Marriage, Divorce, and Family Relations: Effect on Children

American College of Pediatricians – May 2025

ABSTRACT: Decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, financial, and academic well-being. The emotional, physical, and financial well-being of biological parents is also enhanced when they are married to each other. With the exception of unresolvable abuse in the family, children generally fare better when they grow up with married biological parents. Biological fathers being involved and supportive of their children is especially important. Consequently, pediatricians and society should make every effort to support healthy marriages, including advocating for sexual abstinence outside of marriage and discouraging married couples from divorcing except in the case of unresolvable abuse by a parent.

Epidemiology

In 1950, marriage occurred at early ages and usually lasted many years regardless of secondary educational achievement.¹  However, over time in America, the average age at first marriage increased for both men and women.  The average age of becoming married went from 21.1 years in women and 22.5 years in men in 1956 to 27.5 years in women and 29.2 years in men in 2013. By 2022, the average age of first marriage in the United States was 28 for women and 30 for men.²

Marriage rates in young and median-aged women have fallen in recent decades, but much more among those less highly educated. In 1950, for 30–44-year-old females, about 70% of college graduates and 80% of high school graduates were married. By 2010, the percentages dropped to 69% of college graduates and 50% of high school graduates.¹ Women 15 years old and older who were married  ranged from 58% in 1880, up to 65% in 1960, and down to 46% in 2016.² 

Marriage statistics vary with ethnicity. Ever-married Asians had the lowest rates of ever having divorced: 14% for women and 11% for men. This compares with 27% and 26% for Hispanics.³ First marriages ending in divorce happened in 41% of black women, 36% of white women, 28% of Hispanic women, and 13% of Asian women.³  In 2019 U.S. households with married couples were most common with Asians (60%), followed by whites (50%), Hispanics (47%), and blacks (27%).⁴

From the late 1800s to  the mid-1960s, the frequency of divorce in the US slowly  rose. Then between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s it actually doubled. In the 1970s nonmarital childbearing also rose significantly. Births to unmarried mothers rose from 5% in 1960 to 32% in 1995, and has since risen to around 40%.^1,p.81 The chance of a marriage ending in divorce went from 29% in 1950 to 45% in 1990.² The annual divorce rates in married women rose from 1.5% in 1970 to 2.3% in 1979, and have generally declined since then to 1.6% in 2017. In recent years the median duration of marriages has remained about 12 years.

The portion of women who ever cohabitated (lived with a non-spouse) rose from 33% in 1987 to 64% in 2013.² Women first marrying in 2010-2014 were more likely (70%) to have lived with (cohabitated) their husband prior to marriage than those first marrying in 1980-1984 (40%). Yet cohabiting women were more likely to marry their partner within 5 years in the mid-to-late 1980s (42%) than in the 2006-2013 time period (22%). In both of those time periods, just over a third of cohabitating relationships (35% and 36%) dissolved within 5 years of initiation. First cohabitations have on average lasted less than 2 years. Over the past 60 years, 60% or more of cohabiting relationships that dissolved have been replaced with one or more cohabiting relationships.

Meanwhile, U.S. Households containing married couples have decreased over the past 50 years, from 71% in 1970 to 47% in 2022. Married couple households with children went from to 40.3% in 1970 to 26.3% in 1990 to 17.8% in 2022.⁴ Single person households rose from 6.9 million in 1960 to 37.7 million in 2022 while single childless households went from 13% in 1960 to 29% in 2022.² In 1968, 9 million children (13%) were living with cohabiting parents. By 2017, that number rose to 24 million (32%).⁵

Poverty and Marital Status Link

Children living with two unmarried parents were more likely to live below the poverty line in 2019 (38.1%) than children with married parents (7.5%).⁴  The single parent household is the least likely family structure from which children can rise financially above previous generations, and children in married households do better in communities with fewer single parents.⁶ Likewise, parents have greater rates of living below the poverty line if they are not married nor cohabitating (27%) than if they are cohabitating (16%) or married (8%).⁵  It has become less common for adolescents in the United States to still reside with both biological parents from the time of their birth (62% in 1981 vs 53% in 1988 and 45.8% in 2009) and those rates correlate inversely with childhood poverty rates by state.⁷  It is probably no coincidence that the 2020 medium household income by race in the U.S. correlated with percentage of married parents, with Asians at the top ($95K), followed by whites ($71K), then Hispanics ($55K), and then blacks ($46K).⁸

