Some Interesting Marriage Facts

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

The Institute for American Values has put together several reports over the years and one of the more sweeping studies deals with why marriage matters. Many of these results are hardly surprising, yet the detail of the research findings makes them very interesting with regard to how marriage affects men and women.

About Men

Married men earn between 10 and 40 percent more financially than single men with similar education and job histories.

Married people, especially married men have longer life expectances than otherwise single men.

Marriage increases the likelihood that fathers will have good relationships with their children. Sixty-five percent of young adults whose parents divorced had poor relationships with their fathers compared to 29% from non-divorced families.

About Women:

Divorce and unmarried childbearing significantly increases the poverty rates of both mothers and children. Between one-fifth and one-third of divorced women end up in poverty as a direct result of their divorce.

Married mothers have lower rates of depression than single or cohabiting mothers.

Married women appear to have a lower risk of domestic violence than cohabiting or dating women. Even after controlling for race, education and age, people who live together are still three times more likely to report violent arguments than married people.

The last item about women is interesting because it specifies that married women are less likely to report violent arguments - that is not necessarily a positive nor does it mean that domestic violence is less. So that's definitely food for thought.

Finally, one of the last conclusions on the report that I was reading indicated that adults who live together, but do not marry (cohabitations) are more similar to singles than to married couples in terms of physical health and disability, emotional well being and mental health as well as assets and earnings. Their children also more closely resemble children of single rather than married people.

For more information and details on these and other studies, please pay a visit to the Institute for American Values.

Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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