BREAKING UP IS HARD ON YOU
A LOOK AT THE EFFECTS OF DIVORCE
The Alabama Policy Institute (API) is an independent, non-profit research and education organization
that is issue-centered and solution-oriented. We provide in-depth research and analysis of Alabama’s
public policy issues to impact policy decisions and deepen Alabama citizens’ understanding of and
appreciation for sound economic, social and governing principles.
Since 1989, API has been on the front lines of critical public debates, helping Alabama citizens,
lawmakers and business leaders better understand and apply principles that maximize individual
freedom, limit government interference and encourage personal responsibility. The Alabama Policy
Institute is the largest free-market, solution-based policy research center in Alabama.
Breaking Up is Hard on You
A Look at the Effects of Divorce
by Dr. John R. Hill
Copyright 2010 by the Alabama Policy Institute, Birmingham, Alabama
Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the
Alabama Policy Institute and the author are properly cited.
For additional copies, please contact:
Alabama Policy Institute
402 Office Park Drive
Suite 300
Birmingham, AL 35223
205.870.9900
[email protected]
Introduction
Divorce continues to play a significant and negative role in the collapse of American
families. Over the past decade, the amount of research on the effects of divorce in the United
States and elsewhere has multiplied several-fold. This survey of the literature is an attempt to
summarize some of the most recent and relevant research on divorce and its effects.
The overwhelming majority of research conducted on the effects of divorce in America
and abroad shows an indisputable association between the disruption of families and negative
outcomes for both the divorcees and any children that may be involved. Paul Amato’s landmark
meta-analyses of the effects of divorce on children in 1991 and 2001, for example, found
“significant gaps between the children of divorce and those in intact families in the areas of
academic achievement and outcomes, conduct, psychological adjustment, self-concept, and
social relations.”1 Similar harmful results have been found for the divorcees themselves: they
tend to lead less healthy lifestyles; have lower levels of happiness and higher levels of selfreported depression; have fewer economic resources; are more likely to be the victims of crime
than either married adults or those from other single households; and, should they remarry, tend
to have another poor marital relationship that likely ends in divorce as well.2
What has been absent from many of these earlier studies, though, has been any proof of
causal links between divorce and its supposed effects. Because no divorce occurs in a vacuum, a
variety of other factors may intervene, masking or even nullifying the effects of the divorce
itself. Many studies have attempted to control for these confounding variables; nevertheless,
those which have simply looked at divorcees, their children, or both, before and after their
families were disrupted, or compared them to a control group of intact families cannot show
cause, only difference based on correlations or associations.
This report examines some of the most recent articles regarding divorce effects as they
have attempted to establish causal relationships between family disruption and the negative
outcomes with which they are traditionally associated. In this report, though, new attention is
1
Paul R. Amato and Bruce Keith, Parental divorce and the well-being of children: A meta-analysis.
Psychological Bulletin, 110.1 (July 1991): 26-46; and Paul R. Amato, Children of divorce in the 1990s: An
update of the Amato and Keith (1991) meta-analysis. Journal of Family Psychology, 15.3 (September
2001): 355-370.
2
For reviews of the literature on the effects of divorce on adults, see Paul R. Amato, The consequences
of divorce for adults and children. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62.4 (November 2000): 1269-1287;
and Robert H. Coombs, Marital status and personal well-being: A literature review. Family Relations, 40.1
(January 1991): 97-102.
-1-
given to the decades before the marriage “heydays” of the 1950s. State-specific data are also
provided to show Alabama’s place in the national picture of marriage and divorce. Several
explanations for the current state of divorce are also given by Linda Waite and Maggie
Gallagher. Second, the effects of divorce on the divorcees themselves are examined, particularly
in the areas of health, psychological well-being and happiness, economic viability, and personal
safety. The third and longest section of this report relates to the effects of divorce on children.
Finally, an appendix is provided to describe the relationship between divorce in the
United States and the growing phenomenon of premarital cohabitation.
-2-
The Demographics of Marriage and Divorce
Divorce: A Brief History and National Trends
Interestingly, the modern pattern of divorce dates back more than 200 years to the
historically unprecedented idea that marriage should be based on love and affection, according to
family studies expert Stephanie Coontz’ 2007 article, “The Origins of Modern Divorce.”3 In her
words:
The reasons for divorce were different through much of the past because the reasons for
marriage were different. For thousands of years, marriage was not contracted for the
individual fulfillment and mutual benefit of the man and woman and their children.
People married to acquire influential in-laws, effect business mergers, raise capital,
improve their social status, seal military alliances, or expand their family labor force.
Romantic love was not unknown in the past, but it was not closely linked to
marriage….Most societies through the ages discouraged people from marrying for such a
fragile and self-indulgent reason as love.
Even in cultures in which couples were encouraged to cultivate love after
marriage, they seldom put all their emotional eggs and personal loyalties in that single
basket. In 17th Century Europe and America, Protestant and Catholic theologians advised
couples to marry someone whom they could learn to love and warned that even after
marriage, too much love was a form of idolatry that should be avoided….They censured
wives who used endearing nicknames for their husbands because such intimacy tended to
interfere with the authority relations that were central to a proper marriage.4
According to Coontz, the idea that romantic love had a place in helping someone choose
a spouse received widespread acceptance only at the time of the Enlightenment and the ensuing
French and American Revolutions. The notion that individuals had rights to self-determination,
though, prompted swift condemnation from traditionalists. How could the state or society
compel persons to marry or remain married if they claimed there was no love between them?
What if poor people married?
3
4
Stephanie Coontz, The origins of modern divorce. Family Process, 46.1 (February 2007): 7-16.
Ibid, 8.
-3-
Alas, the “damage” of the importance of love in a marriage was done. By the mid-19th
Century, divorce laws began to be liberalized to include cruelty and excessive drunkenness.
Even then, though, divorce rates in the late 1800s were only a shadow of their current levels,
rising above the 1 divorce per 1,000 population level as recently as 1916 (see Figure 1).
By World War I, men and women had come to expect love and intimacy in their
marriages. Ironically, these higher expectations often led to disappointments, and in some cases,
divorce court. The Great Depression cooled demand for divorces, but desertion rates from
marriage increased. World War II witnessed a spike in marriage rates at its outset (1941-1942)
and the highest rate in American history at its end (16.4 per 1,000 population in 1946). The
national divorce rate in 1946 also reached its highest level since before the Civil War (4.3
divorces per 1,000 population).
By the 1950s, both the national marriage and divorce rates had returned to pre-war levels,
and the age of first marriage reached lows not seen in the West for hundreds of years, leading
some family scholars to conclude that a “golden age” of marital stability had been achieved.
Unfortunately, the marital peace of the 1950s was broken in the 1960s as the popularization of
personal and sexual fulfillment reached new heights. As Coontz notes:
During the unprecedented prosperity of the 1950s, men and women tried to meet those
“higher order needs” at home, looking for fulfillment and high-quality relationships in
their assigned gender roles of breadwinner and homemaker/mother. But when marriage
did not meet their heightened expectations, their discontent grew proportionately. The
more people hoped to achieve personal fulfillment within marriage, the more critical they
became of “empty” or unsatisfying relationships.5
It is ironic, Coontz notes, that the efforts to elevate the importance of marriage as a loving,
romantic relationship have also been the very reasons for wanting to divorce when expectations
(which are now very high) are not met.6
Also in 2007, University of Pennsylvania business professors Betsey Stevenson and
Justin Wolfers examined trends in the marriage and divorce rates of the United States over the
past 150 years. In the 1960s, they note that numerous social and economic changes altered both
5
6
Ibid, 13.
Ibid, 8.
-4-
family life and family structure: the advent of no-fault divorce; the women’s liberation
movement; the sexual revolution and birth control; the legalization of interracial marriages; and a
sharp increase in the percentage of women in the labor force. These factors, and perhaps others,
led to the highest marriage and divorce rates since immediately after World War II, peaking
between 1979 and 1981. Since then, though, both rates have returned to lower levels not seen
since the late 1960s.7
Figure 1: Marriage and Divorce Rates in the United States, 1860-2007
20
Rate per 1,000 Population
15
10
5
0
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
Marriages
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
Divorces
Figure 2 shows the trends in divorce by the decade in which the marriage was formed.
According to this data, the divorce rate of marriages formed in the 1990s appears to be following
the trajectory of marriages formed in the 1980s. Both of these cohorts, though, appear to be
trending somewhat lower than the marriages formed in the 1970s, when 48 percent dissolved
7
Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, Marriage and divorce: Changes and their driving forces. IZA
Discussion Paper No. 2602 (February 2007): 2-3.
-5-
within 25 years. While these newer data suggest a slight cooling in the national divorce rate,
their rate remains substantially higher than those marriages formed in the 1950s and 1960s.8
Figure 2: First Marriages Ending in Divorce, by Year of Marriage
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
0
5
10
1950-59
15
1960-69
1970-79
1980-89
20
25
1990-99
While couples in America continue to marry, they are doing so later in life than any
generation before them. Between 1950 and 1968, the median age for a male to enter his first
marriage hovered between 22 and 23 years (see Figure 3). The median age for first marriage for
females was rising, but only at the glacial pace of one year for every 42 calendar years.
Since 1969, though—the year California became the first state to legalize no-fault
divorce—the median age of first marriage for males has risen from 23.2 years to 27.4 years. In
the same way, the median age of first marriage for females rose from 20.8 years to 25.6 years.
There have been other periods in American history when couples waited longer to marry. In
8
Ibid, 3-4.
-6-
1900, for example, the average age of first marriage was 25.9 for males and 21.9 for females.
The divorce rate for the same period, though, was only 0.7 divorces per 1,000 persons.9
Figure 3: Estimated Median Age at First Marriage, by Sex: 1950-2008
29
27
25
23
21
19
17
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
Men
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
Women
Research published in 2006 shows that the increased age at which couples marry is
directly related to the advent of no-fault divorce legislation. After looking at approximately six
million marriage records from 1970 to 1995 at the National Center for Health Statistics,
researchers from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and the University of Hong Kong
found that women in states with no-fault divorce legislation tended to marry up to seven months
later than those in states with fault-based legislation, while men in no-fault states married
between one and five months later, with an average for both sexes at between one and two
9
U.S. Census Bureau, Estimated Median Age at First Marriage, by Sex: 1890 to Present (January 2009).
Available at www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/ms2.xls. Access verified April 27, 2009.
-7-
months. While a few months might not sound like much when compared to a lifetime, the
authors note that one of the “costs” of no-fault divorce has been staying single longer and having
a slightly shorter life as a married couple.10
Skepticism about the permanence of marriage may be part of the reason couples are
delaying the decision to marry. In fact, it has been suggested that mature adults choosing to
delay marriage may be the most important variable for keeping divorce rates as low as they are.11
Part of the explanation for the fall in both marriage and divorce rates can be found in the
growing number of adults who are choosing to cohabit, regardless of whether the individuals in
the cohabiting relationship choose to marry. Likewise, if the age of first marriage continues to
rise, many individuals may choose not to marry at all.