Household instability of living arrangements, poverty, and absent parents associated with cohabitation and divorce have been linked to adverse child outcomes.^{1, p.95} Cohabitating unions are much less stable than marriages regardless of education level, ending in less than two years on average.^{1, p.86} While 90% of children in married households live with both of their biological parents, less than half of children in cohabitating households do so.^{1, p.87} In 2022, 34% of unmarried-parent couples, 28% of single-mother families, and 15% of single-father families were living below the poverty line, compared to just 5% of married-parent couples with their own children under 18 years old.^{4, p.13} Family instability and lack of a father in the home are associated with important differences in investments in children and child outcomes.^{1, p.88} Less-educated women have much higher rates of childbearing within cohabitating relationships than college-educated women and are more likely to rear their children alone or with a subsequent partner.^{1, p.80,93} Poverty rates are much higher for unmarried women with children at all levels of education than for married women with children.^{1, p.96} Marriage for men is associated with more hours working and higher wages.^{1, p.97} which is advantageous economically to them, their wives, and their children.

Price Paid by Children for Parental Infidelity

When children are born with unmarried parents, or when their biological parents later separate or divorce, the children not only lose the example of love between parents and the stability of support that they deserve, but they often are robbed of time (quantity and quality) with one or both of their biological parents. The custodial parent (usually the mother) is frequently left in financial hardship and needing to go to work, while the non-custodial parent (usually the father) is also working and often estranged from the child. The time that children do get to spend with their divorced biological parents is often marred by stress and fatigue. After divorce, fathers tend to see their children less often and tend to be less involved in their children’s lives.⁸ Adolescents have rated their divorced fathers as less caring.⁹

Poverty for mothers and their children is often a consequence of parental infidelity occurring at any time in the parents’ relationship, whether the mother is a single parent, cohabiting parent, or divorced parent.  In 2020, the median income of a single mother with children was less than half of that of married couple households.¹⁰  Unmarried mothers and their families had lower rates (25%) of escaping poverty between 2009 and 2011 than those in married couple households (44%).^{11, p.9}

Children of divorced parents, through many studies over multiple decades, fare significantly worse academically, behaviorally, and socially than children who grow up with married parents. They also tend to have poorer self-esteems and experience more interpersonal relationship problems.¹²

Family traditions, celebrations and daily routines may be missing because of divorce, not just for children but also for adults whose parents divorced later in life.¹³ Divorce generally means that at least one parent, and often their children, will have to change residence , which can involve changing schools and interrupting important friendships, as well as relationships with family relatives.

The anxiety and depression that can occur in children prior to parental divorce is often increased after the divorce.¹⁴

Children of divorced parents, whether recent or not, more often approved of and engaged in premarital sex than children who grew up with married parents.¹⁵ Such behavior increases the chance of repeated generational problems associated with unmarried parenthood. Elevated risk of early sexual activity and adolescent pregnancy is strongly associated with higher degrees of paternal absence.¹⁶  Parental divorce can cause the commitment attitudes of their children to be associated with less trust and satisfaction, along with more ambivalence and emotional conflict for women whose parents divorced.¹⁷

The risk of a child dying from domestic abuse is over eight times higher (adjusted Odds Ratio 8.8) under the care of a non-biological adult in the household versus both biological parents.¹⁸ From data on over 500,000 child abuse cases between 1991 and 2019, it was found that compared to biological parents, unmarried partners (but not stepparents) were significantly more likely to seriously injure a child.¹⁹

Children of parents who divorced are more likely to abandon their faith.²⁰  Religious beliefs and culture play an important role in restraining adolescent sexual behavior.^{21,22   “}Religiosity is very strongly positively correlated with upward mobility” (intergenerational economic improvement).^{6, p.40} Faithfulness to God has direct parallels to faithfulness in marriage. In the second chapter of the Biblical book of Malachi, it is written, “For I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel, and covering one’s garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless.” Love and faithfulness are overriding directives throughout the Judeo-Christian Bible and other faiths.

