Facts about Marriage and Divorce

Research continues to show that healthy marriages are good for individuals, couples and children. Read on to see some of the reasons why we think that healthy marriages are important and why we want to help couples have the best relationships possible.

The Benefits of Marriage

• Marriage is good for taxpayers. The rise in single-parent households is a major cause of child and family poverty and welfare dependency and many associated problems. (1, 2)

• Married people have both more and better sex than singles do. They not only have sex more often, but they enjoy it more, both physically and emotionally, than do their unmarried counterparts. (3)

• Numerous studies have shown that the previously married tend to be considerably less happy and more distressed than the married. (4)

• Married men and women generally lived longer than single men and women (5)

The Experiences of Divorced Couples

• In two-thirds of former couples, one partner is unhappy, lonely, anxious, depressed and finally precarious ten years after the divorce. In 25 percent of couples, both former partners are worse off, suffering from loneliness and depression. In only 10 percent of the cases do both former partners reconstruct happier, fuller lives after a decade. (6)

• Most men and women who divorce will remarry, but second marriages fail at a higher rate than do first marriages. Analysis of the attitudes of over 2,000 adults revealed that “over time, remarried persons are more likely to experience a decline in marital quality than are people in first marriages.” (7)

Children of Divorce

• 80% of adolescents in psychiatric hospitals come from broken homes. (8)

• Early sex is very common among girls in divorced families and has been described in several national studies. (9)

• Children of divorce complain: “The day my parents divorced is the day my childhood ended.” (9)

• Two out of three adult children of divorce have decided not to have children. Children of divorce who choose not to have children specifically cite divorce as the main reason. (9)

References

1. Robert I. Lerman (June 27, 1990). "Fatherhood, child support, and earnings: A report on the links between family
   responsibilities and job market outcomes." Draft report for the U.S. Department of Health and Human
   Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy Evaluation.
2. Isabell V. Sawhill (1992). “Young children and families.” In H. J. Aaron and C. L. Schultze (eds.), Setting Domestic Priorities: What Can Government Do? Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution.
3. “The National Sex Survey”, Scott Stanley and Howard Markman, 1992
4. Arne Mastekaasa (1994). “The subjective well-being of the previously married: The importance of unmarried cohabitation and time since widowhood or divorce”, Social Forces,vol. 73, p. 665-692.
5. L. A. Lillard & Linda J. Waite (1995). "Till death do us part: Marital disruption and mortality", American Journal of Sociology, vol. 100, p. 1131-1156.
6. Judith Wallerstein (1996). Second Chances. Revised edition. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
7. Alan Booth, “Starting over: Why remarriages are more unstable,” Journal of Family Issues, vol 13, p.  179-194.
8. Jean Beth Eshtain (July 1993). "Family matters: The plight of America's children." The Christian Century, p. 14-21.
9. Judith S Wallerstein, Julia M Lewis, & Sandra Blakeslee (2000). The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce. New York: Hyperion.

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