Stevenson and Wolfers also note that another consequence of an older marriage market is
the declining role of fertility and childrearing in married life:
In 1880, 75 percent of married people lived in a household in which their own children
were present. That proportion has fallen steadily over the past 125 years, and by 2005
only 41 percent of married people had their own children present in their household. This
dramatic shift reflects the confluence of many factors, including declining fertility,
increased longevity, increasing rates of marriage at later, post-childbearing ages, rising
non-marital births, and rising divorce.12
Marriage and Divorce Trends in Alabama
Figure 4 compares the marriage and divorce rates of Alabama and the United States since
1945.13 Since the end of World War II, the trajectory of Alabama’s marriage rate has roughly
paralleled that of the national average, albeit about 10 percent higher, and dipping below it only
10
Douglas A. Allen, Krishna Pendakur, and Wing Suen, No-fault divorce and the compression of marriage
ages. Economic Inquiry, 44.3 (2006): 547-558.
11
Tim B. Heaton, Factors contributing to increasing marital stability in the United States. Journal of Family
Issues, 23 (2002): 406.
12
Stevenson and Wolfers, 6.
13
Alabama Department of Public Health, Center for Health Statistics, Alabama Vital Statistics: 2007
(Montgomery, AL, October 2008): 78. Available at www.adph.org/healthstats/assets/divtable82avs06.pdf.
Access verified April 27, 2009.
-8-
during 1948-1958. At present, Alabama’s marriage rate of 9.0 is down a third since 1970 but
still 23 percent higher than the national average.14
Figure 4: Marriage and Divorce Rates per 1,000 Population, Alabama and the U.S., 1945-2007
20
Rate per 1,000 Population
15
10
5
0
1945
1950
1955
1960
1965
Alabama Marriages
1970
1975
US Marriages
1980
1985
1990
Alabama Divorces
1995
2000
2005
2010
US Divorces
As with marriage, Alabama’s divorce rate is also above the national average, where it has
been for more than 60 years. In 2007, 21,255 divorces were granted in Alabama, down from
22,867 in 2006. More than 96 percent of these divorces were on the grounds of incompatibility
or irretrievable breakdown, also known as “no-fault divorce.”15
14
State marriage numbers from B. Tejada-Vera and P.D. Sutton, Births, marriages, divorces, and deaths:
Provisional data for April 2008. National Vital Statistics Reports; 57, February 6, 2009 (Hyattsville, MD:
National Center for Health Statistics). Available at www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_21.pdf.
Access verified April 27, 2009. State marriage rates from Division of Vital Statistics, National Center for
Health Statistics, Marriage rates by State: 1990, 1995, and 2000-2007. Available at
www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/Marriage%20Rates%2090%2095%20and%2099-07.pdf. Access verified
June 30, 2009.
15
Ibid, 85.
-9-
No-Fault Divorce: A Brief History
As Simon Fraser University economics professor Douglas Allen notes, “Just as there are
conditions to be satisfied to get married, there have always been conditions under which a
marriage may legally end.”16 According to British common law, the earliest grounds for divorce
were fault-based; that is, one or both spouses committed some act or acts that were serious
enough to be grounds for legally dissolving the marriage.
Incompatibility as a legal ground for divorce was first allowed in California in 1969,
when then-governor Ronald Reagan signed into law the nation’s first no-fault divorce legislation.
Within the next decade, almost every state in the Union, as well as many Western nations, had
adopted some form of no-fault divorce.
Proponents of no-fault divorce expected one of its benefits would be the allowing of
couples in loveless marriages to end their relationship at a lower cost than they would have in a
fault-based divorce. Historically, some couples had resorted to mutually fabricating a “fault”
that would be sufficient grounds for divorce. Likewise, the costs of fault-based divorce included
lengthy, expensive court battles to determine property rights, child custody, and so forth.
A second anticipated benefit of no-fault divorce was its unilateral nature. A spouse in an
abusive relationship, for example, could leave the marriage quickly, escaping further harm.
Allen notes, though, that “the unilateral character of no-fault rules means that someone might
leave a marriage because it makes them better off, even if the rest of the family is made worse
off.”17
No-Fault Divorce in Alabama
Alabama followed California’s lead less than two years later on August 11, 1971, making
it one of the first states to adopt no-fault divorce legislation.18 By 1985, every state had adopted
some form of no-fault legislation or added it to their existing laws.19
As the number of states adopting no-fault divorce legislation grew, so did the number of
couples using no-fault as grounds for divorce. Within five years, the percentage of no-fault
16
Douglas W. Allen, Do no-fault divorce laws matter? A survey: 1995-2006. Unpublished manuscript,
Simon Fraser University, February 2006: 2.
17
Ibid, 3.
18
Birmingham News, August 11, 1971: A-1.
19
Herbert Jacob, Silent Revolution: The transformation of divorce law in the United States (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1988): 80.
- 10 -
divorces filed in Alabama rose from less than 11 percent in 1971 to 90 percent in 1976.20 At
present, Alabama offers 12 legal grounds for divorce, including abandonment, adultery, bigamy,
fraud, and cruelty or violence.21 Still, the popularity of incompatibility as grounds for divorce is
so great that it has virtually replaced all other legal grounds for divorce since its inception.
As no-fault divorce legislation began to pass in states across the nation in the late 1960s,
Alabama’s divorce rate—which was already about 60 percent above the national average from
1960-1969—climbed further. Since 1970—the year before no-fault divorce was legalized in
Alabama—the state’s divorce rate jumped by 56 percent to 6.6 divorces per 1,000 population in
1979 before settling to 4.6 in 2007. In 2007, the state’s divorce rate was 27 percent higher than
the national average, and only seven states rank the same or higher than Alabama (see Table 1).22
Nevertheless, Alabama’s divorce rate ranking has slowly improved in the past decade; as
recently as 2002, for example, Alabama’s divorce rate was the fourth highest in the nation.
Despite its position in the heart of the Bible Belt, Alabama’s religious roots have had
little impact on suppressing its divorce rate. While the South remains the most religious part of
the nation, both in terms of religious affiliation and attendance, the influence of religion on its
divorce rate, though, is dubious; while the 16 traditional Southern states which span from Texas
to Maryland contain 40 percent of the nation’s population, they reported almost 50 percent of the
nation’s divorces in 2007. In fact, if the Southern states were removed from the national divorce
picture, the national divorce rate would be only 2.0, versus the current rate of 3.6 per 1,000
population.23
20
Alabama Department of Public Health, Center for Health Statistics, Alabama Vital Events 1992
(Montgomery, AL, 1993).
21
Rick Fernambucq and Gary Pate, Family Law in Alabama: Practice and Procedure (Charlottesville, VA:
Michie, 1990): 44-58.
22
Division of Vital Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics, Divorce Rates by State: 1990, 1995,
and 2000-2007. Available at
www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/Divorce%20Rates%2090%2095%20and%2099-07.pdf. Access verified
June 30, 2009.
23
Several states do not report their divorce data. The calculation of a national divorce rate without these
states assumes that (1) the divorce rates in the Southern states of Georgia and Louisiana would be at
least 3.6, and (2) the divorce rates in California, Hawaii, Indiana, and Minnesota would be below 3.6.
- 11 -
Table 1: Marriage and Divorce Rates by State, 2007
United States*
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Isla nd
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washingto n
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Marriages
2,203,844
41,622
5,774
39,495
33,741
225,832
29,206
17,328
4,749
2,143
157,610
64,034
27,316
15,373
75,292
51,219
20,061
18,564
33,598
32,787
10,095
35,549
38,402
59,084
29,803
15,729
39,417
7,126
12,417
126,354
9,364
45,435
11,229
130,584
68,131
4,211
70,905
26,243
29,351
71,094
6,761
31,378
6,169
65,551
179,904
22,640
5,346
57,982
41,766
12,999
32,234
4,847
Marriage Rate (per
1,000 persons)
7.3
9.0
8.5
6.2
12.1
6.2
7.0
5.6
5.7
4.1
8.5
6.7
21.3
10.0
6.0
7.0
6.7
6.9
7.9
7.6
7.5
6.5
5.9
5.7
5.8
5.4
6.9
7.6
6.9
49.3
7.1
5.4
5.7
6.7
7.1
6.7
6.2
7.3
7.1
5.7
6.4
7.9
7.7
10.1
7.4
9.5
8.6
7.6
6.4
7.3
5.7
9.2
Rank
-8
10
37
3
37
25
48
43
51
10
30
2
5
40
25
30
27
12
15
18
34
41
43
42
49
27
15
27
1
22
49
43
30
22
30
37
20
22
43
35
12
14
4
19
6
9
15
35
20
43
7
Divorces
868 ,426
21 ,255
2 ,953
24 ,515
16 ,793
-21 ,178
10 ,714
3 ,858
962
86 ,367
--7 ,372
32 ,819
-7 ,770
9 ,157
19 ,677
-5 ,897
17 ,374
14 ,507
35 ,450
-14 ,164
22 ,377
3 ,553
5 ,500
16 ,593
5 ,070
25 ,687
8 ,434
55 ,943
37 ,412
1 ,527
37 ,858
18 ,750
14 ,844
35 ,268
2 ,981
14 ,357
2 ,432
29 ,868
79 ,469
8 ,889
2 ,364
29 ,542
28 ,925
9 ,026
16 ,090
2 ,885
Divorce Rate (per
1,000 persons)
3.6
4.6
4.2
3.9
5.9
-4.4
3.2
3.7
1.7
4.6
--4.9
2.6
-2.6
3.4
3.4
-4.3
3.0
2.3
3.4
-4.5
3.8
4.1
3.5
6.5
3.8
3.0
4.3
2.9
4.0
3.0
3.4
5.2
3.9
2.9
2.8
3.0
3.1
4.3
3.3
3.6
3.6
3.8
4.0
5.1
2.9
5.0
Note: Divorce data was not available from California, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana, and Minnesota.
- 12 -
Rank
-7
14
18
2
-10
32
23
45
7
--6
42
-42
27
27
-11
34
44
27
-9
20
15
26
1
20
34
11
38
16
34
27
3
18
38
41
34
33
11
31
24
24
20
16
4
38
5
Explaining the Trends in Divorce
Several studies have used economic theory as a means to examine the effects of
introducing no-fault divorce legislation on divorce rates. The most famous of these was
published in 1998 by University of Virginia economics professor Leora Friedberg, which used
sophisticated economic models to examine the effects of no-fault legislation on every divorce in
the United States from 1968 to 1988. She found that, had no-fault divorce legislation not been
introduced, the national divorce rate would have been six percent lower in 1988. Moreover, “the
move toward unilateral divorce accounted for 17 percent of the increase in divorce rates between
1968 and 1988.”24 Nevertheless, Friedberg notes that “unobserved covariates and unobservable
divorce propensities – which may include, for instance, social attitudes, religious beliefs, and
family size – are the main determinants of divorce.”25
The importance of the environment in which no-fault legislation is placed is also seen in
the work of Justin Wolfers, University of Pennsylvania associate professor of business and
public policy. In 2006, Wolfers’ research on divorce effects found that the advent of no-fault
divorce led to a spike in divorces for about a decade after it was adopted by each state.
