1999-2000 Comprehensive Community Assessment

Issue Area Factual Data

 

Issue:

“Improving the Quality of Family Life”

 

 

1. Amount of divorce:

 

·         In 1997, there were 1,285 divorces filed with the Vanderburgh County Clerk (down from 1,811 cases filed in 1994);

 

·         Approximately 50% of all NEW marriages end in divorce; However, when accounting for all marriages (including those married 30, 40, 50 years) the percent of ever-married families ending in divorce is 15%. [1]

 

2. Amount of marriage: [2]

 

Vanderburgh County

% of Adults in Marriages

 

Year	%
1960	69.1%
1970	64.2%
1980	58.1%
1990	55.2%

 

3. Degree of family supports:

 

·         1970: 11% single parents; 1992: 25% single parents (families) (21% whites; 58% blacks) – 68% of black babies born to single parents – as compared to 33% of all births to single moms. [3]

 

4. Degree of stay at home mothers:

 

·         70% of all U.S. married women work outside of the home. [4]

 

5. Poverty and single parents:

 

·         Marriage stability and single parenthood are becoming defining characteristics of income affluence:  60% of the poor are from single-parent families. [5]

 

 

6. Attitudes regarding welfare and working mothers: [6]

 

(Percent Agreeing)	Below 200% of Poverty	Above 200% of Poverty
Welfare makes people work less than if there weren’t a welfare system	73.5%	81.1%
A working mother can establish just as warm and secure a relationship with her children	75.0%	79.4%
When children are young, mothers should not work outside the home	53.3%	46.7%

 

 

7. Family dysfunction:

 

·         30% of all married women report a severe beating by husband throughout their relationship. [7]

·         Over 10% of all children experience severe violence from their parents; However, excluding sever forms of “punishment (without using object – belt, etc.) figure drops to 1.9% of all children. [8]

 

8. The degree of involvement of father in raising children in divorced/separated cases (or families in general):

 

• 50% of single parent women are awarded support payments, and half of those receive only partial payments or nothing at all. But over half of all support payments owed are never received. [9]

 

• Only one-third of children of divorce see their non-custodial father weekly or more often. Contact with the divorced father tapers off when child reaches age 7, then less than 25% of children of divorce see their fathers on regular basis. [10]

 

• Non-contact by the father has the highest rates among families with less than a high school education and receiving public assistance: in 40% of mothers with less than a high school education, the father had not made contact with the child for over a year. [11]

 

9. Amount of behavioral problems with children from broken families:

 

·         63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes. [12]

·         90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes.

·         85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes. [13]

·         80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes. [14]

·         71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. [15]

·         75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes. [16]

·         70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes. [17]

·         85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home. [18]

·         Higher rates of delinquency, problems at school, more likely to drop out.