Divorce: Impact on Children

Abstract

A REVIEW of the current statistics on divorce quickly establishes the pervasive impact of this social phenomenon. In the 12-month period from June 1979 to June 1980 there were 1,184,000 divorces in the United States — a rate of 5.4 per thousand population, as compared with a marriage rate of 10.6 per thousand. In this same one-year period, approximately 1.2 million children were added to the 17 million under the age of 18 who were living in homes headed by a single parent.1 In 1978, 18.1 children per thousand population under 18 were involved in a divorce — more than. . . © 1981, Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.