Half second marriages fail

Press, 30 August 1989, Page 5

Half second marriages fail

PA Auckland More than 50 per cent of second marriages and 66 per cent of reconciliations break up within five years, a survey of 1250 New Zealand children indicates.

The instability of “second families” showed in the bad behaviour of their children, Dr David Fergusson told child psychiatrists meeting in Auckland.

“Children with the highest rate of bad behaviour by the age of 10 have had multi-families,” Dr Fergusson said. “They are anti-social, carry out aggressive acts and are more difficult in the classroom and at home.”

The study, from 1977 to 1987, showed re-entry into a partnership after a broken marriage did not increase stability and caused greater harm to the child.

Dr Fergusson, the principal investigator at Christchurch Medial School’s pediatric department, said 93 per cent of children studied were born into a two-parent family. Just under 25 per cent of those families had broken up by the time the child was 10. Within five years, 75 per cent of children were back in a two-parent family. The number of reconciliations and remarriages were approximately equal, he said.