MARRIAGE IN THE NETHERLANDS: Stanley Kurtz

Dutch marriage is in trouble. Once noted for their low out-of-wedlock birthrates, and touted by scholars as an alternative to the Scandinavian family model, the Dutch are now experiencing a striking rupture in the relationship between marriage and childbearing, practicing Scandinavian-style parental cohabitation in increasing numbers. The bulk of the change has come in the past seven years--just as Holland adopted registered partnerships, and then full and formal same-sex marriage.

Coincidence? Advocates of same-sex marriage would like us to believe so. But a serious look at the evidence suggests otherwise. In "Going Dutch," I point out how the decade-long campaign for same-sex marriage in the Netherlands helped break apart the relationship between marriage and parenthood. Advocacy of same-sex marriage encouraged erstwhile Dutch traditionalists to reconsider the idea that marriage has anything intrinsic to do with raising children. Not surprisingly, this "family diversity" ideal took hold. Dutch parents have begun to cohabit in ever-increasing numbers, leading to a dramatic rise in out-of-wedlock births. Since cohabiting parents break up at two to three times the rate of married parents, we can expect a significant increase in children living with solo mothers in fatherless homes. ...

In the past seven years, however, the Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrate has been moving up at the strikingly high rate of two-percentage points per year. It needs to be emphasized that it is comparatively rare (although not unheard of) for a Western country's out-of-wedlock birthrate to sustain a 2-percentage-point-per-year increase for seven consecutive years. Every year the Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrate continues to rise at a two-percent rate is a surprise. In the '90s, only two European countries--Finland and Ireland--even approached such a rise (without achieving it). The rapid shift in Holland's out-of-wedlock birthrate is therefore a significant turning point, and requires explanation. ...

Many explanations for increases in cohabiting couples with children have been proposed over the years, including contraception, abortion, women in the workforce, individualism, secularism, and the welfare state. How well do these alternative explanations account for the Dutch experience? Not very well, as we can see by looking at these hypotheses, one by one. ...

We've considered the alternative explanations for rising rates of parental cohabitation and found them incomplete or wanting. Scholars face the same dilemma. I contacted senior Dutch demographer, Joop Garssen, to find out if sociologists and demographers had been able to account for Holland's rising rates of out-of-wedlock birth. In various publications, Garssen has argued persuasively that historically low out-of-wedlock birthrates in the Netherlands are rooted in traditionalism. Together with British demographer David Coleman, Garssen has suggested that continued low out-of-wedlock births in the Netherlands could mark out the Dutch system as a moderately traditionalist alternative to the Swedish model. Yet the record of the past seven years calls that into serious question. So how do Garssen and his colleagues explain the recent surge in parental cohabitation? They don't: Garssen has canvassed the experts, and they're stumped. None of the conventional explanations for increased births outside of marriage works.

And Garssen explicitly rejects an explanation that might be offered by gay-marriage advocates. In 1996 the Dutch parliament approved a system of "registered partnerships," open to both homosexual and heterosexual couples. Registered partnerships went into effect in 1998, and formal same-sex marriage followed in 2000. So perhaps the recent surge in out-of-wedlock births was caused when registered partnerships drew heterosexual parents into non-marital unions. Yet Garssen notes that the number of registered heterosexual partnerships is too small to explain the surge in the out-of-wedlock birthrate. (The number of heterosexual parents in registered partnerships is inflated, since many couples convert to easily dissolved registered partnership as a way of ending their marriages without a formal divorce hearing.)...

Of course, social-science evidence is seldom definitive. We can and should call for more research, and I hope other family scholars take up the question in a serious way. But at a minimum, we ought to be able to achieve a consensus on what has not happened in the Netherlands: There is no evidence to support the Rauch-Sullivan hypothesis--namely, that gay marriage will help strengthen marriage as a social institution.

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posted by Eve at 2:26 PM | link

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