Afterwards, though, the effects of the presence of these laws diminish to the point of
insignificance. Wolfers notes that the effects of no-fault divorce legislation are dependent on
one’s marriage environment.26
There is no doubt that well-intentioned, but poorly conceived no-fault divorce legislation
has substantially altered the picture of the traditional American family. To pin the blame solely
on bad legislation, though, is to overlook a variety of societal, governmental and technological
changes that have affected the structure and necessity of the modern family.
In their book, The Case for Marriage, Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher note that many
of the causes for the upsurge in less stable families are long-standing, irreversible, and not
altogether bad. For example, it has been about a century since American families were primarily
agrarian and shared the responsibilities of survival on the family farm. Instead of fetching eggs
and milk in the barn, we go to the local big-box supermarket; instead of having scores of children
24
Leora Friedberg, Did unilateral divorce raise divorce rates? Evidence from panel data. The American
Economic Review, 88.3 (June 1998): 608-627.
25
Ibid, 616.
26
Justin Wolfers, Did unilateral divorce laws raise divorce rates? A reconciliation and new results.
American Economic Review, 96.5 (2006): 1802-1820.
- 13 -
to help with the chores of rural living and to take care of us when we are old, we have
technology to simplify our work, and insurance policies, retirement plans, and welfare programs
that enable us to be more self-sufficient in our gray years. Whereas today’s one-parent homes
often face tremendous challenges to provide for their families, their access to child care,
employment, and social services make single-parent living much easier than what it was only a
few decades ago. While these market-created changes have made marriage less necessary, Waite
and Gallagher note that few of us would want to return to a time when sanitation, electricity, and
public education were not available.27
Nevertheless, Waite and Gallagher identify three causes of America’s divorce surge that,
if given the desire to change them, are reversible: the federal government’s equalizing of
unmarried households with married ones, and the ensuing marriage penalties for the poor; the
“privatizing” of marriages; and the emergence of family lawyers and no-fault divorce law. The
first of these, granting the same status to both unmarried and married households by the federal
government, began in the 1960s. In addition to the creation of federal laws granting equal access
to housing for households regardless of marital status, other legislation created during the War
on Poverty placed significant marriage penalties on poor and working-class families.28
As attitudes toward the acceptability of divorce and alternative families liberalized,
decisions about the importance of intact marriages privatized. Instead of taking marital concerns
to family members, trusted friends, or the church, therapists became the new judges of marriage
outcomes. Behind their doors, many couples learned that their decision to remain married was not
only a private decision, but an individual one governed ultimately by one’s desire to be happy.29
Finally, Waite and Gallagher identify family lawyers and their offspring, no-fault divorce
legislation, as tandem influences on America’s divorce epidemic. In their words: “Family
lawyers on the front lines of the divorce courts felt otherwise, and bar associations quietly
lobbied state legislatures for changes that would make divorce a cleaner, faster, and less
judgmental legal process.”30 Because of their success, marriage vows are no longer enforceable.
Another way our market economy has transformed marriage for the worse is through
increased economic equality between husbands and wives. According to sociologist Stacy
27
Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage (New York: Broadway, 2000): 174-175.
Ibid, 174-185.
29
Ibid, 176-177.
30
Ibid, 178.
28
- 14 -
Rogers of Pennsylvania State University, a strong economic determinant of divorce is the degree
of parity in wage earning by husbands and wives. Using 18 years of data from a random
selection of adults, Rogers found that while increases in a husband’s income led to lower odds of
divorce, similar increases in a wife’s income increased the annual odds of divorce by 2.5 to three
percent. She notes that, when couples earn roughly the same for their family, they become less
interdependent and tend to see their relationship as more of a sharing of power than one of
interdependence.31
Divorce Effects on Adults
Ideally, marriage is a complete investment of the self in another for life. It symbolizes
the highest degree of interdependency, maturity, intimacy, and devotion two individuals can
share. Divorces are for life, too. Although the mechanics of divorce have been simplified with
the nationwide adoption of no-fault divorce laws, the consequences of ending a marriage remain
severe for both children and their parents and can last a lifetime.
Divorce and Fidelity
Married couples have higher levels of fidelity than their counterparts who are single or
single again. According to survey data collected in 2002 of more than 12,000 persons between
the ages of 15 and 44 and published in 2005 by the National Center for Health Statistics, only 4.5
percent of married men and 3.8 percent of married women reported having engaged in sexual
relations with more than one person in the previous year. In contrast, 30.5 percent of nevermarried males and 24 percent of never-married females reported the same, as did 15.6 percent of
cohabiting men and 15.2 percent of cohabiting women. Divorced persons reported the highest
percentage of multiple sex partners (33.6 percent of men and 29.3 percent of women).32
The Psychological Effects of Divorce
A large (and growing) body of literature exists regarding the psychological damage
divorce causes on adults. According to a study conducted by researchers at the University of
31
Stacy J. Rogers, Dollars, dependency, and divorce: Four perspectives on the role of wives’ income.
Journal of Marriage and Family, 66 (2004): 59-74.
32
National Center for Health Statistics, Sexual behavior and selected health measures: Men and women
15-44 years of age, United States, 2002. Advance Data, Number 362, September 15, 2005.
- 15 -
Melbourne and published in 2004, marriage plays a significant role in the well-being of married
men and women. Using data from the International Social Science Surveys/Australia (IsssA)
and the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia panel survey, Wave 1, the
researcher found that respondents with the highest level of life satisfaction were married men and
women (73 out of 100), followed by singles or never-married persons (67). At the bottom were
divorced and separated Australians (63). The differences between all three levels were
statistically significant, and remained significant even after controlling for demographic
variables such as age, sex, and family background. The researchers concluded that being
married raises life satisfaction by an average of four points, while divorce without remarriage or
long-term cohabitation reduced life satisfaction by four to 12 percent.33
In 2005, similar research in Germany examined the self-reported life satisfaction levels of
30,000 Germans over the course of 18 years. As divorce approached, life satisfaction fell
significantly, then slowly rebounded afterwards. However, while life satisfaction for divorcees
steadily rose, it never returned to pre-divorce levels. The same study also found that those who
tend to divorce report lower levels of happiness than those who remain married, even before
either group marries.34
Divorce and Depression. According to data collected from 1987 to 1994 from a random
sample of adults who were married in 1987-1988, sociologist Kei Nomaguchi of Northern
Illinois University found that “except for black men, those who were separated/divorced [in
1993-1994] reported significantly higher levels of depression than those who remained married,”
with women being particularly more vulnerable to depression than men.35
A similar study published in 2006 by a group of epidemiologists at the University of
Manitoba found that never-married mothers and those who either separated or divorced had
significantly higher levels of psychological problems than those who were married. In the words
of the report: “Separated/divorced mothers had the highest frequencies of depression, dysthymia,
General Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and alcohol abuse ... [while]… never-married and
33
M. D. R. Evans and Jonathan Kelley, Effect of family structure on life satisfaction: Australian evidence.
Social Indicators Research, 69 (December 2004): 303-349.
34
Richard E. Lucas, Time does not heal all wounds: A longitudinal study of reaction and adaptation to
divorce. Psychological Science, 16.12 (2005): 945-950.
35
Kei M. Nomaguchi, Are there race and gender differences in the effect of marital dissolution on
depression? Race, Gender & Class, 12 (2005): 11-30.
- 16 -
separated/divorced mothers had equally high frequencies of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD), drug abuse, and antisocial personality disorder.”36
Economic Effects of Divorce
In the short-term, children whose parents divorce see their total household income drop
significantly. Decades of research on the impact of family structure on income have shown that
children who live in a single-parent home have lower incomes than those who live in a home
with both of their biological parents.37 In 2007, for example, the median family income for a
married couple with at least one child was $76,711, but only $24,949 for a female-headed family
with at least one child.38
Significant links between divorce and entering into poverty status have also been found.
For example, research published in 2006 by sociologists Wendy Manning and Susan Brown at
Bowling Green State University found that poverty levels for children living with biological
parents was less than eight percent, while the rate for those with cohabiting parents was 23
percent, 43 percent for single mothers, 10 percent for married stepfamilies, and 19 percent for
cohabiting stepfamilies. They also found that the same pattern applied to the likelihood of food
and housing insecurity.39
Despite their widespread use by advocates of changes in public policy to aid families, one
of the faults of this type of cross-sectional research is that it can only identify differences in
36
Tracie O. Afifi, Brian J. Cox, and Murray W. Enns, Mental health profiles among married, nevermarried, and separated/divorced mothers in a nationally representative sample. Social Psychiatry and
Psychiatric Epidemiology, 41 (2006): 122-129.
37
Suzanne Bianchi and Edith McArthur (37 percent drop), Family disruption and economic hardship: The
short-run picture for children. Current Population Reports, Household Economic Studies, Series P-70, no.
73 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, January 1991); William J. Doherty (38.4 percent drop),
The vanishing American father. In William J. O’Neill Jr. (Ed.), The First Imperative (Cleveland, OH:
William J. O’Neill Foundation, 1995): 80; Saul D. Hoffman and Greg J. Duncan (30 percent drop for
women), What are the economic consequences of divorce? Demography, 25 (1988): 641-645; Kathleen
Jost and Marilyn Robinson (26 percent drop), Children and divorce: What can be done? CQ Researcher,
(1991): 357-358; Richard Peterson (27 percent drop for women), A re-evaluation of the economic
consequences of divorce. American Sociological Review, 61 (1996): 528-536; and Nicholas Zill and
Christine W. Nord (37 percent drop), Running in Place: How American Families are Faring in a Changing
Economy and an Individualistic Society (Washington, DC: Child Trends): 14.
38
U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Table FINC-03. Presence of Related Children Under
18 Years Old-All Families by Total Money Income in 2007, Type of Family, Work Experience in 2007,
Race and Hispanic Origin of Reference Person. August 26, 2008. Available at
http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032008/faminc/new03_000.htm. Access verified June 25, 2009.
39
Wendy D. Manning and Susan Brown, Children’s economic well-being in married and cohabiting parent
families. Journal of Marriage and Family, 68 (2006): 352.
