Family Facts

1. Children in intact families are less likely to experience poor health than peers in single-mother homes.

2. Children who experience a parental separation are more likely to encounter health problems.

3. Children living with both parents are at less risk for psychiatric disease, suicide, injury, and drug addiction.

4. Youth in intact families are less likely to report ever having had a sexually transmitted disease.

5. Among twenty year olds, projected life expectancy is higher for those who attend church at least once a week.

6. Married individuals have a lower mortality risk than those never-married and divorced or separated.

7. Married men face a lower mortality risk than their unmarried peers, regardless of household income and living arrangement.

8. Married women report, on average, better physical and psychological health than unmarried or formerly married women.

9. Among stressful life events, divorce or separation is the strongest predictor of breast cancer in women.

10. Women who change sexual partners after a pregnancy are more likely to miscarry in a subsequent pregnancy, compared to women who remain with the same partner.

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Top Ten Archives

March 2007
Protecting the Family

February 2007
To Wed or Cohabit?

January 2007
Poverty and Families

December 2006
Family, Religion, and Adolescent Well-Being

November 2006
Why We're Thankful for Family

October 2006
Civic Engagement
September 2006
Back to School

August 2006
A Closer Look at Welfare

July 2006
Parenting Matters


Family Research Experts

Pat Fagan
William H. G. FitzGerald
Research Fellow in Family and Cultural Issues

Christine Kim
Policy Analyst
Domestic Policy Studies

Jennifer Marshall
Director
Domestic Policy Studies

For Interviews call Media Relations at (202) 675-1761
The Heritage Foundation's familyfacts.org catalogs social science findings on the family, society and religion gleaned from peer-reviewed journals, books and government surveys. Serving policymakers, journalists, scholars and the general public, familyfacts.org makes social science research easily accessible to the non-specialist.