In poor communities here or abroad, people turn to each other for survival largely because they have to. Neighbors help neighbors. The young support their elders. Parents watch out for their children. As economies and government support to the needy become stronger, Moynihan has observed, the consequences of irresponsible behavior decline.
Families become more mobile.
Communities break apart. So do many homes. So, instead of teaching the industrialized world about the virtue of marriage, new immigrants may find marriages breaking down in the next generation as their children become more Americanized. To reverse that trend will require a social sea change. Marriage will have to become chic again, according to my friend Iris Krasnow, a former UPI reporter who left to raise four children.