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Fragmentation of families is damaging to Oklahoma

September 4th, 2008

The ripple effects of family fragmentation are costing Oklahoma taxpayers millions of dollars each year and the problem may only get larger, officials warned state lawmakers this week.

Members of the House Human Services committee heard from a wide range of experts and agency leaders during a legislative study requested by state Rep. Mark McCullough, who said the state needs to change the way it deals with family issues.

“When it comes to the problem of family disintegration, we are like a deer in the headlights,” said McCullough, R-Sapulpa. “Everyone is affected by the issue, but we’re afraid to address it because we know none of us is perfect. Unfortunately, that allows the problem to grow and the price tag keeps expanding. It’s time we put more effort into enacting policies that support marriages and help families both survive and thrive.”

McCullough noted lawmakers were “very fortunate” to hear from several national experts and state agency heads as part of the study.

Dr. Jeff Frey, chairman of the Marriage Co-Mission, noted that the national divorce rate has hovered around the 50 percent mark for about 20 years and that the marriage rate has plunged 48 percent since 1970.

In 1960, he noted that just 5 percent of all births were to unwed mothers but that figure grew to 36 percent by 2000 – a 700 percent increase.
Today, 33 percent of American children live away from their fathers and 40 percent of those kids never see their fathers in a typical year.

Those trends have a huge impact on both society and government. Frey and other officials noted that children from broken homes are seven times more likely to live in poverty, three times as likely to be expelled from school and achieve lower grades, and 12 times more likely to be incarcerated.

Children from broken homes also tend to have poorer emotional and physical health, which is further complicated by the fact that many uninsured children are from single-parent homes.

Research indicates that the resulting taxpayer cost of divorce (largely through public assistance programs) now stands at $112 billion per year nationally and $430 million annually in Oklahoma – and those are conservative estimates.

Frey noted the “script of marriage” has been lost in large segments of the culture and the issue is now one of “know-how.” Frey has identified seven key factors that influence the health of marriage in America: corporate, media, church, community mobilization, education, youth, law and/or government.

Mike Jestes, director of the Oklahoma Family Policy Council, noted the state of Oklahoma would be better off spending money “on the front end” to preserve marriages than on the back end to “clean up” the problems created by family fragmentation.

For example, he noted state spending on the criminal justice system has grown 510 percent since 1982 and that a large share of that problem is likely tied to family fragmentation.

Jestes said that the faith community could play an augmented role in the prevention of family fragmentation. In Oklahoma, he noted 74 percent of all weddings occur in a church and that many couples call the church first when they have problems.

Echoing the assessment of other experts, John Stanley, director of the Marriage and Family Foundation, said for every $1 spent on keeping families together, government spends $1000 on “clean up” from the fallout of broken families.

Stanley said publicity efforts could play a role, such as a 13-state media campaign planned in the coming months that will promote positive messages for troubled marriages. That campaign will include the Oklahoma market, he said.

Beyond the social benefits, relational-wellness initiatives could also have positive impact in the workplace and Oklahoma economy.

Dr. Greg Smalley, the director of the Center for Relational Enrichment, noted that the communication skills required to maintain a strong marriage also transfer to the workplace, such as the ability to understand others and work cooperatively.

Smalley has worked with many large corporations across the country to implement state-of-the-art “Emotional Intelligence” programs that teach business leaders how to constructively manage emotions in the workplace.
Officials noted the state of Oklahoma has been a leader in pro-marriage initiatives and is already experiencing some success.

For example, Kendy Cox, an official with Public Strategies, noted the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative has served 152,845 individuals to date. The OMI has also provided relationship training for 15,000 students in grades 9-12.

State law allows couples who complete an OMI class to obtain a marriage license for only $5. That incentive apparently is working since there has been a slow but steady increase in the issuance of those discounted licenses since 2007.

McCullough noted there was “strong agreement” among the marriage and family experts who spoke at the legislative study that “we now have very effective tools for relationship management and crisis intervention.” He said the challenge for policymakers is to increase access to those tools.

He also noted the “unanimous consent” among agency heads – a group including the leaders of the Department of Human Service, Department of Corrections, Office of Juvenile Affairs, and the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services – that a better model for addressing family problems would require “moving upstream” and intervening before the problem reached a crisis.

“While government cannot fix everything, it can do a lot more than we’re doing today to help preserve families,” McCullough said.

Echoing Glenn Stanton with Focus on the Family, McCullough noted that “for too long government’s role in marriage has been limited to issuing marriage licenses and divorce decrees. I believe this study demonstrates that government has a much larger stake in the health of our families than many people realized. We have learned that there are policies and incentives that will have a positive impact on marriages. And, given the price tag taxpayers pay because of family fragmentation, we literally cannot afford to continue ignoring this issue.”