Generation Unbound

Over half of all births to young adults in the United States today occur outside of marriage, and most are unplanned. This trend is driving a growing class divide. At the top are "planners," who are marrying and having children only after establishing a career. At the bottom-and increasingly in the middle-are "drifters," who are having unplanned children early, outside of marriage, and without the stable support of a second parent. This divide is contributing to rising inequality and decreased social mobility for both young parents and their children. The political right calls for a return to traditional marriage; the left proposes more social programs to help less advantaged families. In Generation Unbound, Isabel V. Sawhill offers a provocative third approach: turning "drifters" into "planners" and thereby ensuring that more children are born into families with the means and motivation to care for them-and saving billions of dollars in social costs.
How do we make this shift? Drawing on behavioral economics, Sawhill offers recommendations for preventing unplanned pregnancy among young adults-for example, by offering greater access to long-acting reversible contraception (such as IUDs) to help stem the tide of children born to parents who are unprepared for the financial and social responsibilities of raising a child.