Fact Sheet
on Divorce in
Glenn T. Stanton
The following data is taken from
"[T]he fastest growing marital status category was divorced persons. The
number [of] currently divorced adults quadrupled from 4.3 million in 1970 to
17.4 million in 1994."
Arlene
Saluter, Marital Status and Living
Arrangements: March 1994 ,
U.S. Bureau of the Census, March 1996; series P20-484, p. vi.
In 1970, 3% of all people over 18 years of age were divorced. In 1994, that
number had climbed to 9%.
Ibid., table A-1.
The Journal of Marriage and the Family reports that "no-fault divorce law
had a significant positive effect on the divorce rate across the 50 states."
ensuring America's place as the unrivaled leader in the worldwide divorce race.
Paul
A. Nakonezny, Robert D. Schull and Joseph Lee Rodgers, "The Effect of
No-Fault Divorce Law on the Divorce Rate Across the 50 States and Its Relation
to Income, Education and Religiosity," Journal
of Marriage and the Family, 1995, 57:477-488; Ailsa Burns and Cath Scott, Mother Headed Families and Why They Have
Increased , (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers,
1994), pp. 5, 9.
Divorce and Alcoholism
Marital Status %
of Lifetime Prevalence
Intact Marriage 8.9
Never Married or Cohabited 15.0
One Divorce or Separation 16.2
More than one Div. or Sep. 24.2
Cohabited only 29.2
Lee
Robins and Darrel Regier, Psychiatric
Disorders in America: The Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study (New York:
Free Press, 1991), p. 103.
Divorce and Suicide
The relative risk of suicide for each marital status falls as follows:
Marital Status Relative Risk
Married 1.0
Never Married 1.9
Widowed 2.8
Divorced 2.9
Jack
C. Smith, James A. Mercy and Judith M. Conn, "Marital Status and the Risk
of Suicide," American Journal of
Public Health, 1988, 78:78-80.
Divorce and Depression
The National Institute of Mental Health found that women in cohabiting
relationships had much greater rates of depression than women in married
relationships (second only to those twice divorced). The numbers fall as
follows (annual rate of incident of depression per 100):
Marital
Status Rate
Married (never divorced) 1.5
Never married 2.4
Divorced once 4.1
Divorced twice 5.8
Cohabiting 5.1
Lee
Robins and Darrel Regier, Psychiatric
Disorders in America: The Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study (New York:
Free Press, 1991), p. 64.
Divorce and General Mental Illness
Robins and Regier found that the prevalence of suffering from any psychiatric
disorder over a lifetime was significantly lower for those in a legal marriage.
Marital Status Lifetime
Prevalence
Married, never div/sep 24
Single, never cohabit 33
Divorced/Separated 44
Unmarried Cohabiting 52
Robins
and Regier, 1991, p. 334.
Divorce and Loneliness
One random sample of over 8,600 adults revealed the specific percentages of
those who felt less lonely:
Marital Status % Lonely
Married 4.6
Never Married 14.5
Divorced 20.4
Widowed 20.6
Separated 29.6
This finding is even more striking given the author's definition of loneliness
being the "absence of satisfying social relationships" as opposed to
merely the close presence of other people.
Randy
M. Page and Galen E. Cole, "Demographic Predictors of Self-Reported
Loneliness in Adults," Psychological
Reports , 1991, 68:939-945.
Divorce and Child Well Being
1. High-School Drop-out
According to each of the four surveys analyzed by Drs. Sara McLanahan and Gary
Sandefur, with each data set adjusting for race, sex, parental education,
number of siblings and place of residence, the percentages of risk for high
school drop out according to family type are as follows:
NLSY: National Longitudinal Survey of Youth
PSID: Panel Study of Income Dynamics
HSB: High School and Beyond
NSFH: National Survey of Families and Households
Two
Parents Single Parent
NLSY 13% 29%
PSID 15% 25%
HSB 9% 16%
NSFH 9% 17%
Sara
McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up
With a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps, (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1994), p. 41.
2. Idleness (a precursor to crime)
The percentages for males and females at risk of being out of school and out of
work fall as follows and all the differences were statistically significant:
Two
Parents Single Parent
Males
NLSY 12% 17%
PSID 19% 29%
HSB 9% 12%
Females
NLSY 16% 28%
PSID 26% 41%
HSB 18% 24%
McLanahan
and Sandefur, 1994, p. 50.
3. Pre-Marital Births
The risks for teen births for unmarried women are as follows:
Two
Parents Single Parent
NLSY 11% 27%
PSID 14% 31%
HSB* 14% 19%
NSFH 20% 30%
*Adolescent girls who became pregnant in school are less likely to finish high
school. This accounts for the smaller disparity between the two family forms in
a school-based survey like The High School and Beyond Study (HSB).
McLanahan
and Sandefur, 1994, p. 53.
4. General Health Measures
Dr. Dawson found among the different family types:
- Health vulnerability scores from 20% to 35% higher than those for children
living with both biological parents.
- Predicted risk of injury was about 20% to 30% greater for children from
disrupted marriages than for other children.
