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The statistics above are drawn from the Office of National Statistics. For full source references see endnote 81 on here.

These and other studies indicate that relationship stability is a key aspect of child well-being, but that a causal link between marriage and relationship stability cannot be proven. A recent study shows that, although cohabiting couples are more likely to separate than married couples, once cohabiting couples have children, the difference between married and cohabiting couples is significantly reduced.⁸² The interaction of mechanisms impacting child well-being both inside and outside of marriage are complex, as are the individual life experiences of the parents themselves.

These studies also suggest that same-sex couples are as good at parenting as different-sex couples. They argue that any differences can be explained by the fact that children being raised by same-sex couples have, on average, experienced more family instability. This may be, for example, because many children being raised by same-sex couples were born to heterosexual parents, one of whom is now in a same-sex relationship. Furthermore, it is suggested that those same-sex couples who raise children are now ‘more likely to be raising their children from birth’ than they were ten years ago, and therefore such differences of instability may be expected to decrease. Recent findings of longitudinal research – which follows lesbian mothers and their children who were conceived by donor insemination during the 1980s – concludes that ‘25-year-olds born into planned lesbian families did not differ from reports on emerging adults generally in these predictors of mental health: education; having an intimate relationship; or quality of relationships with intimate partner, friends, and parents. However, offspring affected by associative homophobic stigma had higher rates of behavioral/emotional problems.’⁸³