Marriage is good for adults and their children, a new report from Canada has found.
The report, ‘Sticking With It’, compiled by the country’s Institute for Marriage and the Family (IMFC) reports that stable, two-parent families score better across a range of topics than all other familial arrangements.
Bringing together other studies conducted in Canada in recent years, the IMFC report demonstrates that marriages endure over arrangements such as co-habitation, and points out that “even living together before getting married is correlated with an elevated risk of divorce”.
Citing a 2004 study on marriage, the IMFC report points out that Canadians living together before marriage are 1.5 times more likely to separate after the birth of their first child than couples who had married without previously living together.
For children, ‘Stick With It’ is clear on the benefits of being raised within a stable, marital home.
“Children in families with two original parents were least likely to experience issues [and] a healthy marriage may have positive implications for children’s mental health.”
The positive aspects of marriage for children also extend to educational attainment, the IMFC reported, with ‘Sticking With It’ pointing to a number of studies which reveal that “over 75% of children from stable homes graduated from high school, compared to 40 percent of children who experienced three or more changes in family structure…Children from married, biological parent families are more likely to pursue post-secondary education than children from cohabiting and step-parent families.” IMFC also points out that, according to one Canadian study of 2010,
“Children who experience the dissolution of their parents’ cohabiting relationship have a greater negative outlook on their academic ability [and] children of divorce also had an increased negative outlook on their academic ability, but to a lesser degree.”
The IMFC concludes: “The research shows that marriage benefits men, women and children, as well as the broader society. Acknowledging this research may contribute to building a culture in which couples seek help more readily and in which marriages thrive.”
The IMFC report can be read online here: http://www.imfcanada.org/issues/sticking-it-canadian-research-report
