The Demographics of Divorce

PREVALENCE AND FREQUENCY OF DIVORCE

• Once out of every two marriages ends in divorce, 67% of all second marriages.
• 1.1 million children are affected annually.
• Sixty-one percent of the children born in 1987 will spend some portion of their growing up years in a single-parent family. (Bureau of Census)

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL WELFARE POLICY RAMIFICATIONS OF DIVORCE

• On the average, one year after divorce the woman's income decreases by 73% and men's income increases by 45%. (Bureau of Census)
• Fifty percent of the divorced mothers never receive any child support, 60-80% receive only some as ordered.
• Sixty percent of persons under poverty guidelines are women and children and divorce is the major cause.
• Biggest single event that takes them out of poverty is remarriage-9marriage-economic arrangement).
• Welfare resources - AFDC drained by ineffectual family restructuring process.
• Court resources-60% of all cases in courts are domestic relations or domestic relations derivative; only 25% of judicial time is allocated to domestic relations mediation.

THE IMPACT OF THE DIVORCE PROCESS ON CHILDREN: how divorces are managed by the parties (as contrasted with the fact of the divorce) can be a significant factor in:

• Divorce is a leading cause of childhood depression. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development)
• Child physical and sexual abuse and neglect
• Drug and substance abuse; seventy-five percent of adolescent alcoholics are children of divorce
• School adjustment (Children of divorce are five times as likely to be suspended from school and two times as likely to have to repeat a grade).
• Delinquency: fifty percent of children on probation are children of divorce