Key to a good marriage? Share housework

The percentage of Americans who consider children "very important" to a successful marriage has dropped sharply since 1990, and more now cite the sharing of household chores as pivotal, according to a sweeping new survey.

The Pew Research Center survey on marriage andparentingfound that children had fallen to eighth out of nine on a list of factors that people associate with successful marriages - well behind "sharing household chores," "good housing," "adequate income," a "happy sexual relationship" and "faithfulness."

In a 1990 World Values Survey, children ranked third in importance among the same items, with 65 percent saying children were very important to a good marriage. Just 41 percent said so in the new Pew survey.

Chore-sharing was cited as very important by 62 percent of respondents, up from 47 percent in 1990.

The survey also found that, more Americans say the main purpose of marriage is the "mutual happiness and fulfillment" of adults rather than the "bearing and raising of children."

The survey's findings buttress concerns expressed by numerous scholars and family-policy experts, among them Barbara Dafoe Whitehead of Rutgers University's National Marriage Project.

"The popular culture is increasingly oriented to fulfilling the desires of adults," she wrote in a recent report. "Child-rearing values - sacrifice, stability, dependability, maturity - seem stale and musty by comparison."

Virginia Rutter, a sociology professor at Framingham (Mass.) State College and board member of the Council on Contemporary Families, said the shifting views may be linked in part to America's relative lack of family-friendly workplace policies such aspaid leaveand subsidized child care.

"If we value families ... we need to change the circumstances they live in," she said, citing the challenges faced by young, two-earner couples as they ponder having children.

The Pew survey was conducted by telephone from mid-February through mid-March among a random, nationwide sample of 2,020 adults.


(Agencies)

一項大規模的最新調查顯示，美國人中認為孩子對于美好婚姻“十分重要”的比例自上世紀90年代以來急劇下降，如今更多的美國人認為分擔家務才是美好婚姻的關鍵。

美國皮尤調查中心此項有關婚姻和育兒的調查發現，在人們列舉的與美好婚姻有關的九大因素中，“孩子”下滑至第八位，位居“分擔家務”、“住房條件好”、“收入富足”、“性生活愉快”及“忠誠”幾大因素之后。

在1990年的“世界價值觀調查”中，“孩子”在以上幾個因素中排名第三，65%的美國人認為孩子對于美好婚姻十分重要。而在此項最新的皮尤調查中，只有41%持相同觀點。

62%的受訪者認為“分擔家務”十分重要，超過了1990年的47%。

另外，調查還發現，更多的美國人認為婚姻的主要目的是兩人之間的“相互愉悅與滿足”，而不是“養育孩子”。

該調查的結果造成了很多學者和家庭政策專家們的擔憂，魯特格斯大學國家婚姻項目的芭芭拉·達佛·懷特黑德就是其中一位。

她在最近的一篇報告中寫道：“大眾文化正日益以滿足成年人的欲望為導向。而犧牲、穩定、可靠及成熟等育兒的價值觀似乎已經過時了。”

弗萊明翰州立大學的社會學教授、當代家庭研究會的理事會成員弗吉妮亞·魯特稱，這種觀念的轉變一部分可能與美國缺少如帶薪假期及子女津貼等關心員工家庭的政策有關。

她在談及年輕的上班族夫婦在考慮要孩子時所面臨的挑戰時說：“如果我們重視家庭……我們就應該改變他們生活的環境。”

此項隨機電話調查從今年2月中旬持續至三月中旬，全美共有2020名成年人參加。

（來源：英語點津 姍姍編輯）