Last week was Marriage Week. This is an international celebration promoted by the Marriage Foundation. The organisation refers to recent studies which give a picture of how we stand in this country. The news is not good.
The United Kingdom has among the highest rates of family breakdown in the developed world. Nearly two thirds of British children who are born to unmarried parents experience breakdown before the age of 12. Other countries, such as America and Belgium, have substantially lower rates. Spain’s figure is six per cent. Children born to cohabiting parents have a 94 per cent greater likelihood of such breakdown than children born to married parents. But even for children born into marriage, our rate of early breakdown is about one in three. (Check the figures at the Marriage Foundation’s website, marriagefoundation.org.uk.)