- Children living with formerly married mothers had a 50% greater risk of
having asthma in the preceding 12 months.
- An increased risk of speech defects among children living with never-married
mothers.
- The observed proportion reported to have received professional help for
emotional or behavior problems in the preceding year varied from 2.7% for
children living with both biological parents to 8.8% for children living with
formerly married mothers. For children living with never-married mothers or
with mothers and stepfathers, the respective proportions were 4.4% and 6.6%.
Deborah
A. Dawson, "Family Structure and Children's Health and Well-Being: Data
from the 1988 National Heath Interview Survey on Child Health," Journal of Marriage and the Family,
1991, 53:573-584.
5. Divorce and Adolescent Mental Health
Relying on data from the 1988 National Health Interview Survey on Child Health,
Deborah Dawson found that the percentage of children receiving professional
help for emotional or behavioral problems in the year preceding the health
interview were as follows:
Children living with %
Receiving help
Both biological parents 2.7%
Formerly married mothers 8.8%
Never married mothers 4.4%
Mothers and Stepfathers 6.6%
Dawson,
1991, p. 578.
Younger people
in the U.S. who are marrying for the first time face roughly a 40-50% chance of
divorcing in their lifetime under current trends.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992, p. 5.
Of first
marriages that end in divorce, many end in the first 3 to 5 years (as one
example, for first marriages ending in divorce among women aged 25 to 29, the
median length of marriage before divorce in 1990 was 3.4 years).
U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992, p. 4.
Marital problems
are associated with decreased work productivity, especially for men.
Forthofer, Markman, Cox, Stanley, and Kessler,
1996.
A variety of
studies suggest that the seeds of marital distress and divorce are there for
many couples when they say, "I Do." These studies show that
premarital (or early marital) variables can differentiate between couples who
will do well and those who will not do well with 80% up to 94% accuracy.
Clements, Stanley, and Markman, 1997; Fowers,
Montel, and Olson, 1996; Gottman, 1994; Karney and Bradbury, 1995; Kelly and
Conley, 1987; and Rogge and Bradbury, in press.
Money is the one
thing that people say they argue about most in marriage, followed by children.
But, there is a lot of reason to believe that what couples argue about is not
as important as how they argue.
Stanley and Markman, 1997; Markman, Stanley, and
Blumberg, 1994.
Children living
with a single parent or adult report a higher prevalence of activity limitation
and higher rates of disability. They are also more likely to be in fair or poor
health and more likely to have been hospitalized.
National Center for Health Statistics, 1997.
While
10% of children from intact homes had serious behavioral problems, roughly 30%
of the children from divorced homes show such problems.
Hetherington, 1993.
As
adults, 18% of children of divorce scored above a key cutoff on Rutter’s index
of mental health compared to 13.7% of those with intact parental marriages
(Cherlin concluded that 82% of children whose parents divorce will not
experience lasting difficulties, though many will experience shorter term
disruptions and problems in the two years post parental divorce).
Cherlin, Chase-Lansdale, and McRae, 1998.
Level
of parental conflict is a key determinant of the effects of parental divorce on
children. Children of parents who engage in regular, high levels of conflict
tend to do better psychologically and socially if their parents divorce. The
types of conflict with clear, long-term negative effects includes jealous
behavior, quickness to anger, criticalness, moodiness, and stonewalling.
Children of parents in low conflict, but unsatisfying marriages, are likely to
do better if their parents remain together, and somewhere between 50 to 70% of
divorces occur in low conflict marriages.
Booth and Amato, 2001; Amato and Booth, 1997.
Divorce
increases the risks of depression for boys, regardless of mediating factors,
due to the common scenario of the father leaving the home. Non-custodial
fathers are less likely to discipline effectively and train their children, and
have significantly less contact with their children, which may more adversely
affect boys.
Simons, Conger,
Lorenz, Gordon, and Lin, 2000.
When
one partner is a child of divorce, the chances of a couple divorcing are
doubled. When both partners are children of divorce, the chances of the couple
divorcing are nearly tripled. There is evidence that these effects are linked
to factors such as parental modeling, lower educational attainment, lowered
stigma about divorce, and lower age at marriage.
Glenn and Kramer, 1987.
70%
of children from divorced families see divorce as an acceptable solution to an
unhappy marriage, even when children are present, compared to 40% of children
of from intact families.
Hetherington and Kelly, 2002.
The
relationships between children and their fathers are more often negatively
impacted by divorce, with 70% reporting poor relationships with fathers
compared to only 30% for children from intact families.
Hetherington and Kelly, 2002.
Children of divorce have lower
levels of educational, occupational, and financial attainment—findings more
attributable to changes in family structure than pre-existing differences in
families.
McLanahan and Sandefur, 1994.
Married people are in better health than those who are
divorced, widowed, never-married, or living with a partner. They are also less
likely to suffer from health conditions like back pain, headaches, and serious
psychological distress. Married people
are also less likely to smoke, drink heavily, and be physically inactive.
CDC, “Marital
Status and Health: United States, 1999-2002”