Luxury good
Research has shown that many people in the United States are not ready to marry due to the economic situations facing the citizens. As a result, many young people have children before their marriage since they are not able to raise a family. It is not that the people do not wish to marry but the cost associated with marriage is not affordable to many.
A luxury good is a product that is expensive to many and hence not affordable. It is therefore left to the rich people who can afford. The consumption of this good is not meant for the purposes of survival but as a way of gaining recognition. According to Frank, marriage has become luxury goods. What this means is that marriage is done by people who are rich and not the poor. There are more benefits associated with marriage when you are rich. However, marriage when poor has many negative consequences since it is likely that the basic needs will not be afforded.
According to the article, research has shown that the highest women who are married are the college graduates. This is because most of them are employed. However, most of the women who are being married after college already have children. This shows that marriage should have taken place before but due to inability to afford the ‘luxury’ one has to first complete studies.
Most of the black American women are not married and instead, they have children hence leading to single parenthood. This is due to the fact that this group is poor and cannot afford marriage. They therefore prefer to have children outside marriage rather than marry. Furthermore women are not willing to be married by poor men and as a result, even though they have children with such men, they are not ready to marry them.
Generally, it can be observed that marriage has become expensive and people prefer to first get a job before marrying. As a result, it appears that single parenthood is becoming a normal thing in America considering that many people are not ready to marry. The consequences of children born out of such a situation are that they have greater chances of becoming poor. In addition, they suffer psychologically and this influences their behavior.