- 17 -
income, and not the extent to which the change in family structure actually caused the change in
income. Other events both before and after a divorce which are not measured by these studies
could also affect family earnings. For example, economics professors Marianne Page and Ann
Huff Stevens at the University of California-Davis note that the average income of families that
eventually divorce are lower prior to the divorce than for families that do not divorce.40
As Page and Huff note, “the causal effect of family structure on a family’s resources has
important implications for public policy.” Such studies, they state, have been the basis of a
variety of public policy projects, including marriage initiatives, “covenant marriage” contracts in
Arizona, Arkansas, and Louisiana, and the broadening of the eligibility criteria for Temporary
Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) to include two-parent families. If the effects of family
structure change are not as strong as initially believed, “the grounds for this type of targeting
may be tenuous.”41
To test the long-term changes in income before and after a divorce, Page and Stevens
used data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) at the University of Michigan,
which has collected longitudinal data on more than 9,000 families since 1968. By tracking the
families of children from birth until age 16, they found that, in the first year following a divorce,
family income falls by 41 percent and food consumption falls by 17 percent. Over the next six
years, family income and food consumption gradually increase to 21 percent and 6 percent below
pre-divorce levels, respectively. However, the average family income of the child whose parent
does not remarry is 45 percent lower than it would have been if the divorce had not occurred.
Page and Stevens conclude: “Our findings suggest that in families with children family structure
has a long-term impact on economic resources. The costs associated with growing up in singleparent families are not temporary but largely persist until a…remarriage occurs.”42
Divorcees and Crime Victimization
Depending upon the study examined, anywhere from 20 percent to 40 percent of spouses
who divorce do so to escape domestic violence.43 One of the supposed benefits of no-fault
40
Marianne E. Page and Ann Huff Stevens, The economic consequences of absent parents. The Journal
of Human Resources, 39.1 (2004): 80-107.
41
Ibid, 81.
42
Ibid, 91-94.
43
For example, see D. Ellis and N. Stuckless, Mediating and negotiating marital conflicts. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996.
- 18 -
divorce legislation is its ability to allow spouses to quickly exit relationships that are abusive or
repressive. By quickly ending the exposure of the victim spouse to the presence of the aggressor,
it has been argued that the opportunity for crimes of violence and abuse would be reduced.44
A sizable body of research conducted in the 1980s and 1990s supports this idea of
divorce acting as a “safety valve,” allowing spouses to quickly escape dangerous intimate
relationships. For example, several studies which have examined historical data have found that,
when a high divorce rate is coupled with a low marriage rate, the number of murders by intimate
partners decreases.45
On the other hand, some researchers contend that violence between spouses continues
after the divorce papers have been signed, a concept known as the “retaliation thesis.” Their
research shows that a large percentage of divorced or separated women report that they had been
abused by their former spouses, and that “[as many as] 40 percent of men claimed they had either
used or threatened violence against their former spouse.”46 Moreover, the amount of violence
between spouses—particularly male-to-female violence—may even increase after they divorce.47
To test these rival hypotheses, Lisa Stolzenburg and Stewart D’Alessio of Florida
International University analyzed crime data from 244 U.S. cities using data from the U.S.
Census Bureau and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), which collects a
variety of data about each crime incident reported to the police, including the relationship
between the victim and the offender. They found that, rather than acting as a “safety valve,” the
divorce rate “exhibits a positive and substantive effect on the ex-spouse victimization rate,” even
after controlling for income inequality and the length of “cooling off” periods for spouses prior
to divorce.48
44
Lisa Stolzenberg and Stewart J. D’Alessio, The effect of divorce on domestic crime. Crime &
Delinquency, 53.2 (April 2007): 282.
45
For example, see L. Dugan, R. Rosenfeld, and D. Nagin, Explaining the decline in intimate partner
homicide: The effects of changing domesticity, women’s status, and domestic violence resources.
Homicide Studies, 3 (1999): 187-214.
46
T. Arendall, Fathers and divorce. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995, as cited by Stolzenberg and
D’Alessio, 284.
47
As an example: “Women who were separated were 6.5 times more likely to experience violence by an
intimate partner in the past year as compared to women who were married.” Source: M. Kershner, D.
Long, and J. Anderson, Abuse against women in rural Minnesota. Public Health Nursing, 15 (1998): 422431, as cited by Stolzenberg and D’Alessio, 284.
48
Stolzenberg and D’Alessio, 296.
- 19 -
In Europe, the value of no-fault divorce legislation as an “easy out” for women in abusive
relationships has come under serious scrutiny. After interviewing 1,718 men and women who
had ever been divorced between 1949 and 1996 in the Netherlands, researchers Paul de Graaf of
Radboud University and Matthijs Kamijn of Tilburg University found that relationship
differences, such as “growing apart” and “not paying enough attention to each other” were the
most common motives for divorce. By comparison, 37 percent cited their partner’s infidelity as
grounds for divorce, 22 percent cited substance abuse, and only 16 percent named violence as a
motive. Moreover, infidelity and violence as motives for divorce, once the primary causes of
divorce in the Netherlands, fell by more than 50 percent from the 1950s to the 1990s.49
Divorce Effects on Children
As the number of divorces increased in the 1970s and 1980s, so did the number of
children involved. Stevenson and Wolfers note:
Indeed, as divorce rose in the 1960s and 1970s so too did the number of children
involved in each divorce. In the 1950s, the average divorce involved 0.78 children; by
1968 that number had risen to 1.34. However, since 1968, the average number of
children involved in each divorce has fallen dramatically, and in 1995 was 0.91, only
slightly above the 1950 average.50
While the rate of children involved per divorce has fallen since the late 1960s, the steady growth
of the nation’s population suggests that the raw number of those involved appears to be hovering
at around 1 million per year, a number that has been relatively stable since 1972.51 As a result of
separation, divorce, and widowhood, about half of all children in the United States at present
spend some time of their childhood in single-parent homes.52
49
Paul M. de Graaf and Matthijs Kalmijn, Divorce motives in a period of rising divorce: Evidence from a
Dutch life-history survey. Journal of Family Issues, 27 (2006): 483-505.
50
Ibid, 4.
51
National Center for Health Statistics, Estimated number of children involved in divorces and
annulments, average number of children per decree, and rate per 1,000 children under 18 years of age:
United States. Monthly Vital Statistics Report, various years.
52
Andrew J. Cherlin, American marriage in the twenty-first century. Future Child, 15.2 (2005): 33-55.
- 20 -
Alabama has not been immune to the effects of the national divorce epidemic. Since
1970, about 20,000 couples have divorced in Alabama every year, splitting the homes of more
than 20,000 children annually.53
Growing up without both biological parents is associated with a number of significant,
and negative, short- and long-term effects on the health, education, and behavior of children in
these homes. In the words of sociology professor Kelly Musick at the University of Southern
California and her associates:
Children raised in single-parent homes have lower levels of educational and occupational
attainment than children who grew up with both parents. They report greater substance
abuse and risk-taking behavior, such as smoking, drinking, and drug use. Spending time
with a single parent is also associated with an early age at first sex, early and nonmarital
family formation, and union dissolution.54
The extent to which this exposure affects the health, well-being, and outcomes of these
children, though, has been the subject of considerable debate. For example, most research on
family structure and child outcomes does not show causal relationships. Moreover, a variety of
other variables have been shown to influence child outcomes, including poverty, stress, and
parental practices.55 Musick et al. also note that couples who eventually divorce differ in many
ways from those who do not. For example, “couples who divorce tend to have less education,
tend to marry younger, and are more likely to have had a premarital birth than couples who
remain together.”56 Because of these and other variables, the effect of family structure on child
outcomes may be reduced.
53
Alabama Department of Public Health, Center for Health Statistics, Divorces and Annulments by
Duration of Marriage and Number of Minor Children: Alabama, 2007. In Alabama Vital Statistics 2007.
See also U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States,
various years (Washington, DC: USGPO).
54
Kelly Musick, Ann Meier, and Larry Bumpass, Influences of family structure, conflict, and change on
transitions to adulthood. California Center for Population Research Working Paper CCPR-011-06 (June
2006): 2-3.
55
For research on family structure and poverty, see A. Thomas and I. V. Sawhill, For love and money?
The impact of family structure on family income. The Future of Children, 15 (2005): 57-74; for stress, see
Lawrence L. Wu, Effects of family instability, income, and income instability on the risk of a premarital
birth. American Sociological Review, 61 (1996): 386-406; and for parenting practices, see W. G. Axinn
and A. Thornton, The influence of parents’ marital dissolutions on children’s attitudes toward family
formation. Demography, 33 (1996): 66-81.
56
Musick et al., 3.
- 21 -
In 2006, Musick et al. tested the effect of parental conflict as a mediating variable on
family structure and child outcomes. Using the most recent wave of data collected from the
National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), Musick compared the effects of living in a
high-conflict home and living in a home with a divorced parent on a variety of children’s
outcomes, including academic performance, substance use and abuse, and early sexual activity.
Not only did she find that “exposure to conflict in adolescence was related in many ways
to living without biological parents,” Musick also noted that “the advantages of living with two
continuously married parents are not shared equally by all children.”57 Rather, there appears to
be a cumulative, negative effect of parental conflict and divorce on child well-being. Indeed,
“outcomes for [children in high conflict marriages] are very similar to those of children in stepand single-parent families,” even after controlling for the education, family background, and
childbearing history of the mother.58 Thus, while children tend to fare better in two-parent
families in general, there is considerable evidence that variations within families exert significant
effects on their outcomes.
Divorce and Children: Short-Term Effects
Parent-Child Relationships. In about four cases out of five in 2006, the children of
disrupted families live with the mother instead of the father.59 In many of these situations, the
amounts of time fathers spend with their children after the divorce plummets.
In 2006, sociology professor Marcia Carlson of Columbia University examined the data
of more than 2,700 adolescents who had participated in the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey
of Youth (NLSY) to determine whether “father involvement mediates the relationship between
family structure (i.e., father absence) and four measures of adolescent behavior.”60 She found
that less than 20 percent of absent fathers could be classified as “highly involved” in their
children’s lives.
57
Ibid, 22, 26.
Ibid, 28.
59
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Living Arrangements of Children under 18 Years and Marital Status of
Parents, by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin and Selected Characteristics of the Child for All
Children: 2006. Current Population Survey, 2006 Annual Social and Economic Supplement, Internet
Release Date: May 24, 2007. Available at www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hhfam/cps2006.html. Access verified July 1, 2009.
60
Marcia J. Carlson, Family structure, father involvement, and adolescent outcomes. Journal of Marriage
and Family, 68.1 (2006): 137.
