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发帖数: 8227 | 1 !!! More than 40 percent of American children spend time in a cohabiting
household !!!
NEW YORK, Aug. 16, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, the Center for Marriage
and Families released Why Marriage Matters: Thirty Conclusions from the
Social Sciences, a scholarly report that includes major new findings on the
impact of cohabitation and divorce on children and families. This third
edition of Why Marriage Matters is co-sponsored by the Center for Marriage
and Families at the Institute for American Values and the National Marriage
Project at the University of Virginia. Chaired by Professor W. Bradford
Wilcox of the University of Virginia, the report is co-authored by eighteen
family scholars from leading institutions including the University of
California at Berkeley, Brookings Institution, University of Chicago, Penn
State, University of Minnesota, University of Texas at Austin, Urban
Institute, and the University of Virginia.
For most of the latter-half of the twentieth century, divorce posed the
greatest threat to child well-being and the institution of marriage. Today,
that is not the case. New research—made available for the first time in Why
Marriage Matters—shows that the rise of cohabiting households with
children is the largest unrecognized threat to the quality and stability of
children's lives in today's families.
According to W. Bradford Wilcox, lead author of the report, "In a striking
turn of events, the divorce rate for married couples with children has
returned almost to the levels we saw before the divorce revolution kicked in
during the 1970s. Nevertheless, family instability is on the rise for
American children as a whole. This is mainly because more couples are having
children in cohabiting unions, which are very unstable. This report also
indicates that children in cohabiting households are more likely to suffer
from a range of emotional and social problems—drug use, depression, and
dropping out of high school—compared to children in intact, married
families."
Major findings of the report include:
Divorces involving children have largely returned to pre-Divorce
Revolution levels. Specifically, about 23% of children whose parents married
in the early 1960s divorced by the time the children turned 10. More
recently, slightly more than 23% of children whose parents married in 1997
divorced by the time the kids turned 10.
Family instability for U.S. children overall continues to increase. The
data shows that 66% of 16-year-olds were living with both parents in the
early 1980s, compared to just 55% of 16-year-olds in the early 2000s. This
shift is due to more children being born outside of marriage—especially to
cohabiting couples—and the fact that these non-marital unions are overall
much less stable.
Cohabitation is playing a growing role in children's lives. Children are
now more likely to be exposed to a cohabiting union than to a parental
divorce. The report indicates that 24% of kids born to married parents will
see their parents divorce or separate by age 12, while 42% of kids will
experience a parental cohabitation by age 12.
Children born to cohabiting unions are much more likely to experience a
parental breakup compared to children born to married couples. In the U.S.,
the report finds that the breakup rate is 170% higher for children born to
cohabiting couples up to age 12. Even in Sweden, children born to cohabiting
couples are 70% more likely to see parents separate by age 15, compared to
children born to married parents.
Not only is cohabitation less stable, it is more dangerous for children.
Federal data shows that children are at least three times more likely to be
physically, sexually, or emotionally abused in cohabiting households,
compared to children in intact, biological married parent homes. They are
also significantly more likely to experience delinquency, drug use, and
school failure.
Based on the new data now available, the authors of Why Marriage Matters
offer three conclusions regarding marriage and families in America today:
The intact, biological, married family remains the Gold Standard for
family life in the United States. Children are most likely to thrive,
economically, socially, and psychologically, in this family form.
Marriage is an important public good, associated with a range of
economic, health, educational, and safety benefits that help local, state,
and federal governments serve the common good.
The benefits of marriage extend to poor, working class, and minority
communities, despite the fact that marriage has weakened in these
communities in the last four decades. |
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