The Costly Consequences of Divorce
Dr. Richard Shropshire - The Barnabas Connection
Recent research studies are finding higher mortality rates, increased suicide, and substantially higher physical and psychiatric morbidity rates associated with separated and divorced adults when compared to married individuals. In addition, children whose parents divorce have a several greater times risk for using mental health services, as well as greater risks for drug and alcohol abuse, early sexual activity, delinquency, poor school performance, and dropping out of school. They are also at greater risk for suicide and shorter life spans compared to children from intact, two-parent families.
Divorce may be the number one unrecognized health problem in the United States.
Some of the numbers:
- a majority of non-custodial fathers - 56% - had no contact with their children during the previous year
- one fourth of non-custodial fathers had no contact with their children during the previous five years
- single parent families...
* created through divorce: 60%
* resulting from never-married mothers: 35%
* created by the death of one parent: 5%
- first marriages preceded by cohabitation - increased from 8% in late 1960's to 25% by the late 1980's
- men who remained divorced or separated suffered from a 120% increase in the risk of earlier death
- divorced men: double the premature death rate from cardio-vascular disease
* seven times the death rate from pneumonia
* double the death rate from strokes
* double the rate of respiratory cancer
* four times the rate of throat cancer
* 50% increase in the rate of digestive system, peritoneum, and urinary tract cancers
- divorce is only slightly less dangerous to one's health than smoking a pack or more of cigarettes each day
- divorce: the number one factor in adult suicide
- automobile accidents: for divorced persons - 3 times the fatality rates of the married
- divorced persons registered the highest number of doctor visits per year
- psychiatric admissions 21 times higher for divorced or separated men as compared with those married
- divorced adults: more than 4.5 times more likely to abuse alcohol
- children of divorced parents:
* at least two times greater risk for problem behaviors
* three times more likely to receive professional mental health help
* a consistent pattern of shorter life spans (as much as ten years shorter)
* suicide - second leading cause of death among adolescents, with the highest factor in those suicides: the divorce of their parents
* increased likelihood of drug usage
* 83% of juveniles in detention centers come from single-parent families
* children of divorced parents - twice as likely to be expelled from school, more likely to be placed in special reading classes, having lower test scores
* children of divorced parents are more likely to experience divorce themselves
If the Food and Drug Administration discovers that a new drug has side effects occurring in only 1% of cases, the prescribing physician is required to inform the patient. Divorce has more than a dozen potential major clinical consequences to the adults and children of divorce. Most of our church members that we counsel have no idea of the immediate and long-term effects of their potential decision to divorce.