58
- 22 -
A direct link was also found between high levels of paternal involvement and the wellbeing of their adolescent children. Specifically, as father involvement increased, the less likely
their children were to manifest problems such as negative feelings, internalizing problems,
delinquency, and negative externalized behavior (e.g., cheating, arguing, failing to get along with
other children). The group with the lowest scores for problem behaviors were teens from
families where their biological parents had been married continuously, while “adolescents who
reported they did not have a father had the highest problem scores.”61 Moreover, adolescents
from married-couple households with uninvolved fathers still reported significantly fewer
problems than those from homes where the father was absent.62
It should not be surprising, then, to find that the college-age children of stepfathers have
a dim view of them. According to a 2006 study of almost 100 undergraduates by researchers at
Mount Allison University, those with stepfathers viewed them as significantly less “warm” and
“successful” than biological fathers, as well as less able to control their children.63
Psychological Effects. In addition to enduring the economic damage often caused by
divorce, children of broken homes are far more likely to encounter serious emotional and
behavioral problems than children from intact families. One particular effect of living with a
stepparent is what scholars have termed “ambiguous loss,” or the unclear relationships and
emotional connections that are formed by divorce. In the words of Pennsylvania State
University researchers Tamara Afifi and Stacia Keith, who conducted extensive interviews with
the members of more than two dozen stepfamilies, “Ambiguous loss is a unique kind of loss in
that a loved one is technically present but functionally absent, creating a lack of closure and
clarity. This uncertainty makes ambiguous loss one of the most distressful kinds of loss because
it is difficult to understand and articulate to others.”64 In the case of divorce and remarriage,
61
Ibid, 137-154.
Ibid, 145.
63
Stephen Claxton-Oldfield, Tracey Garber, and Kimberly Gillchrist, Young adults’ perceptions of their
relationship with their stepfathers and biological fathers. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 45.1 (2006):
51-61.
64
Tamara D. Afifi and Stacia Keith, A risk and resiliency model of ambiguous loss in postdivorce
stepfamilies. The Journal of Family Communications, 4.2 (2004): 65-98.
62
- 23 -
children often feel ambiguous loss when they hope for their parents to come back together, often
at the cost of bonding with a stepparent when one or more parents eventually remarry.65
For the children of divorce themselves, the process of moving from an intact family to a
split family and eventually into a stepfamily generates a muddle of differing, and oftenconflicting emotions. According to researchers at Pacific University and Reed College,
teenagers caught in these processes admit that there are some positive aspects of their new
condition, including “increased material resources, a bigger house, and more gifts on holidays.”66
Nevertheless, the number of negative consequences of these transitions greatly outweighs any of
the benefits. Specifically, teens reported feelings of “powerlessness … associated with the
development of new family rules, differing values in the new family, and unequal enforcement of
discipline among the stepsiblings.”67 Others reported “the burden of divided loyalties between
their parents and their stepparent [because of] confusion [over] the changes in power structure.”
Thus, many turned to “‘hiding out’ in their bedrooms, ignoring the stepparent, and talking with
friends or siblings [as] solutions to the stress of stepfamily life.”68
Divorce Versus the Death of a Parent. Among some groups, divorce certainly brings
worse consequences than the death of a parent. After examining data from the 1995 round of the
National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), sociology professor Jay Teachman of Western
Washington University found that women who were raised in traditional, two-parent families
were significantly less likely to marry into “high-risk” relationships than those whose parents
had divorced. Specifically, women from traditional families were more likely to marry later, had
higher levels of education and married men with higher levels of education, were less likely to
have cohabited, and were less likely to become pregnant out of wedlock. Interestingly,
Teachman found that the marital risk factors for women who experienced the death of a parent
were about the same as those who were raised by both parents; on the other hand, women whose
parents divorced, or divorced and remarried while they were growing up were more likely to
65
Ibid.
Barre M. Stoll, Genevieve L. Arnaut, Donald K. Fromme, and Jennifer A. Felker-Thayer, Adolescents in
stepfamilies: A qualitative analysis. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 44.1 (2006): 177-189.
67
Ibid.
68
Ibid.
66
- 24 -
marry earlier, have children as a teen, not finish high school before marriage and be married to
someone of the same low education level.69
Delinquency and Crime
When families fail, the children involved often experience a variety of traumas that place
them at risk for becoming delinquent. In many disrupted homes, parent-child contact is reduced,
parental affection and support evaporate, discipline often becomes erratic and harsh, and many
children witness their parents verbally and even physically abuse each other. Each of these
factors increases the probability that a child will engage in antisocial or delinquent behaviors;
and as the number of factors increases, so does the likelihood of delinquency.70
The relationship between broken families and youth crime is evident at both macro- and
micro-demographic levels. For example, a 2006 study by sociologist Julie Phillips at Rutgers
University found a direct link between broken homes and murder. After looking at county-bycounty data for the United States between 1970 and 1999, Phillips found that, while population
size and unemployment rates were negative influences on the homicide rate, a county’s divorce
rate was a strong positive predictor of its murder rate in four of the five statistical models she
tested. She notes: “Criminogenic forces, such as poor social conditions…can alter the
association between the relative size of the young population and homicide rates.”71
In a 2004 study sponsored by the National Institute for Child Health and Human
Services, researchers identified a clear association between family structure and delinquency.
After examining data from more than 20,000 teenagers between grades 7 and 12, they found that,
even after controlling for family income, those living with their biological, married parents were
least likely to become delinquent, while those in homes with one parent or a father-stepmother
69
Jay D. Teachman, The childhood living arrangements of children and the characteristics of their
marriages. Journal of Family Issues, 25.1 (2004): 86-111.
70
Velmer S. Burton Jr., T. David Evans, Sesha R. Kethineni, Francis T. Cullen, R. Gregory Dunaway, and
Gary L. Payne, The impact of parental controls on delinquency. Journal of Criminal Justice, 23 (1995):
111-126; J. McCord, Crime in moral and social contexts--The American Society of Criminology, 1989
Presidential Address. Criminology, 28 (1990): 1-26.
71
Julie A. Phillips, The relationship between age structure and homicide rates in the United States.
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 43 (2006) 230-260.
- 25 -
home were the most likely to report delinquent behavior.72 The likelihood of delinquent
behavior, though, was mediated by family processes. They note:
[We] conclude that parental absence undermines direct and indirect controls, which in
turn accounts for the higher levels of delinquency among adolescents residing in singlemother and single-father families versus two-parent-married families. Parental absence is
negatively associated with involvement, supervision, monitoring, and closeness….
Another important finding to emerge from this study is the evidence that a stronger
relationship exists between indirect social controls and delinquency than between direct
social controls and delinquency. This finding is also consistent with [the] assertion that a
parent’s physical presence is likely to have a smaller impact on delinquent behavior than
a parent’s psychological and emotional presence.73
In 2004, David Fergusson and his associates at Christchurch School of Medicine in New
Zealand sought to find the precursors of youth crime among the poor. After looking at the data
of more than 1,200 New Zealanders born in 1977, he and his associates found that “family
adversity”—that is, “reduced levels of maternal care, changes in parental figures, and low
attachment to parents”—significantly predicted youth crime. They concluded: “The higher rates
of crime amongst young people from disadvantaged families are a consequence of an
accumulative exposure to adverse family circumstances, individual predispositions, and peer
influences.”74 While it has yet to be tested, it is also likely that “family adversity” also has
profound negative effects among the children of well-off families as well.
Growing up in a home without a father also dramatically increases the likelihood of male
children going to prison. According to research by sociologists Cynthia Harper of Princeton
University and Sara McLanahan of the University of California, San Francisco, young men from
mother-headed households were 73 percent more likely to wind up in prison than those from
72
Stephen Demuth and Susan L. Brown, Family structure, family processes, and adolescent delinquency:
The significance of parental abuse versus parental gender. Journal of Research in Crime and
Delinquency, 41 (2004): 69, 72.
73
Ibid, 77-78.
74
David Fergusson, Nicola Swain-Campbell, and John Horwood, How does childhood economic
disadvantage lead to crime? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45 (2004): 956-966.
- 26 -
intact families, even after accounting for poverty and the number of times the family had moved.
Interestingly, remarriage of the mother did not reduce the odds of incarceration.75
Drug and Alcohol Abuse
In what is perhaps the lengthiest study of its kind, divorce expert Judith Wallerstein and
her associates tracked the effects of divorce on young children in 60 families for 25 years. They
found that half of those studied became seriously involved with drugs and alcohol.76 Landmark
studies like this one have been used to illustrate how children of divorce may be turning to drugs
and alcohol to cope with the breakdown of their relationships with their parents.77
As with delinquent behavior, though, divorce is often a significant predictor, but not the
only predictor, of a child’s likelihood of substance abuse. To demonstrate how family structure
might encompass other variables that affect substance abuse, sociologists Anne Barrett and Jay
Turner of Florida State University gathered data on substance use from 1,760 college-age
students in south Florida. After controlling for race/ethnicity and gender, those from singleparent families reported significantly higher levels of substance abuse than those from mother–
father families.78 Although almost every factor considered received some support (e.g.,
authoritative parenting, socioeconomic status, etc.), the presence of lifetime traumas and social
stress and friends who used and approved of substances were the strongest predictors of abuse
when all factors were taken into consideration. In the words of the authors, “family type simply
represents a marker of the unequal distribution of a set of factors that influence the risk of
substance use problems.”79 Put another way, certain family types, such as single-parent
households, for example, are more likely to embody factors both current (e.g., social stress and
having friends and/or family who use drugs or alcohol) and prior (e.g., lifetime traumas, such as
watching one’s parents divorce) that make children of these homes more likely to abuse
75
Cynthia C. Harper and Sara S. McLanahan, Father absence and youth incarceration. Journal of
Research on Adolescence, 14 (2004): 369-397.
76
Judith S. Wallerstein and J. M. Lewis, The unexpected legacy of divorce: Report of a 25-year study.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, 21.3 (2004): 353-370.
77
Mohammad R. Hayatbakhsh, Jake M. Najman, Konrad Jamrozik, Abdullah A. Mamun, Gail M. Williams,
and Rosa Alati, Changes in maternal marital status are associated with young adults’ cannabis use:
Evidence from a 21-year follow-up of a birth cohort. International Journal of Epidemiology, 35 (2006):
673–679.
78
Anne E. Barrett and R. Jay Turner, Family structure and substance use problems in adolescence and
early adulthood: Examining explanations for the relationship. Addiction, 101 (2006): 109-120.
79
Ibid, 118.
- 27 -
substances. As Barrett and Turner note, “family structure influences risk not only through
micro-level dynamics operating within families but also by shaping peer associations and
exposure to stress.”80
Scores of studies from around the world confirm these observations, including the
following:
!
In 2005, research of tenth-graders in Iceland found that, compared to those from intact
families, those living in a household headed only by a mother, a father, or those with a
stepparent were significantly more likely to drink. The reason for the lower rate among those
from intact families: teens were less likely to drink if they had to tell their parents where they
were in the evening and were emotionally close to at least one parent.81
!
A strong link exists between marijuana use and family disruption. After examining a sample
of almost 6,000 persons from seventh grade to age 29, RAND Corporation researchers found
that belonging to a non-intact family was strongly related to a higher rate of trying marijuana,
as well as a greater likelihood of starting earlier than those from intact families.82
!
