Why marriage matters
Based on a survey of over 250
peer-reviewed journal articles on marriage and family life from around the
world, a team of 18 leading American family scholars chaired by Professor W
Bradford Wilcox of the University of Virginia has drawn 30 conclusions about
the positive benefits associated with marriage under five headings.
Each of the conclusions is substantiated in the report and 20 pages of
supporting references can be downloaded from the website of the Institute of
American Values.
Here is a snapshot of the conclusions:
Family
1. Marriage increases the likelihood that fathers and mothers have good
relationships with their children.
2. Children are most likely to enjoy family stability when they are born into a
married family.
3. Children are less likely to thrive in complex households.
4. Cohabitiation is not the functional equivalent of marriage.
5. Growing up outside an intact marriage increases the likelihood that children
will themselves divorce or become unwed parents.
6. Marriage is a virtually universal human institution.
7. Marriage, and a normative commitment to marriage, foster high-quality
relationships between adults, as well as between parents and children.
8. Marriage has important biosocial consequences for adults and children.
Economics
9. Divorce and unmarried childbearing increase poverty for both children and
mothers, cohabitation is less likely to alleviate poverty than is marriage.
10. Married couples seem to build more wealth on average than singles or
cohabiting couples.
11. Marriage reduces poverty and material hardship for disadvantaged women and
their children.
12. Minorities benefit economically from marriage also.
13. Married men earn more money than do single men with similar education and
job histories.
14. Parental divorce (or failure to marry) appears to increase children’s risk
of school failure.
15. Parental divorce reduces the likelihood that children will graduate from
college and achieve high-status jobs.
Physical Health and
Longevity
16. Children who live with their own two married parents enjoy better physical
health, on average, than do children in other family forms.
17. Parental marriage is associated with a sharply lower risk of infant
mortality.
18. Marriage is associated with reduced rates of alcohol and substance abuse
for both adults and teens.
19. Married people, especially married men, have longer life expectancies than
do otherwise similar singles.
20. Marriage is associated with better health and lower rates of injury,
illness, and disability for both men and women.
21. Marriage seems to be associated with better health among minorities and the
poor.
Mental Health and
Emotional Well-Being
22. Children whose parents divorce have higher rates of psychological distress
and mental illness.
23. Cohabitation is associated with higher levels of psychological problems
among children.
24. Family breakdown appears to increase significantly the risk of suicide.
25. Married mothers have lower rates of depression than do single or
cohabiting.
Crime and Domestic
Violence
26. Boys raised in non-intact families are more likely to engage in delinquent
and criminal behaviour.
27. Marriage appears to reduce the risk that adults will be either perpetrators
or victims of crime.
28. Married women appear to have a lower risk of experiencing domestic violence
than do cohabiting or dating women.
29. A child who is not living with his or her own two married parents is at
greater risk of child abuse.
30. There is a growing marriage gap between college-educated Americans and
less-educated Americans.
· Why Marriage Matters:
Thirty conclusions from the social sciences, Institute for American Values and
National Marriage Project, 2011.
http://www.americanvalues.org/wmm/