Divorce Stats

Recently, NewsWeek Magazine said, “Through most of the 70's and 80's a million children a year watched their parents split up.

* Now, those children are adults themselves: husbands, wives, and parents. They are the first generation to experience wide spread divorce.

* While, many of them report successful marriages and happy lives, their emotional wounds run deep, and time does not heal.

* Divorce remains the central issue throughout their lives no matter how well adjusted they may seem to be.

Princeton’s sociologist Sarah Mcallahan said, “Almost anything you can imagine not wanting to happen to your children IS the consequence of divorce.”

In the book “Second Chances,” Judith Wallersteen followed up children of divorce with a twenty five year study . . . the message of the book is they don’t get over it.

* She said that after 18 months of the divorce she couldn’t find a single child who was well adjusted, and the divorce was the central event of their lives.

* Five years after the divorce more than a third of the children were suffering from clinical depression.

* Ten years after the divorce 35 % had a lousy relationship with both Mom and Dad, and 75 % felt rejected by their fathers.

* Twenty five years later over half had psychological problems attributed to the divorce by their counselors.

The social impact, of all of this, is devastating.

* The daughters of divorced people are

    1. 53 % more likely to marry as teenagers

    2. 111 % more likely to become teenaged mothers

    3. They are 164 % more likely to give birth out of wedlock

    4. And, Their marital failure rate is 92 % higher than the general population,

Let’s look at that a bit closer. . .

    1. If the general population divorce rate is 54.8 %,

    2. and a child coming from a divorced marriage bumps it up 92 % higher,

    3. What are the odds?...

And when a dad walks out a child’s life is changed forever.

* Fatherless young adults are twice as likely to need and receive psychiatric help,

* In fact, 85 % of the adolescence admitted for psychiatric treatment in our Nation’s hospital’s come from fatherless homes.

* And fatherless son’s are 300 % more likely to be incarcerated in state juvenile institutions,

* 60 % of the rapist in the country come from fatherless homes

* And, 70 % of long term inmates are also from fatherless homes

And, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, National Center for Health Statistics, Americans for Divorce Reform, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Institute for Equality in Marriage, American Association for Single People, and Ameristat, Public Agenda

Fatherless homes account for :

    1. 63% of youth suicides

    2. 90% of homeless/runaway children

    3. 85% of children with behavior problems

    4. 71% of high school dropouts

    5. 85% of youths in prison

    6. And, well over 50% of teen mothers.