Consequence of Divorce Pt 1

– Bisi Adewale

Your focus should be on how to build a healthy marriage, how to make your marriage work by all means, and how to make the life of your children better by standing up for your marriage, despite all odds.

The need for a healthy marriage cannot be over-emphasized; this is a point on which both the scriptures and modern researchers perfectly agree.

Out of Wedlock Birth and Single-Parent Families

1 Single mothers and children from unmarried homes are likely to be in poverty or near poverty level for an extended period of time.

2 Women raising children out of wedlock are less likely to find a marriageable mate than single, childless women.

3 Children of single parents are more likely to engage in high risk relationship and high-risk behaviours at earlier age, than children by married couples.

Research has shown that both divorce and unmarried child-bearing decrease the economic well-being of both children and mothers. Only 9% of children under the age of six in two-parent households are poor, while 47% of those living in single-mother households live in poverty. More specifically, 45% of children raised by divorced mother and 69% raised by never-married mothers live in or near poverty.

One analysis found that nearly 80% of child poverty occurs in broken or never formed families, and it concludes that more marriages could reduce poverty as much as 25%.

While compared to children in two-parent households, evidence reveals that children in one-parent households are affected in additional negative ways.

4 Children in two-parent households are less than half as likely to have emotional or behavioural problems.

5 Children in two-parent households are a third as likely to use illegal drugs, alcohol, or tobacco.