May 2019 - Marriage Foundation

The couple that eats together …

Marriage Week UK launches today under the banner of a ‘recipe for a happy marriage‘. And so we thought we’d try and find some evidence to see whether it wasn’t

Back to 1969: Lifetime divorce risk is now 35 per cent

It’s one of those assumptions that pops up with alarming regularity. ‘It’s terrible, isn’t it? Marriages are doing so badly. Surely you can’t really think getting married is a good

Do women choose and men decide?

Last month I wrote an article entitled ‘Men who marry are deciders not sliders’, where I showed that almost all of the fall in UK divorce rates since the 1990s is due to

Family breakdown costs £50bn a year

Family breakdown costs the UK an estimated £50 billion every year — most of which is spent supporting families who move from one to two households when relationships end. Beyond the financial cost, the social and emotional toll on children can be lifelong.

UK Among highest family breakdown in Europe

The UK continues to experience some of the highest levels of family breakdown in Europe. While divorce rates have declined, this improvement has not been matched among cohabiting couples, who remain significantly more likely to separate.

Lower Divorce Rates – Higher Lone Parents

Divorce rates have fallen dramatically over the past three decades. Yet over the same period, the number of lone-parent families has doubled — because couples who live together without marrying or forming a civil partnership are three times more likely to separate than those who do.

Formal commitment is strongly associated with family stability

Stability remains the norm when parents are married or in a civil partnership — around

75% stay together as their children grow up, compared with 30% of cohabiting parents. The act of formal commitment changes how couples think and behave about their relationship, creating a foundation that is more likely to endure.

The parents’ relationship plays a vital role in children’s development

The single most important factor in a child’s healthy development is the stability of their parents’ relationship. Our research consistently shows that family breakdown is the strongest predictor of teenage mental health problems — and that formal commitment through marriage or civil partnership offers the best protection against this instability.

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The couple that eats together …

Back to 1969: Lifetime divorce risk is now 35 per cent

Do women choose and men decide?

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