A 2005 analysis of 21 years of data from 3,008 mothers and their children in Australia found
that children ages 5 to 14 years of age when their parents divorced were twice as likely to
have tried marijuana by age 21 than those whose parents did not separate. Interestingly,
children whose parents divorced three times or more were almost three times as likely to
have used marijuana.83
!
According to a survey of almost 5,500 West Coast adolescents between 1985 and 1988, a
strong link exists between family structure and tobacco use. Specifically, health researchers
at the RAND Corporation found that children with “strong family ties in the form of either an
80
Ibid, 119.
Thoroddur Bjarnson, Thorolfur Thorlindsson, Inga D. Sigfusdottir, and Michael R. Welch, Familial and
religious influences on adolescent alcohol use: A multi-level study of students and school communities.
Social Forces, 84 (2005): 375-390.
82
Phyllis L. Ellickson, Steven C. Martino, and Rebecca L. Collins, Marijuana use from adolescence to
young adulthood: multiple developmental trajectories and their associated outcomes. Health Psychology,
23 (2004): 299-307.
83
Hayatbakhsh et al., Ibid.
81
- 28 -
intact family structure and/or open communication with parents were at lower risk of Grade
10 [that is, tenth grade] smoking.”84
Sexual Activity
More than 30 years of research and several dozen studies in the United States and Canada
have found that young people who see their parents divorce are particularly likely to engage in
premarital sex and have children out of wedlock than those from intact families.85 In the words
of Heritage Foundation researcher Samuel Sturgeon:
Adolescents from intact family structures tend to delay sexual initiation until a
significantly older age than their peers from non-intact family backgrounds. Adolescents
from intact families are less likely to have ever had sexual intercourse, have had on
average fewer sexual partners, are less likely to report a sexually transmitted disease, and
are less likely to have ever experienced a pregnancy or live birth when compared to their
peers from non-intact families. However, the effects of family structure on all adolescent
sexual outcomes other than sexual debut tend to operate primarily through the delay in
sexual debut experienced by adolescents from intact families.86
Sturgeon notes, though, that several problems exist with collecting information on teen
sexual activity, including the misreporting and underreporting of sensitive information. For
example, when Dawn Upchurch at the University of California, Los Angeles and her associates
compared the sexual histories provided by sexually active adolescents during the first two waves
of the Adolescent Health Survey, they found:
[Approximately] 11.1 percent of adolescents who reported being sexually active at wave
one reported never having had sex at wave two. In addition, only 22.2 percent of those
84
Rebecca L. Collins and Phyllis L. Ellickson, Integrating four theories of adolescent smoking. Substance
Use & Misuse, 39 (2004): 179-209.
85
Melanie J. Zimmer-Gembeck and Mark Helfand, Ten years of longitudinal research on U.S. adolescent
sexual behavior: Developmental correlates of sexual intercourse, and the importance of age, gender and
ethnic background. Developmental Review, 28.2 (2008): 153-224.
86
Samuel W. Sturgeon, The relationship between family structure and adolescent sexual activity.
Heritage Foundation Family Facts Special Report No. 1 (November 2008).
- 29 -
reporting sexual activity at both waves reported the same date of first sexual experience
at both time points.87
Almost all of these conditions could also be related to a number of other factors, such as
environmental conditions (e.g., poverty and race) or genetics. To test for the effects of divorce
on the sexual activity of young adults while controlling for these potentially confounding factors,
Indiana University assistant professor of psychology Brian D’Onofrio and a team of researchers
in Australia and the United States studied the children born to twins who had either remained
married or divorced.88 Thus, for example, “if poverty was an environmental factor that
influenced both twins and accounted for the relation between parental divorce and offspring
adjustment, all of the cousins in a twin family (offspring of both twins) would experience the
[same] socioeconomic risk factors.”89 By examining the life data of more than 2,500 children
born to twins in Australia, D’Onofrio and his associates found the following:
The findings of the current analyses provide further support for a causal association
between experiencing parental divorce before the age of 16 and (a) educational
attainment, failing a grade, marijuana use, depressed mood, and suicidal ideation and (b)
earlier onset of sexual intercourse and age of first period of depressive symptoms….In
contrast, offspring cohabitation and age of first use of marijuana do not appear to be
consequences of divorce; rather, factors that increase the risk for parental divorce also
lead to these offspring outcomes.90
When D’Onofrio used the same procedure on American twins in a 2007 study, he found that
“genetic and selection factors, rather than divorce per se, accounted for differences in
internalizing problems, whereas substance use was not accounted for by genetic factors.”91
87
Dawn M. Upchurch, L. A. Lillard, C. S. Aneshensel, and N. F. Li, Inconsistencies in reporting the
occurrence and timing of first intercourse among adolescents. The Journal of Sex Research, 39.3 (2002):
197-206, as cited by Sturgeon, Ibid, 23.
88
Brian M. D’Onofrio et al., A genetically informed study of the processes underlying the association
between parental marital instability and offspring adjustment. Developmental Psychology, 43.3 (2006):
486-499.
89
Ibid, 487.
90
Ibid, 497.
91
Brian M. D’Onofrio, Eric Turkheimer, Robert E. Emery, Hermine H. Maes, Judy Silberg, and Lindon J.
Eaves. A children of twins study of parental divorce and offspring psychopathology. Journal of Child
Psychology and Psychiatry, 48 (2007): 667-675, as cited by Lansford, Ibid.
- 30 -
While the presence of two parents in the home is a significant deterrent to premarital sex,
the environment created (or not created) by parents affects both the likelihood and frequency of
sexual activity. If children are weakly bonded to their parents, peer groups become a significant
source of influence affecting sexual conduct. On the other hand, having two parents in the home
who are engaged in a child’s life acts as a significant deterrent to sexual activity.
Similar effects have been found stateside. In 2006, research published by health
economics professor Bisakha Sen at the University of Alabama, Birmingham reported that, in
addition to having two parents in the home, the sexual activity of daughters is reduced
significantly when the family is part of a fundamental religious group, the mother is considered
strict by the daughter, and a college future is on her mind (likely the result of the education level
of the mother).92
Academic Achievement
Family structure is a primary predictor of academic achievement. It has been known for
more than 15 years that, because divorce damages a child’s self-esteem and parent-child
relations, parents are less likely to encourage positive school performance at home and are less
willing or able to participate in school activities.93 Thus, it should come as no surprise to
discover that divorce can haunt children in the classroom for years to come.
In 2004, for example, marriage and family therapist Barry Ham collected data from 265
public high school seniors to identify the role of family structure on each child’s academic
development. Compared to students from other household structures, those from intact families
had GPAs that were an average of 17 percent higher. The same group also missed 78 percent
fewer classes than their peers. Interestingly, students whose parents had divorced, then
remarried performed no better than those from single-parent households.94
The timing of divorce in a child’s life has its own set of effects on the academic wellbeing of children. Specifically, children who are younger (kindergarten through fifth grade)
92
Bisakha Sen, Frequency of sexual activity among unmarried adolescent girls: Do state policies
pertaining to abortion access matter? Eastern Economic Journal, 32.2 (2006): 313-330.
93
Jean L. Richardson, B. Radziszewska, C. W. Dent, and B. R. Flay, Relationship between after-school
care of adolescents and substance use, risk-taking, depressed mood, and academic achievement.
Pediatrics, 92.1 (1993): 32-38.
94
Barry D. Ham, The effects of divorce and remarriage on the academic achievement of high school
seniors. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, 42.1 (2004): 159-178.
- 31 -
when their parents divorce internalize their problems, while those who are older (sixth grade
through tenth grade) manifest their reaction to the divorce with lower grades.95
School Conduct
Not only are the children of divorce more likely to fail academically, they are also more
likely to behave disruptively in school. In one of the largest studies of its kind, sociologists
Wendy Manning and Kathleen Lamb of Bowling Green University analyzed a nationally
representative sample of more than 13,000 students. They found that 41 percent of children
living with a cohabiting parent and stepparents had been suspended or expelled from school,
compared to 39 percent from single-mother homes, 30 percent from married-couple stepfamilies,
and only 18 percent from married families. Moreover, 19 percent of children living with a
cohabiting parent and stepparent had earned low grades on two or more subjects, compared to 15
percent of peers from single-mother homes, 14 percent of those from married-couple
stepfamilies, and only 9 percent of those from intact families. Even after accounting for
socioeconomic variables that appear to influence much of the differences between groups, the
marital status of parents remains a strong predictor of juvenile delinquency.96
Long-Term Effects of Divorce on Children
The effects of divorce on children rarely lessen as they become adults. Rather, public
policy professor Andrew Cherlin at Johns Hopkins University, for example, has suggested that
the children of divorce may internalize any problems resulting from their parents’ divorce until
they reach adulthood. His own research, in fact, shows that, as the children of divorce become
adults, they are more likely to manifest behavioral problems than those from intact families.97
As alternative family structures have become more common and divorce is viewed by the
general public with less disapproval, some have assumed that the children involved are being
hurt less than those of earlier generations. In the light of research by a team of scholars at the
95
Jennifer E. Lansford, Patrick S. Malone, Domini R. Castellino, Kenneth A. Dodge, Gregory S. Pettit,
and John E. Bates, Trajectories of internalizing, externalizing, and grades for children who have and have
not experienced their parents’ divorce. Journal of Family Psychology, 20 (2006): 292-301.
96
Wendy D. Manning and Kathleen A. Lamb, Adolescent well-being in cohabiting, married, and singleparent families. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65.4 (2003): 876-893.
97
Andrew J. Cherlin, P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, and Christine McRae, Effects of parental divorce on
mental health throughout the life course. American Sociological Review, 63.2 (1998): 239-249.
- 32 -
London School of Economics, that has not been the case. When the children of divorce born in
1958 were compared to those born in 1970, no differences were found in their anxiety scores.
Moreover, the levels of behavioral problems were actually higher for the 1970 cohort than those
born in 1958. As these children became adults, the long-term effects of divorce were identical,
including lower academic and economic achievement, a higher likelihood of having received
welfare benefits, and other psychological problems.98
In 2007, the long-term effects of exposure to single parenthood on education, economic,
and criminal behavior outcomes were tested by David Fergusson and his associates at the
Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences in New Zealand.99 Using data from a 25year longitudinal study of children born in New Zealand in 1977, Fergusson and his team found
that the longer a child spent in a single-parent household, the more likely he or she was to
develop anxiety disorders, receive welfare assistance, not earn a university or vocational degree,
and be arrested and/or convicted by age 21-25. However, once confounding factors such as the
education level of the participant’s parents, the presence of family problems, the child’s IQ and
living standards were accounted for, most of these associations disappeared. Fergusson and his
associates, though, note that “a number of the social and contextual factors associated with single
parenthood…may in fact be the consequences of single parenthood,”100 leaving open the
possibility that family structure disruption during childhood may affect some of these confounds.
