This week, The Wall Street Journal asked the question, "Has the Sexual Revolution Been Good for Women?" Hoover Institution research fellow Mary Eberstadt answers "no," arguing that the sexual revolution has made women unhappier, disinclined to settle down and more likely to suffer from mental health issues. Eberstadt blames the deteriorating social safety net, decline of the nuclear family and increasing incidence of voluntary single motherhood via adoption and donor sperm in vitro fertilization on the ills of the post-pill world. While Eberstadt does point to some interesting cultural phenomena, the idea of the sexual revolution being their root cause is wrong-headed due to alternate causalities and unrelated external pressures.
Declining birth rates in industrialized nations are a given. When mortality rates decrease, so does the incentive for having large families. Urbanization also significantly alters the calculus of parenthood. With the absence of an inherent economic incentive for having children and the high cost involved, parenthood becomes a question of desire. The odds of couples choosing not to pursue parenthood dramatically increase. The decline of the nuclear family is attributable to a variety of factors independent of the sexual revolution, especially economic status. In a NewsHour interview, Charles Murray, author of "Coming Apart: The State of White America," noted that 84 percent of middle to upper-class individuals with college degrees were married in 2010, compared to only 48 percent of working-class individuals. The high costs of marriage, compounded with the high degree of uncertainty in the current economy, is a deterrent to lower-income couples making a legal commitment to one another.
The idea that the sexual revolution has caused a greater incidence of depression in modern society is appallingly nonsensical. While the post-"Bell Jar" era has certainly seen a broader acknowledgment of mental health issues, there is little evidence that the actual incidence of mental health issues has increased since the sexual revolution. Given the stigma associated with seeking help for mental health issues, it seems much more plausible that today's higher rate of reported mental health issues stems from wider social acceptance that these conditions warrant professional help.
Women's increasing independence from men is indicative of a pair of trends: first, that economic self-sufficiency is giving women greater leverage to make their own choices, and second, that males are falling behind their female counterparts. Not having to depend on a male partner's income allows women particularly upper and middle-class women to pursue independent personal and professional choices. The increase in females' career choices is an important point to note, as professional women must often decide between motherhood and career advancement. Despite nominal laws guaranteeing maternity leave and job retention while mothers are on leave, many corporate environments are unfriendly to mothers both during and after their pregnancies. It is not unusual for women returning from maternity leave to find that their jobs have been cut or otherwise altered in ways that make it difficult for the new mother to return to her previous job.
The dearth of available men is another hurdle that Eberstadt ignores. Declining male graduation rates at all levels of the education ladder and females' increasing rates of educational attainment are causing males' career prospects to decline while females' prospects are increasing. This widening achievement gap makes it increasingly difficult for educated women to find partners, since many women don't want to "settle" for men who are less accomplished than themselves. The problem is compounded by the continued stigma against men with more successful female partners, which means that even those women who are willing to date less obviously successful men may find those men uncomfortable with the prospect of having a more successful partner.
This unequal interplay between female breadwinners and male dependents feeds into many of the issues that Eberstadt discusses. If a woman is economically independent and can't find a male partner with equal prospects, why should she settle? The economic and social factors against traditional partnerships can't be blamed on the sexual revolution alone. While the sexual revolution empowered women to make non-traditional lifestyle choices, it is erroneous to blame the shifting social landscape on the sexual revolution alone.
