Exploring Government-Funded Programs & Divorce Rates

 Posted on May 05, 2014 in Divorce

The Department of Health and Human Services has spent a lot of money to research family stability and marriage, and the results of their most recent project are now available. The Supporting Healthy Marriages Study explored whether skills training influenced divorce rates for low-income couples, and the results were mixed.

The study was national, looking at more than 9,000 low-income couples in eight cities across America. Many of those individuals who participated in about 30 hours of skills training classes saw improvements in their overall relationship happiness and marital stability. In five of the eight research sites, couples were more likely to be married and happy 30 months after the study, but three of the five study sites indicated that couples were more likely to have split up.

While the results were different across different sites with regard to the couples staying together, nearly all of the study respondents indicated overall improved support and warmth in their marriage after receiving skills training. Both men and women reported improvements in communication skills after participating in the study.

Some study sites, notably the Bronx and Pennsylvania, seemed to take away less from the relationship skills training. While the other six sites had participants who were less likely to have experienced infidelity in the period after the skills training, the study locations in the Bronx and Pennsylvania showed couples who were more likely to have a cheating issue in the marriage.

Federal programs and initiatives to support healthy relationships and marriages have come into question in recent years as other research indicates little to no impact on divorce rates. The Healthy Marriage Initiative involved more than $800 million in government spending that funded a variety of initiatives.