An increased likelihood of social and behavioral problems is not the same as a guarantee,
though, of a ruined life as an adult child of divorce. While the odds of bad outcomes can be
several times greater for the children of divorce, the relative frequency of such events is
somewhat small. In their book, For Better or Worse, E. Mavis Hetherington and John Kelly
chronicled the effects of divorce on the divorcees and their children over the span of 20 years
after the divorce.101 They found that, upon reaching adulthood, about 25 percent of the children
of divorce have serious, long-term social, emotional, or psychological problems. This compares
to only 10 percent among the adult children of families who remained intact. Nevertheless, this
98
Wendy Sigle-Rushton, John Hobcraft, and Kathleen Kiernan, Parental divorce and subsequent
disadvantage: A cross-cohort comparison. Demography, 42.3 (2005): 427-446.
99
David M. Fergusson, Joseph M. Boden, and L. John Horwood, Exposure to single parenthood in
childhood and later mental health, educational, economic, and criminal behavior outcomes. Archives of
General Psychiatry, 64.9 (2007): 1089-1095.
100
Ibid.
101
E. Mavis Hetherington and John Kelly, For Better or Worse. Bristol, CT: National Review, 2002.
- 33 -
means that three-fourths of individuals whose parents divorce do not manifest any long-term
problems. Similar research by Paul Amato published in 2003 has found that “about 10 percent
of children whose parents divorce grow up to have poorer psychological well-being than would
have been predicted if their parents had stayed together, 18 percent of children whose parents
divorce have more marital discord as adults than do children whose parents stayed together, and
35 percent of children whose parents divorce have worse relationships with their fathers than do
children whose parents stayed together.”102 In the words of Duke University associate research
professor Jennifer Lansford: “Taken together, these findings indicate that the majority of
children whose parents divorce do not have long-term adjustment problems, but the risk of
externalizing behaviors, internalizing problems, poorer academic achievement, and problematic
social relationships is greater for children whose parents stay together.”103
Marriage Prospects for the Children of Divorce. Seeing one’s parents divorce
dramatically increases the odds that, when he or she marries, they will also divorce. According
to a 2002 study by researcher Jay Teachman of Western Washington University of data from the
National Survey of Family Growth, the rate of divorce increases approximately 38 percent for
children whose parents have themselves divorced as compared to those from intact families.
Teachman notes that this effect extends beyond divorce to children born out of wedlock as well.
In his words, “living apart from both parents, irrespective of the reason, is associated with an
increased risk of divorce.”104 The risk of divorce goes even higher if both spouses come from a
home where their parents divorced.105 This appears to be because “individuals whose parents
102
Paul R. Amato, Reconciling divergent perspectives: Judith Wallerstein, quantitative family research,
and children of divorce. Journal of Family Psychology, 15 (2003): 355-370, as cited by Jennifer E.
Lansford, Parental divorce and child’s adjustment. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4.2 (March
2009): 140-152.
103
Lansford, 2006, Ibid.
104
Jay D. Teachman, Childhood living arrangements and the intergenerational transmission of divorce.
Journal of Marriage and Family, 64 (2002): 717.
105
E. M. Hetherington and A. M. Elmore, The intergenerational transmission of couple instability. In P.
Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, K. Kiernan, and R. J. Friedman (Eds.), Human development across lives and
generations: The potential for change (171-203). New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
- 34 -
have divorced are less likely to view marriage as a life-long commitment.”106 Similar results
have been found in 17 countries in Europe.107
One way the likelihood of divorce is transmitted between generations is by the attitudes
of the parents toward the divorce. In 2004, Ball State University associate sociology professor
Carolyn Kapinus found that parents who divorce wield significant influence over their children’s
attitudes toward divorce. Kapinus found that, while “parental divorce is positively associated
with their children’s pro-divorce views,” conflict between parents after the divorce is seen by
sons as a negative, but a positive for daughters. It is possible that such conflict leads “sons to
conclude that divorce has negative consequences and should be avoided.”108
106
Paul R. Amato and D. D. DeBoer, The transmission of marital instability across generations:
Relationship skills or commitment to marriage? Journal of Marriage and the Family, 63 (2001): 10381051, as cited by Lansford, 2006, Ibid.
107
Jaap Dronkers and Juho Härkönen, The intergenerational transmission of divorce in cross-national
perspective: Results from the Fertility and Family Surveys. Population Studies: A Journal of Demography,
62.3 (2008): 273-288.
108
Carolyn A. Kapinus, The effects of parents’ attitudes toward divorce on offspring’s attitudes: Gender
and parental divorce as mediating factors. Journal of Family Issues, 25 (2004): 112-135.
- 35 -
Conclusion
Twelve years ago, the first report by the Alabama Policy Institute on the effects of
divorce found that dissolving a marriage does substantially more damage than good. In 2009,
the results of the most recent research on divorce effects are the same, with some qualifications.
Beyond understanding the relationship between divorce and negative outcomes for adults and
their children, we have a better grasp of how familial, environmental, and even genetic
precursors in a marriage can cause it to collapse, and how these same factors can aggravate or
diminish the effects of the divorce itself.
For adults, any relief that comes from parting ways with a spouse seems to come with a
cost of diminished satisfaction with life. Even though these satisfaction levels eventually
increase after a divorce, for most divorcees they never reach pre-divorce levels again. This
effect may be related to the fact that levels of depression and anxiety are higher among divorced
adults than those who remain married.
Part of the stress that divorcees face may come from their often severe losses in
household income. For some families, these reductions are enough to send them (at least in the
short term) into poverty. Not having another adult in the house also makes divorced adults more
likely crime victims. This appears to be the case even when spouses separate for fear of
domestic violence.
Like their parents, the effects of divorce on children are as varied as the one million kids
who witness it each year in the United States. Not only do gender and ethnicity play roles in the
effects of divorce on children, so do preexisting conditions in the home such as parental
education levels, conflict levels prior to the divorce, abuse and neglect, socioeconomic levels,
and even genetics. The timing of the divorce in the life of a child can also affect how well
children adjust. For the very young, behavioral problems become more commonplace, while
older children may perform poorer in school.
One of the first victims of divorce experienced by children is a loss of parental contact,
usually with the father. The lack of closure in no-fault divorces creates surreal circumstances for
children where family ties are ended, but contact remains. Not surprisingly, this can create
divided loyalties should a parent remarry and two families become blended.
When parent-child contact and the monitoring that accompanies it become erratic or
nonexistent, the likelihood of delinquent and criminal behavior increases. While some of the
- 36 -
causes of delinquent behavior are directly related to the influence of peers and personal choices
made by children, the kinds of families that young people grow up in have a telling effect on
whether these risky behaviors—including drug and alcohol abuse, and early sexual activity—are
allowed to exist without challenge.
As the children of divorce become adults themselves, many continue to carry baggage
from their childhood that has yet to be resolved. On average, about 25 percent of adults whose
parents divorced have serious, long-term social, emotional, and psychological problems, as
compared to only 10 percent of those from intact families. Should they marry, the children of
divorce are more likely to have poorer marital relationships and eventually divorce, particularly
if they marry another adult whose parents also divorced.
- 37 -
Appendix: Cohabitation and Divorce
Trends in Cohabitation
The incidence of cohabitation as a precursor to marriage has increased rapidly, from
about 500,000 in 1970 to 6 million in 2005-2007.109 According to data from the National Survey
of Families and Households, the percentage of females who reported cohabiting before 25 years
of age rose from 3 percent for those born between 1940 and 1944 to 37 percent for those born
only 20 years later (1960-1964). Male cohabitation rates also jumped, from 8 percent for those
born from 1940-1944 to 33 percent for those born between 1960 and 1964.110
Several indicators suggest that cohabitation is gaining acceptance as an alternative to
marriage. First, research published in 2002 by University of Michigan sociology professor
Pamela Smock and associate professor of sociology Sanjiv Gupta at the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst showed that the proportion of cohabiting unions ending in marriage
within three years dropped from 60 percent in the 1970s to about one third in the 1990s,
suggesting that fewer cohabiting unions are trial marriages (or that fewer trial marriages were
succeeding).111 Second, only 36 percent of the adults surveyed in the 2002 U.S. General Social
Survey disagreed with the statement, “It's a good idea for a couple who intend to get married to
live together first.”112 Finally, a growing share of marriages to unmarried women in the United
States (about 40 percent in the 1990s, the most recent data available) were to cohabiting
couples.113
In addition to affecting couples who may eventually marry, cohabitation is also affecting
the formation of stepfamilies. According to Johns Hopkins University sociology professor
109
U.S. Census Bureau, Unmarried-partner households by sex of partner – Universe: Households. 20052007 American Community Survey 3-Year Estimates. Available at http://factfinder.census.gov/. Access
verified April 28, 2009.
110
Larry L. Bumpass and James A. Sweet, National estimates of cohabitation. Demography, 26 (1989):
619-620.
111
Pamela J. Smock and Sanjiv Gupta, Cohabitation in contemporary North America. In A. Booth and A.
C. Crouter (Eds.), Just living together: Implications of cohabitation on families, children, and social society
(53-84). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2002, as cited by Cherlin, Ibid.
112
James Allan Davis and Tom W. Smith, Tom W. General social surveys, 1972-2006 [machine-readable
data file] /Principal Investigator, James A. Davis; Director and Co-Principal Investigator, Tom W. Smith;
Co-Principal Investigator, Peter V. Marsden; Sponsored by National Science Foundation. --NORC ed.-Chicago: National Opinion Research Center [producer]; Storrs, CT: The Roper Center for Public Opinion
Research, University of Connecticut [distributor], 2007, as cited by Cherlin, Ibid, 850.
113
Larry L. Bumpass and Hsien-Hen Lu, Trends in cohabitation and implications for children’s family
contexts in the United States. Population Studies, 54 (2000): 19-41, as cited by Cherlin, Ibid.
- 38 -
Andrew Cherlin, about one fourth of all stepfamilies in the United States and one half of all
stepfamilies in Canada are formed by cohabitation instead of remarriage.114 In Cherlin’s words:
It is not uncommon, especially among the low-income population, for a woman to have a
child outside marriage, end her relationship with that partner, and then begin cohabiting
with a new partner. This new union is equivalent in structure to a stepfamily but does not
involve marriage. Sometimes the couple later marries, and if neither has married before,
their union creates a first marriage with stepchildren.115
With its strong tradition of marriage, Alabama’s cohabitation rate is about one-third less
than that of the nation as a whole. Only about 3.5 percent of heterosexual adults in the state
currently live with their “significant other” outside of marriage, practically all of whom are less
than 30 years old.116 If older survey data are correct, though, 15 percent admit to having
cohabited at some point in the past, including 10 percent of all couples currently married.117
Why Couples Cohabit
Part of the increase in the rate of cohabitation in both Alabama and the nation as a whole
may be a response by younger adults to the 60 percent rise in the nation’s divorce rate from 1960
to 2007.118 Some earlier research on the relationship between cohabitation and divorce claims
that the increase in divorce permanently marred the image of marriage as a lifelong
commitment.119 This change, coupled with an increased awareness of the social and economic
costs of divorce, may be responsible for leading more young adults to cohabit. In the words of
University of Michigan sociology professor William Axinn: “Because the less propitious
cohabiting unions would be terminated and the more positive would be strengthened by the
114
Andrew J. Cherlin, The deinstitutionalization of American marriage. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66
(November 2004): 848-861.
