February 25, 2002
Researchers say marriage makes you happier, healthier & wealthier
___ Continued from page 1
___ Divorce and unmarried childbearing increase poverty for both children and mothers.
___"The effects of family structure on poverty remain powerful, even after controlling for race and family background," the report summarizes. "Changes in family structure are an important cause of new entries into poverty ... . Child poverty rates are very high primarily because of the growth of single-parent families. When parents fail to marry and stay married, children are more likely to experience deep and persistent poverty, even after controlling for race and family background."
___ Married couples seem to build more wealth on average than singles or cohabiting couples.
___"The economic advantages of marriage stem from more than just access to two incomes," the researchers explain. "Marriage partners appear to build more wealth for some of the same reasons that partnerships in general are economically efficient, including economies of scale and specialization and exchange."
___ Married men earn more money than do single men with similar education and job histories.
___"A large body of research, both in the United States and other developed countries, finds that married men earn between 10 and 40 percent more than do single men with similar education and job histories. ... The causes are not entirely understood, but married men appear to have greater work commitment, lower quit rates, and healthier and more stable personal routines (including sleep, diet and alcohol consumption)."
___ Parental divorce (or failure to marry) appears to increase children's risk of school failure.
___"Children of divorced or unwed parents have lower grades and other measures of academic achievement, are more likely to be held back and are more likely to drop out of high school," the study notes. "Children whose parents divorce end up with significantly lower levels of education than do children in single-mother families created by the death of the father. Children whose parents remarry do no better, on average, than do children who live with single mothers."
___ Children who live with their own two married parents enjoy better physical health, on average, than do children in other family forms.
___"Longitudinal research suggests that parental divorce increases the incidence of health problems in children," the study explains. "The health advantages of married homes remain, even after taking socioeconomic status into account. The health disadvantages associated with being raised outside of intact marriages persist long into adulthood."
___ Marriage is associated with reduced rates of alcohol and substance abuse for both adults and teens.
___"Young adults who marry tend to reduce their rates of alcohol consumption and illegal drug use. Children whose parents marry and stay married also have lower rates of substance abuse, even after controlling for family background."
___ Married people, especially married men, have longer life expectancies than do otherwise similar singles.
___"In most developed countries, middle-aged single, divorced or widowed men are about twice as likely to die as married men, and non-married women face risks about one and a half times as great as those faced by married women."
___ Marriage is associated with better health and lower rates of injury, illness and disability for both men and women.
___"Married people appear to manage illness better, monitor each other's health, have higher incomes and wealth and adopt healthier lifestyles than do otherwise similar singles," the researchers explain.
___ Children whose parents divorce have higher rates of psychological distress and mental illness.
___"Divorce typically causes children considerable emotional distress and increases the risk of serious mental illness," the study details. "These mental health risks do not dissipate soon after the divorce. Instead, children of divorce remain at higher risk for depression and other mental illness, in part because of reduced education attainment, increased risk of divorce, marital problems and economic hardship."
___ Divorce appears significantly to increase the risk of suicide.
___"Divorced men and women are more than twice as likely as their married counterparts to attempt suicide. ... In the last half-century, suicide rates among teens and young adults have tripled. The single 'most important explanatory variable,' according to one new study, 'is the increased share of youths living in homes with a divorced parent.'"
___ Boys raised in single-parent families are more likely to engage in delinquent and criminal behavior.
___"Teens in one-parent families are on average less attached to their parents' opinions and more attached to their peer groups. Combined with lower levels of parental supervision, these attitudes appear to set the stage for delinquent behavior," the researchers report, adding boys raised in single-parent homes are about twice as likely as other boys to be incarcerated by their early 30s.
___ Married women appear to have a lower risk of experiencing domestic violence than do cohabiting or dating women.
___"While young women must recognize that marriage is not a good strategy for reforming violent men, a large body of research shows that being unmarried, and especially living with a man outside of marriage, is associated with an increased risk of domestic abuse," the study explains. "Overall, as one scholar sums up the relevant research, 'Regardless of methodology, the studies yielded similar results: Cohabitors engage in more violence than do spouses.'"
___ A child who is not living with his or her own two married parents is at greater risk of child abuse.
___"Children living with single mothers, stepfathers or mother's boyfriends are more likely to become victims of child abuse. Children living in single-mother homes have increased rates of death from intentional injuries. As Martin Daly and Margo Wilson report, 'Living with a stepparent has turned out to be the most powerful predictor of severe child abuse yet.'"
___The complete report, "Why Marriage Matters," is available at www.americanvalues.org.
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