children born to parents in a de facto relationship will only have 1 parent by the age of 10.

I think if the full facts about de facto relationships were made known and compared to marriage, more people would want to get married. However de facto relationships appear to be the relationships most favoured by feminists, so it is unlikely the full facts about de facto relationships will be made known, or much research will be carried out into de facto relationships..

Genevieve Heard
I can’t remember any academic in Australia ever stating the values of marriage, while the data indicates it is generally superior to any other relationship type.

Of interest is some research in the US, where “Marriage has become a luxury good,” according to Frank Furstenberg, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania.

The reason: “Researchers have consistently found that children born outside marriage face elevated risks of falling into poverty, failing in school or suffering emotional and behavioral problems. “

Some also believe lack of marriage amongst certain groups in the US as now creating a long term social or class divide, because the children in those groups so often become disadvantaged, almost from birth.

“73 percent of black children are born outside marriage, compared with 53 percent of Latinos and 29 percent of whites. And educational differences are growing. About 92 percent of college-educated women are married when they give birth, compared with 62 percent of women with some post-secondary schooling and 43 percent of women with a high school diploma or less”

C:\Documents and Settings\user\Desktop\For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage - NYTimes_com.htm

Genevieve Heard
You article, “Socioeconomic Marriage Differentials in Australia and New Zealand” states “While marriage rates are relatively stable among better-educated men and women, they are rapidly declining among those with low educational attainment.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21735614

This has not been stated in this article on The Conversation, but it is a highly important fact, and should have been stated.

Stable marriages generally produce better outcomes for children, including better education and better job and life prospects. Any decrease in marriage rates, or any increases in children born outside of marriage has the significant possibility of creating long term social and economic divides within a society.

A philosophical question would also be: “Why should families who stay together and make an effort be asked to subsidise family types who make little or no effort, and gradually become more dysfunctional, and then ask for financial assistance.”

I think families who stay together and make an effort should not be asked to indefinitely subsidise others who do not.

I don’t know of too many scientists or members of the education system who would allow the public to believe 1 + 1 = 11, and I definitely think social science has a duty to make fully known the value and importance of marriage, rather than allow anti-male, anti-father, anti-husband and anti-marriage feminist propaganda to predominate, and misinform the public.

I don't like ancedotal evidence, and try not to use it, but rely on broader data instead.

I think the survey clearly shows the value of marriage compared to other relationship types. The 2006 survey also has a graph of “Main reasons for getting married”.

http://www.relationships.org.au/what-we-do/research/australian-relationships-indicators/ra-rel-ind-2006-report/view

To signify a lifelong commitment – 68
To make a public commitment to each other – 63
Security for children – 62 etc.

This is compared to “Main reasons for not getting married”

Bad previous experience – 72
Avoidance of commitment – 67
Strong commitment does not need marriage – 63
Fear of making a mistake – 61 etc

From that, people in de facto relationships seem to have little concern for commitment, and little concern for children.

No wonder de facto relationships are so unstable, and produce such poor outcomes for children.

Interestingly, no one married (men or women) seem to think marriage was invented to oppress women, and marriage as a vehicle to oppress women seems to be a piece of feminist misinformation only.

Clare Hourigan, I think there is enough evidence to find direct correlation.

Marriages are longer lived than de facto relationships, and both husband and wife make a commitment to each other (publicly formalised by the marriage ceremony), and the husband and wife are more likely to pool their resources.

Such families are more likely to save, and have the funds to get a higher level of education for their children, and their children are more likely to achieve upward social mobility.

Those children are also more likely to get married, and their children are then more likely to continue the upward trend.

The opposite seems to be the overall trend with children born outside of marriage, and a downward trend develops, often resulting in intergenerational welfare, that then has to be economically subsidised by more stable families where marriage is the norm.

It would be interesting to see figures comparing social mobility of children of married parents, to children of unmarried parents.

Clare Hourigan
Who knows what occurs in Australian social science research, but I think the situation in the US is quite telling.

“About 92 percent of college-educated women are married when they give birth, compared with 62 percent of women with some post-secondary schooling and 43 percent of women with a high school diploma or less””

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/us/for-women-under-30-most-births-occur-outside-marriage.html?pagewanted=all

Education in the US is quite expensive, and the richer portion of the population tends to get the best education, and eventually the higher paid jobs.

That fact that so many “college-educated women are married when they give birth” does significantly indicate that they see the best outcomes for their children as being directly linked to marriage.

Dale,

To test your theory properly what you would need to do is compare the outcomes for children born to the 92% of college educated mothers who are married and compare those to the children born outside marriage to the other 8% of college educated women. You'd also apply this to the other groups of women. Then you would be able to tease out the impact of marrage vs the impact of educational background.