115
Ibid, 849.
116
U.S. Census Bureau, “Unmarried-partner households by sex of partner – Universe: Households,”
2005-2007 American Community Survey 3-Year Estimates.
117
Maury Giles and Paul Theriot, “Alabama Statewide Benchmark Survey on Marriage,” Wirthlin
Worldwide, October 10, 1997, unpublished data.
118
Alabama Department of Public Health, Center for Health Statistics, Divorces and Divorce Rates:
Alabama and the United States, 1945-2007. Alabama Vital Statistics: 2007.
119
For example, see William G. Axinn and Arland Thornton, The relationship between cohabitations and
divorce: Selectivity or causal influence? Demography, 29 (1992): 357-374.
- 39 -
experience of cohabitation, the quality of marriages would be enhanced and the likelihood of
divorce reduced.”120
Even as couples who opt to cohabit before marriage tend to believe they are improving
their chances for marital success, a number of studies suggest the opposite. First, while research
suggests that between 60 percent and 75 percent of cohabiting couples expect to marry,121 the
proportion of cohabiting unions ending in marriage within three years dropped from 60 percent
in the 1970s to about one third in the 1990s, suggesting that fewer cohabiting unions are trial
marriages (or that fewer trial marriages were succeeding).122 Of those that do, a variety of other
negative outcomes also accompanies couples who cohabit before marrying.
Compared with couples who did not cohabit before marriage, couples who cohabited
reported higher rates of marital conflict, lower relational satisfaction and, less life satisfaction,
lower self-esteem, and lower levels of marital interaction.123 Moreover, an unsuccessful
cohabitation reduces the happiness of future cohabitations.124 Not surprisingly, then, couples
who cohabit before marriage are between 50 percent and 100 percent more likely to experience
marital dissolution than those who do not.125
How Cohabitation Kills Marriages
A variety of studies have been conducted to determine why cohabitation has such a
negative effect on subsequent marriages, and two dominant theories have emerged. According
to the first, selection theory, cohabitation tends to be chosen by persons who are predisposed to
be less committed to marriage. According to this view, the cohabitation experience itself is less
important than the kind of person who chooses it: rather, “negative characteristics of the
cohabitors themselves, explain the higher divorce rates of former cohabitors.”126 Several early
120
Axinn and Thornton, 358.
Maureen R. Waller and Sara S. McLanahan, ‘‘His’’ and ‘‘Her’’ Marriage Expectations: Determinants
and Consequences. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67 (February 2005): 53-67.
122
Smock and Gupta, Ibid.
123
Laura Stafford, Susan L. Kline, and Caroline T. Rankin, Married individuals, cohabiters, and cohabiters
who marry: A longitudinal study of relational and individual well-being. Journal of Social and Personal
Relationships, 21 (2004): 231-248.
124
Daniel T. Lichter and Zhenchao Qian, Serial cohabitation and the marital life course. Journal of
Marriage and Family, 70.4 (2008): 861-878.
125
Pamela J. Smock, Cohabitation in the United States: An appraisal of research themes, findings, and
implications. Annual Review of Sociology, 26 (2000): 1–20.
126
Susan L. Brown and Alan Booth, Cohabitation versus marriage: A comparison of relationship quality.
Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58 (1996): 669.
121
- 40 -
studies, for example, note that cohabitation tends to be chosen by persons who are less
committed to marriage as an institution.127
A second theory suggests that the experience of cohabitation itself contributes to later
marital instability. Sociology professors William Axinn and Arland Thornton at the University
of Michigan’s Survey Research Center, for example, found that the experience of cohabitation
may soften participants’ attitudes toward divorce, even while their commitment to marriage stays
constant. They note, “Cohabiting experiences significantly increase young people’s acceptance
of divorce [by persuading them that] intimate relationships are fragile and temporary in today’s
world.”128 To paraphrase sociology professors Susan Brown and Alan Booth, this liberalized
view of divorce may make cohabitors who marry more prone to divorce because they are less
tolerant of relationship changes than those who have never cohabited.129
One reason for marriage disruption after cohabitation may be due to the failure of
partners’ efforts to develop effective communication skills during their cohabitation. A 2002
study by Penn State researchers Catherine Cohan and Stacey Kleinbaum found that both men and
women who had cohabited at least once prior to marriage reported higher levels of verbal
aggression and generally poorer communication skills than married couples who had not
cohabited. These findings remained significant even after controlling for socioeconomic,
intrapersonal, and interpersonal variables. Cohan and Kleinbaum concluded that because
“cohabiting partners may enter their relationship with lower commitment” than couples who did
not cohabit before marriage, they might be “less motivated” to develop healthy communication
skills, and that these undeveloped skills and “lower expectations about good communication”
might carry over to marriage, with decidedly negative effects.130
According to research published by University of Denver researcher Scott Stanley and his
associates, cohabitation has profound negative effects on couples both during cohabitation and
later on in marriage. The researchers found that levels of commitment, sexual satisfaction, and
relationship satisfaction were higher among married couples than cohabitors. Moreover, when
127
For example, see Elizabeth Thomson and Ugo Colella, Cohabitation and marital stability: Quality or
commitment? Journal of Marriage and the Family, 54 (1992): 259-267.
128
Axinn and Thornton, 372.
129
Brown and Booth, 670.
130
Catherine L. Cohan and Stacey Kleinbaum, Toward a greater understanding of the cohabitation effect:
Premarital cohabitation and marital communication. Journal of Marriage and Family, 64 (2002): 190.
- 41 -
only married couples were examined, males who had not cohabited prior to marriage had higher
levels of marital satisfaction and dedication to their wives.131
Research published in 2006 by the Alabama Policy Institute suggests that the length of
cohabitation before marriage is negatively related to personal and relational well-being. Using
data from 1,343 still-married participants who completed the National Survey of Families and
Households (NSFH), length of cohabitation before marriage slightly increased respondents’
likelihood of managing conflicts with heated arguing, hitting, and throwing. The longer
respondents cohabited before marriage, the greater their likelihood for depression, dependency
and perceived risk of separation. Conversely, current relationship satisfaction declined as
cohabitation length before marriage increased.132
Cohabitors not only invest less of themselves in each other; their children also tend to
grow up in environments where less is provided them. According to a 2005 report published by
University of Chicago public policy professor Ariel Kalil and economist Thomas DeLeire at
Michigan State University, the spending habits of cohabitors with children are markedly
different than those of married parents. After analyzing 17 years of household spending data
from the Bureau of Labor statistics, DeLeire and Kalil found that cohabiting parents spend
significantly less on their children’s education per quarter ($205) than married parents ($283).
They also spend less on their children’s health care ($381 vs. $440, respectively); the authors
note, though, that this could be because “cohabiting parents are more likely to be covered by
Medicaid than are married-parent families (36 percent vs. 15 percent).”133 The same cohabiting
parents also spend more per quarter on alcohol ($125) and tobacco ($170) than married parents
($80 and $108, respectively). Taken together, these findings led the researchers to conclude that
“cohabitation is a distinct family type from marriage.”134
Another study published in 2005 found that children living with cohabiting parents have
about the same poor academic outcomes as those whose parents have always been single. Using
data from the NSFH, researchers found that teens living with cohabiting parents had the lowest
131
Scott M. Stanley, Sarah W. Whitton, and Howard J. Markman, Maybe I do: Interpersonal commitment
and premarital or nonmarital cohabitation. Journal of Family Issues, 25 (2004): 496-519.
132
John R. Hill and Sharon G. Evans, Cohabitation length effects on personal and relational well-being.
Alabama Policy Institute, August 3, 2006. Available at
http://alabamapolicyinstitute.org/pdf/cohabitation.pdf. Access verified April 30, 2009.
133
Thomas DeLeire and Ariel Kalil, How do cohabiting couples with children spend their money? Journal
of Marriage and Family, 67 (2005): 291.
134
Ibid, 294.
- 42 -
school grades, even lower than those with divorced parents or stepparents. They were also less
likely to graduate from high school, and less likely to attend college.135
Children are not the only family members who lose when their parents are cohabitors.
According to Penn State sociologist David Eggebeen, the social ties between generations are also
weakened when adults choose to cohabit. Using data from the NSFH, Eggebeen found that
young adults who cohabited were less likely to provide help to their parents, receive help from
their parents, or turn to their parents in the event of an emergency. Likewise, the social distance
between parents and their cohabiting children grew wider the longer they cohabited.136
Once married, cohabitors’ attitudes toward marital fidelity closely resemble those of
married couples. In practice, though, this is not the case. According to research by sociologists
Judith Treas and Deirdre Giesen at the University of California, Irvine, the odds of recent
infidelity among cohabitors was more than twice as high as that of married couples. They also
found that cohabitors who eventually remarry are also up to 39 percent more likely to have been
unfaithful to their spouses.137
Couples who cohabit before marriage possess more tolerant attitudes toward divorce than
married couples who did not cohabit.138 The temporary nature of cohabitation can be seen in the
fact that two-thirds of all cohabitors in the United States either marry or break up within two
years, with a median duration of only 1.3 years.139
135
R. Kelly Raley, Michelle L. Frisco, and Elizabeth Wildsmith, Maternal cohabitation and educational
success. Sociology of Education, 78 (2005): 144-164.
136
David J. Eggebeen, Cohabitation and exchanges of support. Social Forces, 83 (2005): 1097-1110.
137
Judith Treas and Deirdre Giesen, Sexual infidelity among married and cohabiting Americans. Journal
of Marriage and Family, 62 (2000): 48-60.
138
Mark Cunningham and Arland Thornton, The influences of parents’ and offsprings’ experience with
cohabitation, marriage and divorce on attitudes toward divorce in young adulthood. Journal of Divorce
and Remarriage, 44.1/2 (2005): 119-142.
139
Larry L. Bumpass and James A. Sweet, National estimates of cohabitation. Demography, 26 (1989):
620-621.
- 43 -
FOUNDING PRINCIPLES IN ACTION
402 Office Park Drive, Suite 300
Birmingham, AL 35223
205.870.9900 • (fax) 205.870.4407
www.alabamapolicy.org