Success Sequence

 

                    Success Sequence

Researchers call this formula the “success sequence.”

1. Finish high school.

2. Get a full-time job once you finish school.

3. Get married before you have children.

Wendy Wang's research shows 97% of Millennials who follow what has been called the “success sequence”—that is, who get at least a high school degree, work, and then marry before having any children, in that order—are not poor by the time they reach their prime young adult years (ages 28-34). (There is an argument that the full-time-job factor is so powerful as to be a stand-alone-factor.)

So childbirth--the very engine of the species' future--is a great threat to individual success. Interestingly, the notion of cultural factors, educational factors, and the like deny the underlying reality: choice. A factor--huge factor--that is part of the country's marrow. Everyone has the ability to manage their reproductive capacity. Everyone. So, why not?