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The government policy that promotes marriage among single mothers as a key part of the effort to fight poverty has missed the mark, according to one leading researcher.

The reason, said Kristi Williams, Ph.D., an associate professor of sociology at The Ohio State University, is that marriage fails to provide the same benefits to poor, single mothers as it does for others.

“If the goal of marriage promotion efforts was truly to lower poverty rates and improve the wellbeing of unmarried parents and their children, then it is time to take a different approach,” Williams said.

That could include preventing unwanted births and giving more child care support for single mothers, she said.

Williams wrote a briefing paper on the issue for The Council on Contemporary Families. Her report was one of two released to assess the state of the War on Poverty on its 50th anniversary.

It’s easy to see why marriage promotion is appealing, Williams said: About 46 percent of children in single-mother households were living in poverty in 2013, compared to 11 percent of children living with two married parents.

Marriage promotion became an official U.S. policy in 1996 when Congress passed welfare reform legislation that allowed states to spend welfare funds on a range of efforts to get single mothers to marry. It has continued, with some modifications, to this day.

“But the flaw in this approach is the assumption that all marriages are equally beneficial,” Williams said.

In fact, research shows that single mothers living in impoverished neighborhoods are likely to marry men who won’t help them get out of poverty.

These men are likely to have children from other partnerships, lack a high school diploma, and have been incarcerated or have substance abuse problems, Williams noted.

“Single mothers who marry and later divorce are worse off economically than single mothers who never marry,” she said.

Promoting marriage among single mothers may not help their children, either. Recent research by Williams and several colleagues found no physical or psychological advantages for the majority of teenagers born to a single mother who later married.

Rather than promoting marriage, the government should focus on preventing unintended births, Williams said. She found in one study that having a child outside of marriage is associated with negative mental health outcomes among African-American women only when the birth was unexpected.

查譯文

一位研究主管稱(chēng)，政府制定了政策，想要通過(guò)促成未婚媽媽結(jié)婚來(lái)幫助她們脫貧。但是，這不能從根本上解決問(wèn)題，結(jié)婚可能不會(huì)幫助未婚媽媽脫貧。

美國(guó)俄亥俄州立大學(xué)社會(huì)學(xué)副教授、克麗絲蒂•威廉姆斯（ Kristi Williams）博士說(shuō)，和其他的結(jié)婚人群不同，貧困的未婚媽媽不會(huì)從結(jié)婚中受益。

威廉姆斯說(shuō)：“如果政府在婚姻推廣政策上下功夫的真正目的是降低貧困率、為未婚單親家庭謀福祉，那么政府是時(shí)候去改變策略，換一種方法來(lái)解決問(wèn)題了�！�

她說(shuō)，政府應(yīng)該采取措施控制意外生育，給未婚媽媽提供更多的兒童保育援助。

威廉姆斯就這個(gè)問(wèn)題給現(xiàn)代家庭委員會(huì)（The Council on Contemporary Families）寫(xiě)了一份簡(jiǎn)報(bào)。1964年，約翰遜•肯尼迪總統(tǒng)發(fā)起了“向貧困宣戰(zhàn)”（ War on Poverty）這一項(xiàng)目，今年是該項(xiàng)目的50周年紀(jì)念。有兩份發(fā)布的報(bào)告被用作“向貧困宣戰(zhàn)”這一項(xiàng)目實(shí)現(xiàn)程度的評(píng)價(jià)指標(biāo)。威廉姆斯的報(bào)告是其中之一。

威廉姆斯說(shuō)，2013年的統(tǒng)計(jì)數(shù)據(jù)表明，未婚媽媽家庭中有46%的兒童生活在貧困中，而正常的婚姻家庭中只有11%的兒童生活貧困。這樣看來(lái)，政府對(duì)婚姻促成（marriage promotion）政策熱衷的原因并不難理解。

1996年，國(guó)會(huì)通過(guò)福利改革法案，允許各州花費(fèi)社會(huì)福利，以致力于推動(dòng)未婚媽媽結(jié)婚。此后，婚姻促成政策正式成為美國(guó)的一項(xiàng)政策。該政策幾經(jīng)修訂，延續(xù)至今。

威廉姆斯說(shuō)：“但是，該政策的缺陷在于，它想當(dāng)然地認(rèn)為所有結(jié)婚的未婚媽媽都能脫貧�！�

實(shí)際上，研究表明，居住在貧民區(qū)的未婚媽媽很可能嫁得不好，她們的丈夫幫不了她們脫貧。

威廉姆斯注意到，未婚媽媽們嫁的這些男人本身就問(wèn)題多多，情況很可能是這樣的：他們有的與前女友或者前妻生育的有孩子，有的沒(méi)有高中畢業(yè)，有的進(jìn)過(guò)監(jiān)獄，還有的吸毒。

她說(shuō)：“那些結(jié)過(guò)婚又離婚的未婚媽媽的經(jīng)濟(jì)狀況比從未結(jié)婚的未婚媽媽的經(jīng)濟(jì)狀況要糟得多�！�

未婚媽媽的結(jié)婚推廣政策對(duì)孩子的成長(zhǎng)而言也沒(méi)有多大幫助。威廉姆斯和幾位同事最近進(jìn)行的研究表明，對(duì)于大多數(shù)出生在未婚媽媽家庭的青少年來(lái)說(shuō)，母親后來(lái)結(jié)婚這件事，沒(méi)有對(duì)他們身心成長(zhǎng)大有裨益。

威廉姆斯在一項(xiàng)研究中發(fā)現(xiàn)，非裔美國(guó)女性的心理健康程度與是否生育非婚生子女息息相關(guān)。只有當(dāng)意外生育發(fā)生時(shí)，非裔美國(guó)女性才會(huì)產(chǎn)生心理健康問(wèn)題。她表示，政府應(yīng)該去關(guān)注如何控制意外生育，而不是關(guān)注如何促成未婚媽媽的婚姻。