THE POSITIVE EFFECTS OF MARRIAGE: A BOOK OF CHARTS

Appendix A: Explanation of Data Sources

Chart 1. "Out-of-Wedlock Births Have Risen to a Third of All Births." Source: Centers for Disease Control, National Center for Health Statistics, Division of Vital Statistics, various years.

Chart 2. "Less than Half of All Teenagers Live with Their Married Biological Mothers and Fathers." Source: Federal Reserve Board, Survey of Consumer Finance, 1998, an in-depth survey designed to ascertain the financial characteristics of a cross section of households nationwide. It includes a detailed household roster on the relationships among the various household members, allowing for analyses of types of families where children reside. See http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/oss/oss2/scfindex.html.

Chart 3. "Child Poverty Dramatically Increases Outside of Intact Marriages." Source: National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 197996, a survey of a nationally representative sample of 12,686 young men and women who were 14 to 22 years of age when they were first surveyed in 1979. The survey, funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, interviewed these individuals annually through 1994; they are now interviewed on a biennial basis. A key feature of this survey is that it gathers information in an event history formatdates are collected for the beginning and ending of important life events. See http://www.bls.gov/nls/nlsy79.htm.

Chart 4. "Most Poor Children Reside in Single-Parent Families." Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Survey, March 2000, a survey of about 50,000 households conducted for use by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It has been conducted for more than 50 years. Most demographic estimates of marriage and fertility data issued by the Census Bureau (besides those from the decennial Census) come from this survey. See http://www.bls.census.gov/cps/.

Chart 5. "Nearly 80 Percent of All Children Suffering Long-Term Poverty Come from Broken or Never-Married Families." Source: National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979-2000. See explanation, Chart 3.

Chart 6. "Married Families Have Higher Incomes." Source: Federal Reserve Board, Survey of Consumer Finance, 1998. See explanation, Chart 2.

Chart 7. "Welfare Dependence Dramatically Increases Outside of Marriage." Source: National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 197996. See explanation, Chart 3.

Chart 8. "Most Means-Tested Welfare Aid to Children Goes to Single-Parent Families." Source: Heritage analysis using data from various government sources.

Chart 9. "Black Children Are More Likely to Live in Poverty." Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Survey, March 2000. See explanation, Chart 4.

Chart 10. "Much of the Difference in Black and White Child Poverty Is Due to Differences in Marriage." Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Survey, March 2000. See explanation, Chart 4.

Chart 11. "Out-of-Wedlock Pregnancies Are Much More Likely to End in Abortions." Source: Stanley K. Henshaw, "Unintended Pregnancy in the United States," Family Planning Perspectives, January/February 1998, p. 26.

Chart 12. "Non-Married Women Account for 80% of All Abortions." Source: Stanley K. Henshaw, and Kathryn Kost, "Abortion Patients in 1994_1995: Characteristics and Contraceptive Use," Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 28, No.4 (1996), pp. 140_147.

Chart 13. "Married Mothers Are Half as Likely to Be Victims of Domestic Violence." Source: U.S. Department of Justice, National Crime Victimization Survey, 1999, an ongoing survey of a nationally representative sample of residential addresses. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), previously called the National Crime Survey (NCS), has been collecting data on personal and household victimization since 1973. It is administered by the U.S. Census Bureau on behalf of the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The findings are offered in a comprehensive database of crime incidents that includes both those reported to police and others not reported to the police. See http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/SDA/ncvs.html.

Domestic violence is determined as rape/sexual assault, robbery, assault, or aggravated assault by a boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse or ex-boyfriend, -girlfriend, or -spouse. For the purposes of this chart, the term mother with children refers to women over the age of 20 with children under age 12. Limitations in the survey do not permit identification of mothers who have children aged 13 to 18, but no younger children. There is no reason to believe the data on violence would be altered if younger mothers and mothers with older children were included.

Chart 14. "Married People Are More than Twice as Likely to Be Happy." Source: General Social Survey, 1998. The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) has administered the General Social Survey (GSS) 23 times since its initial fielding in 1972, with core funding from the National Science Foundation. Every two years, a large, nationally representative cross section of 3,000 adults answer questions regarding their opinions on a wide variety of issues. See
http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/projects/gensoc.asp.

