• Nearly one-third of all American children are born outside marriage which is one out-of-wedlock birth every 35 seconds.
  • Of those born within marriage, a great many will experience their parents’ divorce before they reach age 18.
  • More than half of the nation’s children will spend all or part of their child-hood in never-formed or broken families.
  • In 1960, just 5.3 percent of children were born outside marriage, compared with 35.7 percent in 2004.
• A majority of unwed mothers say they are interested in marrying the father and believe they have a 50 percent chance of doing so, and an even greater percentage of these fathers believe their chances to be the same.
• A child raised by a never-married mother is seven times more likely to live in poverty than a child raised by his biological parents in an intact marriage.
  • Overall, some 80 percent of long-term child poverty in the United States is found among children from broken or never-formed families.
• 70 percent of never-married mothers would be able to escape poverty if they were married to the fathers of their children.
• Children of divorced or never-married mothers are six to 30 times more likely to suffer from serious child abuse than are children raised by both biological parents in marriage.
• A child living alone with a single mom is 14 times more likely to suffer serious physical abuse than a child living with both biological parents united in marriage
• 47% of children from divorced families have stolen something from a store

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