Sydney Morning Herald columnist Adele Horin writes:

…Growing  rates of child abuse and neglect, of children being placed in foster  care, and of teenage mental health problems, including a rise in hospital  admissions for self-harm, are rooted in the rise of one-parent families and de  facto couples, violent and unstable relationships, and divorce, the report  says.

Its author, Patrick Parkinson, professor of law at the University of Sydney,  has called for a review of government policy to ensure marriage is not being  undermined. He says it is time to question whether the nation can afford to  maintain policies that give neither encouragement nor support to marriage.

…Professor Parkinson said he was shocked and troubled by the data he and his  research assistant, Antoine Kazzi, had uncovered. ”It is the cumulative impact  of all the data taken together which is so troubling,” he said.

…The report says myriad explanations could be offered, including child sexual  abuse and family violence. But the main demographic change is the rise in the  number of children who by the age of 15 have spent time not living with both  biological parents.

About 25 per cent of children born in 1981-85 had either been born to a  single mother or experienced parental separation by the age of 15, nearly three  times the rate of  baby boomers.  They had also spent three times as many years  living in a stepfamily…

Categories: Marriage

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