Via MercatorNet:

In 2008, only 45 percent of American seventeen-year-olds were in a family headed by their biological parents, leaving them weaker in their relational capacities than prior generations. The numbers are lowest among African-Americans, where only 17 percent of seventeen-year-olds have spent childhood in an intact family. Among Asian Americans the intact family is strongest, but even for them it is only 62 per cent.

[In] "Marriage and Economic Well-Being: The Economy of the Family Rises or Falls with Marriage" Authors Patrick F Fagan, Andrew J Kidd and Henry Potrykus have analysed federal data and academic studies and demonstrate their case convincingly: the family based on a lasting marriage (the “intact married family”) outperforms other sexual partnering structures -- by a mile.Consider a few examples:

* Married couple families generate the most income -- twice that of divorced households and four times that of separated households, according to one study.

* Intact, married families have the greatest net worth -- not just because they have two adults but because they have a longer-term outlook, are more thrifty and increase the earning ability of the head-of-household. Cohabiters have the lowest net worth growth of all family structures.

* Children in married, two-parent families enjoy more economic well-being than those in any other family structure, and are more likely to rise through the socio-economic ranks. A non-intact family background increases by over 50 per cent a boy’s odds of ending up in the lowest rank.