With A-list divorce stories being plastered all over the press, with headlines such as “Christie Brinkley settles in NY divorce with husband who had teen mistress, online porn habit” from Associated Press.

A public contested divorce will take its toll on the A-list stars, but even low-key divorces have awful consequences both for the individuals involved and for society as a whole.

With the cost of divorce and single parenthood souring, the enormity of these costs has policy makers searching for solutions.

According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, 48 percent of marriages in the United States will end in divorce if current marriage and divorce rates continue in the future. Marriage itself is less-common as well, so the traditional nuclear family – father, mother and children – now makes up fewer than 28 percent of all households.

32 percent of the United States is made up of single individuals or those living with non-family members. There are more households, fully 32 percent that are made up of single individuals or those cohabitating with non-family members in the United States.

Research by Ohio State University suggests that divorce has a strong negative effect on women, the evidence suggests that while divorce reduces a person’s wealth by an average of 77 percent, men typically have 2.5 times the wealth of women after a divorce.

What are your thoughts on divorce effecting society?

Source: Bloomberg.com