Jane Galt on Single-Parent Families

Jane Galt has a highly readable article on the plight of single-parent families:

I've been doing a lot of research on poverty and inequality recently, and one of the major factors behind both turns out to be having kids out of wedlock.

{Note: I so do not want to hear from liberals calling me judgemental, or a "closet social conservative" for using the term "out of wedlock". I have no moral feelings about whether other people marry, or not. I myself am not married, and do not feel that this is a moral failing on my part. I am interested in the social question of the results, not the moral question of whether one should, or should not, reproduce without the aid of a long-term committment from both parties. I use the terms "out of wedlock" and "failure to marry" because they are succinct, not because I think that women who have children without first marrying the fathers are jezebels who should be ridden out of town on a rail. 'Kay?}

In a world of two-income families, single-income families are, ceteris paribus, going to tend to fall lower down on the earnings scale. And when the role of bread-winner and primary care-giver are combined in a single person, the effect is vastly more powerful, because properly caring for children makes it much more difficult to succeed at a full time job.