Bell Curve

166 Cognitive Chses and Soclal BehaviorCondescension toward these men is not in order, nor are glib assumptionsthat those who are cognitively disadvantaged cannot beproductive citizens. The world is statistically tougher for them thanfor others who are more fortunate, but most of them are overcomingthe odds.Chapter 8Family MattersRumors of the death of the traditional family have much truth in them for someparts of white American society-those with low cognitive ability and little education--andmuch less truth for the college educated and very bright Americansof all educational levels. In this instance, cognitive ability and educationappear to phy mutually reinforcing but also independent roks.For marriage, the general rule is that the more intelligent get manied athigher rates than the less intelligent. This relationship, which applies across therange of intelligence, is obscured among people with high levels of educationbecause college and graduate school are powerful delayers of marriage.Divorce has long been more prevalent in the lower socioeconomic and educationalbrackets, but this turns out to be explained better by cognitive kvelthan by social status. Once the marriage-breaking impact of low intelligenceis taken into account, people of higher socioeconomic status are more likely toget divorced than people of lower status.Illegitimacy, one of the central social problems of the times, is strongly relatedto intelligence. White women in the bottom 5 percent of the cognitiveability distribution are six times as likely to have an illegitimate first child asthose in the top 5 percent. One out of five of the legitimate first babies ofwomen in the bottom 5 percent was conceived prior to marriage, comparedto fewer than one out of twenty of the legitimate babies to women in the top5 percent. Even among young women who have grown up in broken homesand among young women who are poor-both of which foster illegitimacylowcognitive ability further raises the odds of giving birth illegitimately. Lowcognitive ability is a much stronger predisposing factor for ikgitimacy thanlow socioeconomic background.At lower educational levels, a woman's intelligence best predicts whethershe will bear an illegitimate child. Toward the higher reaches of education, almostno white women are having illegitimate children, whatever their familybackground or intelligence.