Chart 15. "Divorced and Separated Adults Are More Likely to Attempt Suicide." Source: Ronald C. Kessler et al., "Prevalence of and Risk Factors for Lifetime Suicide Attempts in the National Comorbidity Survey," Archives of General Psychiatry, Vol. 56 (1999), pp. 617626. Data are from Part II of the National Comorbidity Survey of 5,877 respondents aged 15 to 54, conducted from 1990 to 1992.

Chart 16. "Serious Child Abuse Is Far Less Likely in Married Families." Source: Heritage analysis of British data from "Comparative Risk Ratios for Serious Abuse," 19821988, in Robert Whelan, Broken Homes and Battered Children, Family Education Trust, United Kingdom, 1994. No similar data available for the U.S. population.

Chart 17. "Children from Single-Parent and Broken Families Are More Likely to End Up in Jail as Adults." Source: Cynthia Harper and Sara McLanahan, "Father Absence and Youth
Incarceration," paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco, August 1998. Findings based on the NLSY, which surveyed the same nationally representative sample of individuals annually from 1979, when they were between 14 and 22 years of age, until 1992 and every two years after that.

Chart 18. "Adolescents in Married Families Are Less Likely to Be Depressed." Source: National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, Wave II, 1996. The National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health is a school-based study of the health-related behaviors of adolescents in grades 712. It has been designed to explore the causes of behaviors, with an emphasis on the influence of social context. It is funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and 17 other federal agencies. The survey was conducted in two waves. The first survey ("Wave I") was conducted between September 1994 through December 1995, the second ("Wave II") from April through August 1996. A third survey ("Wave III") was fielded in late 2000 and 2001 but is not yet available. See http://www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/addhealth/.

Chart 19. "School Expulsion Is Less Likely Among Children in Married Families." Source: National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, Wave II, 1996. See explanation, Chart 18.

Chart 20. "Children in Intact Married Families Are Less Likely to Repeat a Grade." Source: Deborah A. Dawson, "Family Structure and Children's Health and Well Being: Data from the 1988 National Health Interview Survey of Child Health," Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 53 (August 1991), pp. 573584. See http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis.htm.

Chart 21. "Development Problems Are Less Common in Two-Parent Families." Source: Nicholas Zill, National Health Interview Survey, Child Health Supplement 1981. The National Health Interview Survey has been conducted annually since 1957. It covers the civilian, non- institutional population of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The 1981 Child Health Supplement gathered additional information for one child, aged 017, in each family having children in that cohort; 15,416 children were included in the 1981 Supplement. The Child Health Supplement is no longer produced. Data on child health are now part of the annual NHIS. Heritage analysis of these data forthcoming.

Chart 22. "Children from Divorced Families Are More Likely to Have Behavior Problems." Source: National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1996. See explanation, Chart 3.

Chart 23. "Adolescent Marijuana Use Is More Common in Broken Families." Source: National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, Wave I, 1995. See explanation, Chart 18.

Chart 24. "Adolescent Cocaine Use Is Much More Common in Broken Homes." Source: National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, Wave II, 1996. See explanation, Chart 18.

Chart 25. "Weapon-Carrying by Adolescents on Drugs Is More Common in Broken Families." Source: National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, Wave II, 1996. See explanation, Chart 18.

Chart 26. "Adolescents from Divorced Families Are More Likely to Smoke Cigarettes." Source: National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, Wave I, 1995. See explanation, Chart 18.

Chart 27. "Adolescents Are Less Healthy in Broken Families." Source: National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, Wave I, 1995. See explanation, Chart 18.

Chart 28. "Teenagers from Intact Married Families Are Less Likely to Be Sexually Active." Source: National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, Wave II, 1996. See explanation, Chart 18.

Chart 29. "Adolescents from Broken Families Are Twice as Likely to Look Favorably on Having Children Out of Wedlock." Source: National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, Wave II, 1996. See explanation, Chart 18.