Teen Childbearing/Effects of Divorce on Women - 11/01/06

[Smartmarriages]

- FINANCES AND GETTING TO THE CONFERENCE
- UNFUNDED GRANT APPLICANTS
- MARRIAGE IN THE CARIBBEAN
- TEEN CHILDBEARING COSTS TO TAXPAYERS
- STUDY ON EFFECTS OF DIVORCE ON WOMEN
- STUDY SHOWS DIVORCE HAS A LONG-TERM IMPACT ON WOMEN
- STUDY: DIVORCED WOMEN HAVE MORE ILLNESS
- GLOBAL SEX SURVEY: MARRIEDS DO IT MORE THAN TEENS

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- FINANCES AND GETTING TO THE CONFERENCE

> Diane,
>  
> I can sympathize with the need to budget being a Lutheran Pastor, but when
> there's a will, there's a way.  Perhaps the folks on a tight budget could have
> fund-raisers, seek grants and gifts from area groups that could benefit from
> their new knowledge, or simply take on part-time work to raise the money
> themselves.  Just a thought in addition to your comments on volunteering at
> the Conference. 
>  
> Charlie Adams (Phil. 4:4-7)
> Trinity Lutheran Church

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- UNFUNDED GRANT APPLICANTS

> Diane -
> As an unsuccessful/unfunded grant applicant in BOTH Healthy Marriage and
> Fatherhood, I got a letter on Friday from ACF for each grant telling me how to
> write to request a summary of reviewer comments for my applications.
>  
> Has anyone else received these letters?  I returned my written request right
> away, so we'll see how long it takes to get the comments.  I'll let you know.
>  
> Jan Hayne
> Executive Director
> Dads Make a Difference
> Saint Paul, MN
> 
Yes, I've heard from a few dozen folks that received these same letters.
Everyone, of course, has great curiosity about the reviewer comments but the
real curiosity is how to get creative and find other funding sources so we
can all keep going.  Would love to hear from people that have been
successful raising money in their communities from sponsors, fund raising
events, foundations, etc.  We'll definitely make that a feature in Denver.
- diane 

###########################
- MARRIAGE IN THE CARIBBEAN
Did a talk radio show this morning that serves the Caribbean. Topic was the
relevance of marriage - question being "has the institution run its course
and become irrelevant?"  Steve Nock was also on the panel. Nock informed me
that in his quick look at the stats he found that only 18% of Jamaicans and
35% of Virgin Islanders are married compared to 53% of Americans.  No wonder
they're asking. We, of course, said it's not irrelevant and is beneficial to
men, women, and children and that there is new hope about learning how to
master marriage and make it work for us.   - diane

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- TEEN CHILDBEARING COSTS TO TAXPAYERS

Print out this handy-dandy summary sheet of costs of out-of-wedlock teen
childbearing.  The good news is there has been a reduction in teen
childbearing, but the bad news is that these births are still causing
taxpayers BILLIONS, like $9.1 BILLION in 2004. And, that's just the
financial cost.  - diane

#########################

- STUDY ON EFFECTS OF DIVORCE ON WOMEN
 (I'm sharing two versions of this study, short take on radio.com and longer
AP article.  I like this clip:

> The study, titled "The Short-Term and Decade-Long Effects of Divorce on
> Women's Midlife Health," was published last summer in the Journal of Health
> and Social Behavior. The research was part of an ISU study of romantic
> relationships and marriage in middle-aged adults that began in 1989 in an
> eight-county area.
> 
> Linda Waite, who co-authored the book "The Case for Marriage: Why Married
> People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially," said many studies
> have shown that when women are divorced or widowed they see a decline in
> economic well-being, but the long-term effects of the stress of divorce on
> health is important new research.
> 
> She said it can help friends, family, and the legal and medical communities
> become aware "that divorce often creates a cascade of negative experiences and
> events for the families involved, with increased need for help, intervention
> and support."
> 

- STUDY SHOWS DIVORCE HAS A LONG-TERM IMPACT ON WOMEN
RadioIowa.com (here
Oct 31, 2006 

Lorenz says it's not just an attitude thing -- life was harder for the
divorced women. The divorced women had more "negative life events" happen --
having kids get in trouble, a hard time keeping a job...divorced women had a
higher incidence of that kind of thing happening to them, and that
contributed to their feelings of distress ten years later.

