‘We need to talk about marriage’: Family breakdown hits record heights

Family breakdown is the highest it has ever been due to the rise of cohabitation, a new study suggests.

The study’s author, Harry Benson of the Marriage Foundation, described the rate of family breakdown as an “epidemic”, and warned that it is set to get worse. He urged policy-makers to act, highlighting a host of negative social outcomes.

The report, ‘We need to talk about marriage’, found that nearly half of teenagers are not living with both of their natural parents by the age of 14 (45 per cent), and that family breakdown has tripled since the 1970s.

Direct consequences

The study explained: “The driver of family breakdown is not divorce, now at its lowest level since 1970, but the collapse of unmarried families. Married families account for 85 per cent of intact parents yet just 30 per cent of family breakdown”.

It states: “The direct consequences of family breakdown include poverty, higher risk of mental health problems and poor exam results, and an annual bill to the taxpayer that exceeds the defence budget.”

“Family breakdown is likely to get worse”, the study added, “because of (a) the intergenerational transmission of family breakdown and (b) no sign of an upturn in marriage rates.”

It concluded: “We betray another generation if we don’t talk about this and do something about it. For the sake of the next generation of children, we badly need to re-embrace marriage.”

Strong marriages

Although marriage does not “guarantee” couples will stay together, Benson explained how it does help: “The act of marriage has all the ingredients of the psychology of commitment automatically built in. We decide. One of us proposes a life together. The other agrees. Then we have a celebration in front of our friends and family.”

He added: “the poorest married couples are more likely to stay together than the richest cohabitees”.