Adolescents whose parents recently divorced as well as those whose parents had been divorced for over four years were more likely to abuse cocaine and marijuana than those with intact families.²³

Continued parental marriage is optimal for academic achievement. In a large rigorously-controlled study, academic achievement (by ”curriculum based” standardized testing on 8th graders) was lowest in single-parent, never-married families and in families with remarried widows, and achievement was also negatively impacted by cohabitation and divorce without remarriage.²⁴  The addition of a non-biological male in place of a biological father had particularly negative effects on children’s academic achievement. Losing a father by divorce or death had the greatest effect on lower GPAs and grade retention.²⁴

Both physical and mental health can be influenced by parental fidelity in the home.  In a large U.S. study from 2001-2007, chronic health conditions including asthma, frequent headaches, developmental disorders, learning disabilities, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were significantly more common in children who did not have both biological or adoptive parents in their homes.²⁵ A study of almost one million Swedish children found that growing up with single parents more than doubled the risk for serious psychiatric disorders, committing or attempting suicide, and developing an alcohol- or “narcotic-related disease.”²⁶ During a period in which divorce and cohabitation were significantly rising (1979-1996), psychosocial problems in 4-15-year-olds also rose from 6.8% to 18.7% of all primary care clinic visits involving 425 community-based practices.²⁷ Rises were most notable for ADHD (1.4% to 9.2%) and conduct disorders (1.0% to 7.5%). In over 30,000 clinic visits, children living with both parents (Odds Ratio 0.59) had significantly fewer psychological problems.

A different 15-year longitudinal study found that adolescents who were depressed at the time of parental separation, compared to depressed adolescents whose parents were not separated, had a higher risk of recurrent depression in adulthood and were more likely to develop bipolar disorder. Parental separation did not affect adult depression or bipolar rates among adolescents without depression.²⁸

Advantages of Continued Marriage for Parents

There are obvious advantages demonstrated by the above statistics regarding social, economic, and spiritual stability and strength for parents to marry and remain married to their exclusive sexual partners, especially when children are involved. Married women experienced less intimate partner violence than divorced or separated women; cohabitating women, especially those not cohabitating with their children’s father, had the highest rates of that violence.²⁹ Men and women are more likely to live longer after a diagnosis of cancer if they are married.³⁰ In the Framingham Offspring Study, after controlling for multiple risk factors like blood pressure, body mass index, diabetes, and cigarette smoking, married men were almost half as likely to die during the follow-up period as unmarried men.³¹ In a large 10-year study, men were more than twice (Relative Risk 2.38) as likely to commit suicide if they were divorced compared to being married.³² In a study of thousands of couples with 9-month old babies in 2001, of the 5-6% of parents who were unhappy, 30% split up. Of the 70% who stayed together, only 7-8% were still unhappy 10 years later.³³ In a large United Kingdom study, half of divorced women and a third of divorced men were still very angry at their former spouses 10 years after their divorce.^{34, p29} Additionally, two thirds of men and half of women were no better off 10 years after the divorce than before the divorce.^{34, p40} Single parenthood carries a significant risk of depression for both women and men.³⁵

Advantages of Marriage for Society

Responsibility and love that are integral to faithful marriage are also very beneficial to societal peace and order. Consider the statistics of Asian Americans. They have the highest rates of being and remaining married and also have the highest median household incomes. Yet, those Asian Americans living in poverty surpass their more affluent white neighbors in academic achievement, largely attributed to greater effort applied.³⁶ Their low crime rates are largely attributed to their pro-social behavior as a group rather than their income.³⁷  The authors noted that black two-parent families were half as likely to be poor as white single-parent families, highlighting the importance of family structure. Mental, economic, and physical benefits have been discussed in favor of married parents. Based on Utah’s 2001 statistics, the financial cost of divorce to the United States extrapolated to $33.3 billion per year, not even counting billions in personal expenses and immeasurable mental and emotional costs to children and their parents.³⁸ 

