Wednesday, September 30, 2009

National Marriage Index

The Institute for American Values has produced a National Marriage Index. This is a valuable tool for charting the basic strength of marriage as an institution. It is composed of five measures:
  • Percentage of adults married
  • Percentage of married people "very happy" in their marriage
  • Percentage of first marriages intact
  • Percentage of births to married parents
  • Percentage of children living with own married parents.
The bad news is that index is only 60.3, a straight-line decline from 76.2 (out of 100) from 1970. The good news is that the declines in two of the five items - happy marriages and kids living with the parents - have leveled off, and one - intact first marriages - has increase since the turn of the century.

1 comment:

randy said...

my sis and her husband have such a great marriage. 15 years and 2 kids on...i think they love each other more and more. they've never even had a fight, really. what an advantage in life her kids have-both of them wanted and loved since before birth, born into a strife-free, happy, loving family...there's just no substitute for that.