I thought the New York Times story saying 51% of women are now living without a spouse was both contrived and a stretch, but, being the lazy soul I am, I didn’t go sift through the numbers myself before referencing the article.
I thought the use of the term “without a spouse” was fishy, since there are a whole host of reasons why a woman might not be living with her spouse, such as that he is a soldier stationed in Iraq like my niece’s husband.
Peter J. Smith does my work for me (told you I was lazy) and dissects the numbers used by the NYT in this article.
The plain truth is that Roberts’ findings are at variance with US census reports for 2005, which demonstrate a far different picture from the profiles selected by Roberts of single women “delighting in their new found freedom.â€
According to the 2005 report “Marital Status of the Population by Sex and Ageâ€, the United States is not yet a culture that has discarded the institution of marriage, where 60.4% of men and 56.9% of women over 18 years old are married.
However, Roberts creates his own analysis by using the Census Bureau’s “Living Arrangements of Persons 15 Years Old and Over by Selected Characteristicsâ€, by including in his 51% figure of women living without a spouse: unmarried teenage and college girls still living with their parents, women whose husbands work out of town, are institutionalized, or are separated from husbands serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Perhaps most disturbing is how blatantly Roberts’ claims are at variance with US census bureau statistics. Among marriageable women over 18 years old, 56.9% of women are married, with 53% having a spouse present, 1.4% with a spouse absent, 9.9% widowed, and 11.5% divorced. Yet, 67.3% of women 30-34, and 70.5% of women 35-39 are married, a far cry from the profiles of women offered by the Times of women finding fulfillment outside marriage.
Stretching the numbers to fit the premise is nothing new for the NYT, but including teenagers under the grouping unmarried women is a new low, even for them.
“It’s one of a series of articles the New York Times has run…playing games with numbers in a misleading and dishonest way, each one of them having the same point: marriage is over, marriage is finished, nobody wants to get married anymore, people are happier not getting married,” conservative talk show host (Michael) Medved told his radio audience, accusing the Times of committing “journalistic malpractice.”
“Obviously 97% of women between the ages of 15 and 19 are never married!” Medved fumed. “What does it tell you when he’s including girls living home with their parents as single women and then uses that to create this lie that the majority of women are unmarried?”
For the record, the median age of first marriage for women is 26. According to the census data, more than half of women 25 to 29 have been married, and that number climbs with age.
Cross-posted at Gold-Plated Witch on Wheels.
[...] Congratulations, Barney — we know we’ve been tough on you in the past, but good job smacking down your bosses at the NYT for their lazy, misleading, statistically-gerrymandered article claiming that “51% of women are living without a spouse” — and including 15-17 girls in that equation. This article was attacked and debunked a whole bunch of times so I won’t go into that here, but I will say that the Times loves its spot-the-gender-trends articles, knows they’re a fast-track to MEL#1, and consistently plays fast and loose with the facts while they’re getting there. Not cool. [...]
[...] I thought the New York Times story saying 51% of women are now living without a spouse was both contrived and a stretch, but, being the lazy soul I am, I didn’t go sift through the numbers myself before referencing the article.I thought the use of the term “without a spouse” was fishy, since there are a whole host of reasons why a woman might not be living with her spouse, such as that he is a soldier stationed in Iraq like my niece’s husband.Peter J. Smith does my work for me (told you I was lazy) and dissects the numbers used by the NYT in this article.The plain truth is that Roberts’ findings are at variance with US census reports for 2005, which demonstrate a far different picture from the profiles selected by Roberts of single women “delighting in their new found freedom.” According to the 2005 report “Marital Status of the Population by Sex and Age”, the United States is not yet a culture that has discarded the institution of marriage, where 60.4% of men and 56.9% of women over 18 years old are married.However, Roberts creates his own analysis by using the Census Bureau’s “Living Arrangements of Persons 15 Years Old and Over by Selected Characteristics”, by including in his 51% figure of women living without a spouse: unmarried teenage and college girls still living with their parents, women whose husbands work out of town, are institutionalized, or are separated from husbands serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Perhaps most disturbing is how blatantly Roberts’ claims are at variance with US census bureau statistics. Among marriageable women over 18 years old, 56.9% of women are married, with 53% having a spouse present, 1.4% with a spouse absent, 9.9% widowed, and 11.5% divorced. Yet, 67.3% of women 30-34, and 70.5% of women 35-39 are married, a far cry from the profiles of women offered by the Times of women finding fulfillment outside marriage.Stretching the numbers to fit the premise is nothing new for the NYT, but including teenagers under the grouping unmarried women is a new low, even for them.”It’s one of a series of articles the New York Times has run…playing games with numbers in a misleading and dishonest way, each one of them having the same point: marriage is over, marriage is finished, nobody wants to get married anymore, people are happier not getting married,” conservative talk show host (Michael) Medved told his radio audience, accusing the Times of committing “journalistic malpractice.”"Obviously 97% of women between the ages of 15 and 19 are never married!” Medved fumed. “What does it tell you when he’s including girls living home with their parents as single women and then uses that to create this lie that the majority of women are unmarried?”For the record, the median age of first marriage for women is 26. According to the census data, more than half of women 25 to 29 have been married, and that number climbs with age.Cross-posted at Common Sense Political Thought. [...]