The report For Kids' Sake, commissioned by the Australian Christian Lobby and to be launched in Canberra on Tuesday, found the wellbeing of many children and young people, especially adolescent girls, had deteriorated in the past 10 to 15 years.
Professor Patrick Parkinson, the report's author, examined the extent to which this is the result of the increasing fragility of Australia's family life.
"Governments, perhaps the community at large, tend to see social problems as being like spot fires ... rarely do we see the spot fires as a symptom rather than an isolated problem to be addressed," Prof Parkinson said. "Rarely do we recognise the possibility that behind the visible spot fires, a major bushfire is burning."
Child protection, adolescent mental health and a broad range of issues were studied in the report. It includes previously unpublished data over a 10-year period of hospitalisations from self-harm rising 66 per cent among children aged 12 to 14 years old and by 90 per cent for girls aged 15 to 17.
The adverse impact of the rise in parental separation because of divorce and the breakdown of cohabiting relationships and the increase in children born to single mothers is highlighted in the report.
The presence of new partners not biologically related to the children and the financial and other stresses of lone parenting increased the risk to children, Prof Parkinson said. "In Australia, the number of children who do no reach the age of 15 in an intact family with both of their biological parents has almost doubled within a generation.
"While not all problems faced by Australia's children today can, by any means, be attributed to the consequences of unstable and conflictual family relationships, the fragility of Australian families over recent generations has been a major contributing factor."
Prof Parkinson made 14 recommendations, including calling on the government to provide funding to help strengthen relationships between couples and to run programs for couples before they live together and ahead of marriage.
He has also called for the establishment of a Families Commission to co-ordinate the work of the federal government in strengthening family relationships and in reducing conflict between parents who have separated.