Lorenz says the researchers then had another set of groups to compare,
divorced women who remained single, and those who remarried. The women who
remarried had better financial circumstances, and in that way the quality of
their lives improved. Still, it wasn't a cure-all and their health wasn't as
good a decade later as the women who'd never been divorced. Lorenz says
that's probably because the rural women who got divorced had trouble finding
jobs good enough to give them consistent healthcare coverage, and went
without care for at least some of the time in their lives.

The study will continue for at least another eight years, and the research
group recently got a big federal grant. He hopes to go back one more time to
the original parents in the study as they approach retirement age, and find
out how they're coping with the end of their careers and adjusting to
retirement, so they can link those answers to the events that happened to
the people earlier in their lives.

"We're approaching twenty years," Lorenz reflects. The kids in the study are
almost as old as the parents were when it began, and the parents are getting
old. He adds the researchers are about the same age as the parents, and
notes that for him at least, the end of the study will be a retirement
project.

--------------------------------
- STUDY: DIVORCED WOMEN HAVE MORE ILLNESS
Associated Press  
October 31, 2006
Associated Press/AP Online

DES MOINES, Iowa - Women may give up more than a husband by divorcing - they
may also lose some of their good health, according to a study by Iowa State
University.

The study, spanning 10 years, focused on what happens to rural women's
health after their marriage ends, compared with women who stay married, said
Fred Lorenz, who co-authored the report.

"What we found was that the act of getting a divorce produced no immediate
effects on (physical) health, but it did have effects on mental health,"
Lorenz said. "Ten years later, those effects on mental health led to effects
in physical health."

The findings came from data gathered from rural Iowa women who were
interviewed three times in the early 1990s, and again in 2001. All 416 women
interviewed were the mothers of adolescent children when the study began.
Among them, 102 women were recently divorced.

During the years immediately after divorce - from 1991 to 1994 - the
divorced women reported 7 percent higher levels of psychological distress
than married women. They did not report any differences in physical illness
at that time.

A decade later, however, the divorced women reported 37 percent more
physical illness, but no difference in psychological stress that could be
directly linked to the divorce, said Lorenz, who co-authored the study with
K.A.S. Wickrama, Rand Conger and Glen Elder. The research was conducted out
of the Institute for Social and Behavioral Research based at Iowa State.

The women in the study marked off illnesses from a list of 46 choices -
ranging from the common cold and sore throat to heart conditions and cancer.

Lorenz said it appears there is a link between the higher number of physical
illnesses and the different stresses associated with divorce, including
financial problems, demotions, layoffs and parenting problems. He added that
divorced women, especially in rural areas, have poor job opportunities and
fewer support systems.

Wickrama said the women also suffer stress from having to make changes in
housing, insurance, transportation and time with children.

"It looks like (divorced women) are trapped in this vicious circle of
financial problems and other stressful life events ..." he said in a
statement.

Lorenz said divorced women in rural areas may not have jobs that offer
quality health care, and they may put off going to the doctor for preventive
care because of financial constraints.

The researchers adjusted the data for age, remarriage, education, income and
prior health.

By 2001, 40 of the divorced women had remarried or were living with a
partner, and the study found positive influences on the women's health,
Wickrama said.

"We found that divorced individuals who remarried indirectly decreased the
risk of health problems because they saw beneficial influences on their
financial difficulties," he said.

The study, titled "The Short-Term and Decade-Long Effects of Divorce on
Women's Midlife Health," was published last summer in the Journal of Health
and Social Behavior. The research was part of an ISU study of romantic
relationships and marriage in middle-aged adults that began in 1989 in an
eight-county area.

