A decomposition of immigrant divorce rates in Australia

Crude divorce rates of overseas-born Australians by birthplace are not comparable because different birthplace groups have different age structures and marriage patterns that affect the rates. This paper decomposes the crude rates into components due to the effects of age structrue, marriage patterns and the divorce rate of married men and women. This allows for a better comparison of the level of divorce by birthplace. The range in the standardized divorce rates by birthplace is smaller than that indicated by the crude rates. Nonetheless, there remains considerable variation in immigrant divorce rates in Australia.     

Recession and Divorce in the United States, 2008–2011

Recession may increase divorce through a stress mechanism, or reduce divorce by exacerbating cost barriers or strengthening family bonds. After establishing an individual-level model predicting US women’s divorce, the paper tests period effects, and whether unemployment and foreclosures are associated with the odds of divorce using the 2008–2011 American Community Survey. Results show a downward spike in the divorce rate after 2008, almost recovering to the expected level by 2011, which suggests a negative recession effect. On the other hand, state foreclosure rates are positively associated with the odds of divorce with individual controls, although this effect is not significant when state fixed effects are introduced. State unemployment rates show no effect on odds of divorce. Future research will have to determine why national divorce odds fell during the recession, while state-level economic indicators were not strongly associated with divorce. Exploratory analysis which shows unemployment decreasing divorce odds for those with college degrees, while foreclosures have the opposite effect, provide one possible avenue for such research.     

Breaking Up Is Hard to Count: The Rise of Divorce in the United States, 1980–2010

This article critically evaluates the available data on trends in divorce in the United States. We find that both vital statistics and retrospective survey data on divorce after 1990 underestimate recent marital instability. These flawed data have led some analysts to conclude that divorce has been stable or declining for the past three decades. Using new data from the American Community Survey and controlling for changes in the age composition of the married population, we conclude that there was actually a substantial increase in age-standardized divorce rates between 1990 and 2008. Divorce rates have doubled over the past two decades among persons over age 35. Among the youngest couples, however, divorce rates are stable or declining. If current trends continue, overall age-standardized divorce rates could level off or even decline over the next few decades. We argue that the leveling of divorce among persons born since 1980 probably reflects the increasing selectivity of marriage.     

Marriage and divorce in twentieth century American cohorts

Marital status life tables have provided a basis for describing the marriage, divorce, and mortality experience of U.S. cohorts born 1888-1950. In brief, marriage occurred earlier and became more universal from the earliest cohorts to those of the late 1930s. More recent cohorts show declines in the proportion ever marrying and increases in the mean age at marriage. Period data for 1980 and cumulative cohort data by age suggest the likelihood of a continuing retreat from first marriage. Divorce has been rising steadily, with the latest cohorts indicating that 46 percent of male marriages and 42 percent of female marriages will end in divorce. Period data for males in 1980 raise the possibility that levels of divorce may have reached a peak, but cumulative cohort data by age show no such pattern. The present results are consistent with the view that a fundamental change in the traditional concept of marriage is underway. Traditional marriage involved the husband providing the wife with economic support and protection in return for her companionship and maternal services. Strong social pressures urged men and women to marry, and made the coveted services married persons provided each other difficult to obtain elsewhere. Recent economic changes have undermined the social and economic forces that maintained the institution of marriage. The U.S. economy has grown to include a large service sector in its labor force, and that growth has produced a dramatic increase in female labor force opportunities (Oppenheimer, 1970). The resultant large scale participation of women in economic activity blurs the traditional division of labor by sex, and goes to the very heart of the traditional marriage "bargain." At the same time, economic changes have weakened family ties by encouraging lower fertility, stressing achieved as opposed to ascribed characteristics, and fostering geographical mobility (Goode, 1970). The "marital union" of the past may be giving way to the "marital partnership" of the future, which will accommodate informal as well as formal marriages, less dependence between spouses, greater egalitarianism, lower fertility, and higher levels of divorce.     