The most common variable in beneficial parent-child family structures is the continued presence and support of the biological father. The fastest growing U.S. family structure with children in recent decades has been “other family household”, largely composed of single-parents or cohabiting parents, growing from 10.6% to 17.4% of all households from 1970 to 2022.^{4, p.4} Over the same time period, married households with children decreased from 40.3% to 17.8%. Black households with children under 18 years old in 2022 were least likely to contain married parents (17.4%) and most likely to have single mothers (24.0%).^{4, p.10} In a 15-year longitudinal study of black single-women families living in poverty, involvement by the biological (“non-resident”) father in years 1-5 of a child’s life significantly reduced the mother’s economic hardship and parenting stress, and was associated with fewer adverse childhood experiences (mainly abuse and neglect) and better behavior in the children.³⁹ To break the cycle of poverty that has affected so many African Americans as well as an increasing number of other ethnic groups, society must embrace sexual fidelity and the associated responsibility of both parents being committed to each other and to their children.

Discussion

Underlying Factors Behind Increased Sexual Infidelity

When children are sexualized in their clothing, dance, music, and exposure to sexually charged advertisements, television, movies, and even online pornography, their natural sexual desires override traditional social and religious constraints. These influences are likely responsible for the rampant rise in premarital and extramarital sexual intimacy. That activity between males and females naturally results in pregnancies, most of which are unplanned and undesired. The children conceived outside of marriage are often killed (aborted) in the womb in the name of “reproductive rights” or “right to choose” [death]. A minority of those allowed to live are given up for adoption and generally do well under the care of loving married couples. The rest are nurtured by their mothers, extended family (usually grandparents), and less commonly by both father and mother. In situations where both parents are nurturing from birth ( as often happened with “common-law marriages” in the past), their children have similar benefits as those whose parents are married.³⁹ Family complexity (children living with non-biological parents and/or siblings) is negatively associated with children’s economic well-being. This is true even when a child is living with his or her biological parents but has step siblings living in the home.⁴⁰ The number of children born to unmarried parents have dramatically increased in recent years, and they are more likely to be economically (as well as mentally) disadvantaged.

Demographics

The demographics of families are changing, and with that, the philosophical underpinnings of relationships are also changing. Many young adults feel marriage is old-fashioned and confining, and that open cohabitating or intentionally brief relationships provide a better option. If a relationship does not continue to provide the expected personal fulfillment, parents commonly believe that divorce or separation is the best option, underestimating the adverse consequences for them and their children. The prioritizing of personal economic and social fulfillment over family and childrearing have led to later marriages, women having fewer children at older ages, many children being born to single mothers, more parents cohabitating with non-biological step-parents, and fewer children living with their married, biological parents.

Conclusion

It is clear that children, parents, and even society are suffering because of the shift over the last six decades away from the nuclear family in which biological parents are committed to each other as well as to their children. It is therefore important that pediatricians support public policy, community initiatives, and clinical practices that promote  the health and preservation of the child’s biological family, with the caveat that violence in the home is never acceptable and unresolvable abuse within a nuclear family is reason to remove the abuser. This endorsement of the nuclear family with married biological parents does not preclude support for other family structures, including adoptive families, extended families, blended families, and single parent families in which children are loved and nurtured.

Primary authors: Scott Field, MD, FCP and Jane Anderson, MD, FCP

May 2025 

An update of the 2014 Position Statement “The Impact of Family Structure on the Health of Children – Effect of Divorce”

The American College of Pediatricians is a national medical association of licensed physicians and healthcare professionals who specialize in the care of infants, children, and adolescents. The mission of ACPeds is to enable all children to reach their optimal, physical and emotional health and well-being.

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