Studying families without taking into account cultural values leads to bad conclusions

From The Family as a Social Institution by Natalie Bau & Raquel Fernández.  

This handbook chapter focuses on important interactions between the family and culture. We discuss the wide range of global variation in family institutions, variation which is in part sustained by cultural differences, and important recent changes in family structures. The chapter discusses why different family institutions arise, when they persist, and what forces may lead them to change. Furthermore, it examines changes in key family outcomes, such as the rise of female labor force participation, the decline in marriage, and the increase in divorce. These changes have been accompanied by and interact with cultural change. Finally, we show how cultural institutions related to the family, such as son preference, co-residence traditions, polygyny, and marriage payments, affect decision-making within the family and interact with policy. We conclude that studying the family in a vacuum, without accounting for the role of culture, may lead to misleading conclusions regarding the effects of policies, macroeconomic shocks, or technological change.

It is incredibly tempting to respond - duuuh!

Yet much of political and policy debates depends entirely on ignoring culture.

Life outcomes depend, of course, on serendipity - which era are you born in, which country, which class.

From there, life outcomes become predictable based on IQ, health and choices; those choices substantially dependent on the cultural values of family, community, and class.  

The current but longstanding fad in social sciences is to accord any group differences to social constructs, discrimination and race.  In fact, those differences are almost entirely due to IQ and cultural values.  That is why those gaps have not changed much over fifty years.  We have misdiagnosed the cause.  Trying to fix vestigial and multi-natured discrimination is a waste of time since it has so little predictive power.  We can't effectively change IQ.  And we are deeply reluctant to acknowledge or deal with the overwhelming influence of cultural values on good life outcomes.