The Marriage Works campaign recognizes that the benefits of marriage have been quantified through decades of research. Scientific studies, distilled into clear, simple messages that teens can grasp instantly reveal:

• Married people earn and save more money
• Kids of married parents do better in school
• Married people enjoy better health
• Married people make better parents
• Kids of married parents do better economically
• Kids of married parents are more likely to have long-lasting marriages
• Married people live longer
• Married people have lower rates of substance abuse
• Married people are happier
• Married people spend half as much time in hospitals
• Married people live more stable, secure lives
• Married people live more active lifestyles
• Married women experience lower rates of domestic violence
• Married people have better mental health
• Boys raised by married parents are less likely to commit crimes

These statistics were quoted by Senator Nancy Jacobs at the Elected Officials Luncheon in honor of the Cecil County Healthy Marriage Initiative and Harford County Marriage Works. The cost of dissolving marriages alone cost our two counties more than thirty five million dollars according to figures cited by Dr. Alan Gorman. Clearly marriage is worth the effort.

Research sources:

Paul R. Amato and Danielle DeBoer, 2001. “The Transmission of Marital Instability Across Generations: Relationship Skills or Commitment to Marriage?” Journal of Marriage and the Family 63 (4) November.

Ronald Angel and Jacqueline Worobey, 1988. “Single Motherhood and Children’s Health,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 29:38-52.

Suzanne Bianchi, 1999. “The Gender Gap in the Economic Well Being of Nonresident Fathers and Custodial Mothers,” Demography 36: 195-203.

Rebecca Blank, 1997. It takes a nation: A new Agenda for Fighting Poverty (New York: Russell Sage Foundation).

C. Cornwell and P. Rupert, 1997. “Unobservable Individual Effects: Marriage and the Earnings of Young Men,” Economic Inquiry 35 (2): 285-294.

Kingsley Davis (ed.) Contemporary Marriage: Comparative Perspectives on a Changing Institution (New York: Russell Sage Foundation).

Jeffrey Gray and Michael Vanderhart, 2000. “The Determination of Wages: Does Marriage Matter?” Linda J. Waite et al. (eds.) The Ties that Bind: Perspectives on Marriage and Cohabitation (New York: Aldine De Grutyer): 356-367.

Donna Gunther and Madeline Zavadny, 2001. “Is the Male Marriage Premium Due to Selection? The Effect of Shotgun Weddings on the Return to Marriage, “Journal of Population Economics 14: 313-328.

E. Marvis Hetherington and John Kelly, 2002. For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered (New York: W.W. Norton): 240-47.

Jane Mauldon, 1990, “The Effects of Marital Disruption on Children’s Health,” Demography 27: 431-446.

Sara McLanahan, 2000. “Family, State, and Child Well-Being,” Annual Review of Sociology 26 (1).

Mark Rank and Thomas Hirschl, 1999. “The Economic Risk of Childhood in America: Estimating the Probability of Poverty Across the Formative Years,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 61.

Catherine Ross and John Mirowsky, 1999. “Parental Divorce, Life-Course Disruption, and Adult Depression.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 61 (4) November.

Schoenborn CA. Marital Status and Health: United States, 1999-2002 Advance date from vital and health statistics; no 351. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2004

Pamela Smock, et al., 1999. “The Effect of Marriage and Divorce on Women’s Economic Well-Being,” American Sociological Review 64: 794-812.