A new report [1] shows a big decline in the health of marriage in the UK since 1970.
The analysis was carried out by the Jubilee Centre, which describes itself as a Christian social reform organisation. It found that the overall health of marriage was 61.7 out of 100, as compared with 85 points in 1970, a decline of more than 20 points. It is based on a similar report by the Institute for American Values [2].
This compares with a composite marriage health score of 60.3 per cent in the US.
The figures it used were the percentage of adults married, happiness in marriage, the percentage of first marriages intact, the percentage of births to married parents, and the percentage of children living with their own married parents.
The Centre compared 2009 figures for these measures, with figures from 1970. They then calculated a composite score on the basis of this comparison to rate the state of marriage in the UK.
It found that the percentage of adults married (ages 24-54) was 54.2 per cent in 2009, compared to 85 per cent in 1970.
According to the figures, 61.5 per cent of people said they were satisfied with their marriage, as compared with 63.5 per cent who reported satisfaction in 1970. Sixty eight per cent of first marriages were intact in 2009, compared with 93 per cent in 1970.
The UK numbers also showed that the percentage of births to married parents is 57.8 per cent, whereas in 1970, 91.7 per cent of children were born to married parents.
The figures showed that the percentage of children living with their own married parents is now 67.1 per cent, compared to 92 per cent in 1970.
The US marriage index, produced by the Institute for American Values, reported earlier this year, demonstrated that, across of a range of five indicators, the state of marriage in the US had declined dramatically.
The Index shows that only 57.2 per cent of American adults aged between 20-54 are married, down from 78.6 per cent in 1970.
It also shows that the percentage of births inside marriage has plunged, from 89.3 per cent in 1970 to just 60.3 per cent in 2008.
Just 61.2 per cent of first marriages were intact in 2008, compared to 77.4 per cent in 1970.
The declines in other areas were less steep. For example, the percentage of people who said that they were “very happy” with their marriage declined from 67 per cent in 1970 to 62 per cent in 2008.
Also, the percentage of children living with their own married parents has declined from 68.7 per cent in 1970 to 61 per cent in 2008. Overall, the index found that the health of marriage had declined from a cumulative score of 76.2, based on the five indicators, in 1970 to 60.3 per cent.
For African-Americans, however, the plunge was even steeper. While the cumulative score for marital health, as measured by the same five yardsticks, was 64.0 in 1970 for African-Americans, this had slipped to a worrying 39.6 per cent by 2008. The percentage of married adult African-Americans has slumped from 70.3 per cent in 1970 to 39.6 in 2008, while the percentage of births to married parents has collapsed in the African-American community, from 69.7 per cent in 1970 to 28.4 per cent in 2008.
In its report, the Institute said that such an index of the health of marriage because a large body of research suggested that “the status of our marriages influences our well-being at least as much as the status of our finances”.