Marriage is one of the more controversial levers governments use in their measures to reduce child poverty. Critics say that politics should be kept out of issues as personal as love and marriage – and some point to the scanty evidence that marriage is an effective lever in any case.

On the other side of the coin, everyone agrees that there is an association between poverty and single parenting, even if that’s not at all the same as saying that single parenting causes poverty.

It’s just as likely that some single parents have a variety of concerns (for example, substance abuse or emotional problems) that make sustaining a marriage, staying employed, and raising healthy, well-behaved children a challenge. Under these conditions, children’s living arrangements are just a symptom of bigger issues. And changing those arrangements would do little to help a child.

Others note that to argue that marriage reduces poverty makes sense if only because married couples share expenses, which allows them a higher standard of living. Even when you compare individuals with similar education, employment, health and family backgrounds, the married ones are usually doing better financially than the single ones. And couples who divorce usually move from more stable to less stable economic situations.

This latter pattern of evidence has convinced two US researchers, Paul Amato of Pennsylvania State University and Rebecca Maynard of the University of Pennsylvania, to call for more and better government-funded efforts to reduce the number of children in single parent households. More specifically, they would like to see:

• US schools using health and proven sexual abstinence programs as well as promoting the use of contraception among teens who are sexually active but who don’t want children
• a doubling of the number of couples who participate in premarital education; they suggest, for example, that states increase the cost of marriage licenses for couples who do not participate – and eliminate the cost for those who do.

Amato and Maynard crunch numbers (based on available evidence) to show how such relatively low-cost efforts as improved sex education and increased premarital counseling could significantly increase the number of two-parent households and, as a result, possibly reduce poverty among children by as much as 29 percent.

They concede that even if their projections are correct, many other levers need to be used to eliminate childhood poverty. But they insist that while marriage is no panacea, it deserves serious consideration.

•Summary of “Decreasing Nonmarital Births and Strengthening Marriage to Reduce Poverty” by Paul R. Amato and Rebecca A. Maynard in The Future of Children, 2007, Volume 17, Number 2, p. 117-141.