Study Compares Healthy Marriage Initiative Spending to Marriage and Divorce Trends

 

New research by the National Center for Family and Marriage Research (NCFMR) at Bowling Green State University looks at the relationship between spending from 2000-2011 on the federal Healthy Marriage Initiative (HMI) and marriage and divorce rates. During those years, the federal government invested more than $600 million on the HMI, after the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) identified strengthening marriage as one of its priorities.

 

The mission of the HMI is "to help couples, who have chosen marriage for themselves, gain greater access to marriage education services, on a voluntary basis, where they can acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to form and sustain a healthy marriage." HMI funding may be used for marriage education, marriage skills training, public advertising campaigns, high school education on the value of marriage, and marriage mentoring programs.

 

The NCFMR study found that during the 2000s, the General Marriage Rate (GMR) continued the decline that began in the 1970s. In 2000, 46.1 individuals married per 1,000 eligible to marry (i.e., those 15 years and older and currently unmarried), whereas 33.9 did so in 2010, representing a 26 percent decrease. In contrast, the General Divorce Rate (GDR) remained relatively stable, with 18.4 individuals divorcing per 1,000 at risk of divorce (i.e., those 15 years and older and currently married or separated). Divorce and marriage rates fell in some states and rose in others, but the changes could not be tied to HMI state-level expenditures. According to the study, "The five states with the smallest per capita cumulative HMI investments all experienced declines in their GMR from 2000 to 2010, but so did 4 out of the 5 states with the largest HMI spending. For both the bottom and top cumulative HMI spenders, three states experienced increases in their GDRs and two experienced decreases.