Child Trends Data Related to Marriage and Parenting


Child Trends collects and organizes lots of data about children and families.  Below are some the indicators that apply to marriage and parenting.

  • Attitudes Towards Spanking   (Attitudes Towards Spanking– Figure)
  • Births to Unmarried Women (Births to Unmarried Women– Figure)
  • Child Support Payments  (Child Support Payments –Figure)
  • Dating    (Dating–Figure)
  • Dating Violence    (Dating Violence–Figure)
  • Living Arrangements for Children– Single parents    (Living Arrangements of Children–Figure)
  • Fertility & Birth Rates    (Fertility and Birth Rates–Figure)
  • Heavy Drinking Among Parents  (Heavy Drinking Among Parents–Figure)
  • Parental Depression  (Parental Depression– Figure)
  • Parental Education   (Parental Education –Figure )
  • Parental Expectations about Academic Achievement  (Parental Expectations about Academic Achievement– Figure)
  • Religious Service Attendance by Children   (Religious Service Attendance by Children– Figure)
  • Secure Parental Employment  (Secure Parental Employment– Figure)
  • Sexually Experienced Teens   (Sexually Experienced Teens– Figure)
  • Teen Births   (Teen Births– Figure)
  • Teen Pregnancy   (Teen Pregnancy– Figure)
  • Unintended Births    (Unintended Births– Figure)
  • Young Adults in Jail or Prison   (Young Adults in Jail or Prison– Figure)

Divorce Rates in England and Wales 1971-2011


 

The divorce rate in England and Wales has edged up slightly in 2011 compared to 2010.  (See complete report.)  For 2011, the rate was 10.8 divorces per 1,000 married persons.  The rates were identical for men and women.  Over the 40 year time frame (1971-2011), the divorce rates have been falling since 2005.  The rates are about the same as the early 1980s.  Some caution must be observed in understanding these rates as cohabitation has been increasing during the time period and the rate of marriage has been declining.

The United Kingdom Office of National Statistics just released the 2011 report on cohabitation and divorce.  As a part of this report they have produced some excellent 5 minute explanatory videos examining the patterns of cohabitation and civil partnerships.

They produce some very comprehensive statistics and marriage, cohabitation, civil partnerships and divorce. 

More information on divorcescience related to demographics….

Children Living with Cohabitating Parents, Europe 2010


Rates of cohabitation vary widely in Europe.  In general, the northern countries have higher rates of cohabitation.  The chart below illustrates the percentage of children that are growing up in households with cohabitating parents.  (Note: The percentage of children living with cohabitating parents in the US is 2.9%.)
Percent of Children living wih co-habitating parents Europe 2010

For more data about European families go to OECD Statistics.

State of Our (Marital) Union Report– Family Scholars


What are the trends in marriage, cohabitation, and divorce in the US?

What policies and programs would strengthen American families?

Some of the possible answers to these questions are in the annual “state of  our union” report from the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and the Institute for American Values that was released today at FamilyScholar.org.

In addition to documenting the changing nature of marriage and families the report highlights policy and program ideas to strengthen marriages.  There is an excellent summary of the effectiveness of marriage and relationship education with low-income couples by Alan Hawkins and Theodora Ooms based on their recent meta-analytic research.   (Here is a previous summary.)

There are some very interesting ideas in this report.  There will be a more extended discussion of the findings and policies in this report Dec 20-21 hosted by Amy Ziettlow.

European Divorce Rate– 2010


There is now an updated list showing the 2012 Divorce rates for 39 European countries.

Updated, Crude Divorce Rate-- Europe 2010

The United Nations collects marriage and divorce data for the world.  This chart provides an illustration of the crude divorce rate (number of divorces per 1000 population) for European countries in 2010.  Several countries are not listed which did not report data in 2010.  The most recent crude divorce rates for these countries is as follows:  Albania, 1.1 (2008), Greece, 1.2 (2008), France, 2.0 (2009), Italy, .9 (2009), Portugal, 2.5 (2009), Great Britain,  2.0 (2009).

See the 2011 European Graph. 

More UN demographic reports: