The Success Sequence works!

 Introducing the University Of Virginia’s  Institute for Family Studies website.  A great place to find academic research on what factors make families thrive and help children prosper in adulthood.  

Strong Families.
Sustainable Societies.

The Institute for Family Studies (IFS) is dedicated to strengthening marriage and family life, and advancing the well-being of children through research and public education. Addressing family life is what we do, and we invite you to learn more about ways to strengthen families in America and around the world.

Use links on the IFS home page to find the media below.  The information is thoughtfully presented and impossible to dispute.  This is worth sharing with anyone who believes that society and humans can flourish without traditional social structures that have always worked, despite the persistent propaganda that denies it.  

Podcast:  Federalist Radio Hour, “Post-Father’s Day Special With Brad Wilson”

Film:  “The Social Divide”. 

Read the Institute for Family Studies report "‘Life Without Father’: Less College, Less Work, and More Prison for Young Men Growing Up Without Their Biological Father" here: https://ifstudies.org/blog/life-without-father-less-college-less-work-and-more-prison-for-young-men-growing-up-without-their-biological-father

Click HERE to read the 2022  report.

THE POWER OF THE

SUCCESS SEQUENCE

for Disadvantaged Young Adults

Wendy Wang and Brad Wilcox May 2022

The “Success Sequence,” a formula to help young adults succeed in America, has been discussed widely in recent years, including by Brookings Institution scholars Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill. The formula involves three steps: get at least a high school education, work full time, and marry before having children. Among Millennials who followed this sequence, 97% are not poor when they reach adulthood. The link remains strong when this cohort of young Americans reaches their mid-30s, according to a new IFS analysis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY).1

The success sequence seems like common sense. In an interview, Nobel Laureate James Heckman called the success sequence a fact, adding: “When children or young adults have a child out of wedlock and if they take responsibility for that child—even if they don’t—that’s going to generally impair their progress.” Similarly, Bryan Caplan commented that the causation between the success sequence and poverty is obvious: “‘Dropping out, idleness, and single parenthood make you poor’ is on par with ‘burning money makes you poor.’ The demand for further proof of the obvious is a thinly-veiled veto of unpalatable truths.”

Critics of the success sequence often point out that it ignores the “obstacles individual efforts can’t always overcome.” There is no question that structural disadvantages make it more difficult to follow the three steps of the sequence. But that is also why it matters: Young adults who manage to follow the sequence—even in the face of disadvantages—are much more likely to forge a path to a better life.

In fact, young adults from disadvantaged circumstances who follow the sequence are markedly more likely to overcome challenges and achieve economic success. The vast majority of black (96%) and Hispanic (97%) Millennials who followed this sequence are not poor in their mid-30s (ages 32 to 38), as is also the case for 94% of Millennials who grew up in lower-income families and 95% of those who grew up in non-intact families. Moreover, for those who do not have a college degree but only finished high school and who work and marry before having children, 95% are not poor by their mid-30s.2