Opinion & Commentary
Rarely a case of happy ever after
It seemed like good news on marriage in 2008. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported a record number of registered marriages since 1989 and a 10% drop in divorce numbers since 1999.These figures were welcomed by some commentators as evidence that marriage was stronger and divorce was on the slide.
With this news, it surprised some that Tony Abbott was brave enough to raise a taboo subject among the political class in his recent book, Battlelines, and reopen the debate on Australia’s divorce laws. But, in fact, the optimistic view of the statistics is totally unjustified.
The reality is that marital relationships have never been more unstable in Australia. The consequences for individuals and children constitute major social and economic problems for which family law must take a large share of the blame. Yet no government has had the courage to tackle the issue.
The number of marriages has increased because the population has grown. However, the proportion of married people has not really changed. The marriage rate, which measures the number of marriages per thousand of the population 15 years and over, has hardly varied over the last four or five years. Since 1970, the marriage rate has fallen from around 9.5 per thousand to about 5.5 per thousand currently.
To get a true picture of the situation concerning divorce, we need to take account of the fact that more and more couples (approximately 1.2 million) have entered cohabiting, or de facto, relationships.
The ABS now refers to those in registered marriages together with those in cohabiting, or de facto, relationships as the ‘socially married’. We know from surveys (in the absence of official statistics) that de facto relationships break up much more frequently than formal marriages. But because these break-ups are not officially registered as divorces, the rate of break-up of the ‘socially married’ is not represented in the ABS figures. If they were, the rate of separation of the socially married would be higher than the formal divorce statistics.
Furthermore, the number of children living with parents in a registered marriage is at historic lows. About a third of all dependent children are living either with a sole parent or with parents in a de facto relationship. In 1946, no children were born to parents in a de facto relationship and about 4 to 5% of children were born to unmarried women. A high degree of instability now characterises ‘social marriage’ and hence the parental circumstances of a great many children.
Research in Australia and elsewhere shows that both adults and children fare better in stable relationships within marriage. A large-sample study released in 2007 by the Australian Institute of Family Studies showed that divorced men and women showed less satisfaction with their lives. Men in particular felt a lower sense of social support, and women experienced poorer health and reduced life satisfaction.
A major study by the British Office of National Statistics of 17.1 million families revealed that married couples lived longer and enjoyed better health than the divorced, widowed and cohabiting couples and singles. The study also found that irrespective of economic circumstances, children living with their married parents were healthier and stayed in education longer. Children in care, living with a lone mother, or in a blended family had a 30% higher risk of long-standing illness.
The federal government’s Family Relationship Centres, and measures such as mediation arrangements in divorce and pre-divorce counseling, are valuable initiatives to try to keep marriages and families together. But this does not address the root of the problem – the erosion of the status and responsibilities of marriage.
Our current family law arrangements have destroyed privileges that used to be attached to formal marriage that gave people an incentive to get married in the first place. The freedom of one spouse to unilaterally impose a divorce on an unwilling partner has also removed the disincentives that formerly existed against the kind of misconduct that often ruins a marriage.
The Australian Institute of Family Studies is undertaking an evaluation of family law for the Australian government. The main focus of this research appears to be to investigate issues surrounding child custody and separation settlements and how these arrangements might be dealt with in a non-adversarial way. It may lead to proposals that would make divorce less painful. But once again, the role of family law as a cause of divorce has been placed in the too-hard basket.
A more probing investigation of the state of marriage, divorce, and the family is desperately needed as a spur to potential reform – such as consensual divorce. The need for this is growing more urgent every year. In the meantime we are simply kidding ourselves about the unprecedented level of adult and child misfortunes that lie behind these misinterpreted figures.
Barry Maley is a Senior Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies. His report Family on the Edge: Stability and Fertility in Prosperity and Recession was released by the CIS in September 2009.
