Divorce
is on the decline in the USA, but
a report to be released today suggests
that may be due more to an increase
in people living together than to
more lasting marriages.
Janna Cordeiro and Sebastian Toomey,
both 30, have been together for over
10 years and have no plans to get
married. The couple lives in Atlanta.
By Michael Schwarz, USA TODAY
Couples who once might have wed and
then divorced now are not marrying
at all, according to The State of
our Unions 2005. The annual report,
which analyzes Census and other data,
is issued by the National Marriage
Project at New Jersey's Rutgers University.
The U.S. divorce rate is 17.7 per
1,000 married women, down from 22.6
in 1980. The marriage rate is also
on a steady decline: a 50% drop since
1970 from 76.5 per 1,000 unmarried
women to 39.9, says the report, whose
calculations are based on an internationally
used measurement.
"Cohabitation is here to stay,"
says David Popenoe, a Rutgers sociology
professor and report co-author. "I
don't think it's good news, especially
for children," he says. "As
society shifts from marriage to cohabitation
— which is what's happening — you
have an increase in family instability."
Cohabiting couples have twice the
breakup rate of married couples, the
report's authors say. And in the USA,
40% bring kids into these often-shaky
live-in relationships.
"It is important now to think
beyond the divorce rate to other kinds
of couple unions and look at how stable
they are," says Barbara Dafoe
Whitehead, a social historian and
report co-author.
"It's a pretty short period of
time for that change (cohabitation)
to have occurred and to have taken
hold in the way it has," she
says.
In the USA, 8.1% of coupled households
are made up of unmarried, heterosexual
partners. Although many European countries
have higher cohabitation rates, divorce
rates in those countries are lower,
and more children grow up with both
biological parents, even though the
parents may not be married, Popenoe
says.
The USA has the lowest percentage
among Western nations of children
who grow up with both biological parents,
63%, the report says.
"The United States has the weakest
families in the Western world because
we have the highest divorce rate and
the highest rate of solo parenting,"
Popenoe says.
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