Linda Waite, who co-authored the book "The Case for Marriage: Why Married
People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially," said many
studies have shown that when women are divorced or widowed they see a
decline in economic well-being, but the long-term effects of the stress of
divorce on health is important new research.

She said it can help friends, family, and the legal and medical communities
become aware "that divorce often creates a cascade of negative experiences
and events for the families involved, with increased need for help,
intervention and support."

#########################
- GLOBAL SEX SURVEY: MARRIEDS DO IT MORE THAN TEENS

FoxNews.com 
Global Sex Survey: Marrieds Do It More Than Teens
October 31, 2006

> Because of the diversity of sexual habits worldwide, Wellings warns that no
> single approach to sexual health will work everywhere. "There are very
> different economic, religious and social rules governing sexual conduct across
> the world," Wellings said.

LONDON ‹  In the first comprehensive global study of sexual behavior,
British researchers found that people aren't losing their virginity at ever
younger ages, married people have the most sex, and there is no firm link
between promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases.

The study was published Wednesday as part of a series on sexual and
reproductive health by the British medical journal, The Lancet. Professor
Kaye Wellings of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicines and her
colleagues analyzed data from 59 countries worldwide.

Experts say data gleaned from the study will be useful not only in
dispelling popular myths about sexual behavior, but in shaping policies that
will help improve sexual health across the world. Researchers looked at
previously published studies on sexual behavior in the last decade. They
also used data from national governments worldwide. Wellings noted that
since the survey results were based on self-reporting, they could be
susceptible to error.

Wellings said she was surprised by some of the survey's results.

"We did have some of our preconceptions dashed," she said, explaining that
they had expected to find the most promiscuous behavior in regions like
Africa with the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases. That was not
the case, as multiple partners were more commonly reported in industrialized
countries where the incidence of such diseases was relatively low.

"There's a misperception that there's a great deal of promiscuity in Africa,
which is one of the potential reasons for HIV/AIDS spreading so rapidly,"
said Dr. Paul van Look, director of Reproductive Health and Research at the
World Health Organization, who was unconnected to the study. "But that view
is not supported by the evidence."

Wellings says that implies that promiscuity may be less important than
factors such as poverty and education -- especially in the encouragement of
CONDOM USE -- in the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. The
survey found that single men and women in Africa were fairly sexually
inactive: only two thirds of them reported recent sexual activity, compared
with three quarters of their counterparts in developed countries.

The study also found that contrary to popular belief, sexual activity is not
starting any earlier than commonly believed. Nearly everywhere, men and
women have their first sexual experiences in their late teens (aged 15-19
years), with generally younger ages for women than for men.

Still, there are considerable discrepancies across countries. In the United
Kingdom, for example, men and women tend to lose their virginity at ages
16.5 and 17.5 respectively. In comparison, men and women in Indonesia waited
until they were 24.5 and 18.5 respectively before crossing the sexual
threshold.

Researchers also found that married people have the most sex, and that there
has been a gradual shift to delay marriage, even in developing countries.

While that has meant a predictable rise in the rates of premarital sex,
experts say this doesn't necessarily translate into more dangerous behavior.

In some instances, married women may be at more risk than single women.

"A single woman is more able to negotiate safe sex in certain circumstances
than a married woman," says van Look, who points out that married women in
Africa and Asia are often threatened by unfaithful husbands who frequent
prostitutes.

There is much greater equality between women and men with regard to the
number of sexual partners in rich countries than in poor countries, the
study found. For example, men and women in Australia, Britain, France and
the U.S. tend to have an almost equal number of sexual partners.

In contrast, in Cameroon, Haiti, and Kenya, men tend to have multiple
partners while women tend only to have one. This imbalance has significant
public health implications.

"In countries where women are beholden to their male partners, they are
likely not to have the power to request condom use, and they probably won't
know about their husbands' transgressions," said Wellings.

Because of the diversity of sexual habits worldwide, Wellings warns that no
single approach to sexual health will work everywhere. "There are very
different economic, religious and social rules governing sexual conduct
across the world," Wellings said.


**************************
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