Unemployment and social problems in the post-war United States

This paper examines the impact of unemployment on social problems in the post-war United States. Working within a conceptual framework derived from sociological and economic theory, dynamic macro social indicator models are constructed for four social problems-rates of suicide, homicide, divorce and alcoholism. In general, the results do not indicate a strong and consistent relationship between the unemployment rate and these social problems. High or increasing unemployment rates tend to raise the suicide rate, but lower the alcoholism rate and have no appreciable effect on the divorce rate. High levels of unemployment lower the homicide rate, but increases in unemployment tend to raise it. For all social problems except the divorce rate, the level of economic inequality has a consistently positive influence.     

Ecology of abortions in the United States since 1973: A replication and extension

This research examined changes in the distribution of abortions among states following the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 decision invalidating most state laws restricting abortions, and compared that distribution with the distribution that would have been observed if all state abortion rates had been equal, and with the actual and equal rate distributions of divorces. After 1973 the influence of pre-decision abortion laws on the distribution of abortions decreased and the ecological correlations between the characteristics of states and the number of abortions changed toward a more "natural" or expected pattern. Little change was observed in the distribution of hospitals performing abortions, an indication that the decision influenced individual behavior more than it influenced existing social institutions. Restrictions enacted since 1973 had little influence on the distribution. Results are interpreted as supporting theoretical approaches that emphasize environmental control of behavior over those that emphasize individual autonomy in person-environment interactions.For reprints, write to James M. Richards, Jr., Office of Educational Development, 401 C.H.S.B., UAB School of Medicine, Birmingham, Alabama 35294.     

The Retrenchment of Marriage: Results from Marital Status Life Tables for the United States, 1995

Marital status life tables were calculated using 1995 US rates of marriage, divorce, and mortality. Compared to figures for 1988, the proportion of persons surviving to age 15 who ever marry remained fairly steady at about five‐sixths of all men and seven‐eighths of all women. The average age at first marriage rose substantially: to 28.6 years for men and 26.6 years for women. The probability of a marriage ending in divorce changed little and was .437 for men and .425 for women. It is likely that no US period or cohort will ever have half of all marriages end in legal divorce, though the highest cohort may reach 47 percent. Patterns of marriage and divorce observed since 1970 show the effect that cohabitation continues to have on the American family, where it is delaying, but not replacing, marriage.     

东北地区离婚率特征分析及原因思考

改革开放以来,随着社会经济的发展和进步,我国的离婚率也不断上升。离婚率节节攀升,既有着深刻的时代背景和社会背景,也映射出人们价值取向的变化,不能简单地用好与坏来为这种社会现象定性。从1995~2008年全国各地区粗离婚率来看,东北地区的离婚率在全国各地区离婚率排名中始终名列前茅,并且呈逐年上升的变化趋势。东北地区离婚率偏高的原因,除了与全国其他地区相类似的社会、经济等原因外,还与东北地区特有的城市化水平、受教育程度、区域文化、民族构成、人口流动规模等密切相关,是多种因素综合作用的结果,具有一定的客观必然性。     

Social indicators of marital instability,U.S.A., 1920–1969

A social indicators model which included demographic variables (birth rate and aged child ratio), economic variable (unemployment) and marriage rates (control variable) was utilized in explaining changes in divorce rates over time. Analysis of time series data for two distinctive periods in the U.S.A. (1920–1940 and 1946–1969) revealed the following significant results:

1. Demographic changes in the age structure of the population while controlling for marriage rates explains significantly larger amounts of the variance in marital instability than economic changes alone (unemployment).
2. In the post-World War II era unemployment was not found to be a statistically significant predictor of marital instability when control for demographic changes were established.
3. In the post-World War II era marriage rates appear to be a significant predictor of divorce rates when control for demographic changes were maintained.
4. In the post-World War II era marriage rates were found to be more sensitive to changes in economic conditions than marital instability (divorce rate).

     

The economic impact of divorce law reform

The role no-fault divorce plays in lowering the economic well-being of women remains controversial. This paper attempts to shed light on this issue by surveying the literature and presenting new evidence that also considers state laws governing the distribution of marital property at divorce. The data suggest that the economic impact of no-fault divorce is very sensitive to the type of marital property law in each state. Under certain marital property laws the adoption of no-fault divorce may even be welfare improving for married women.     

Intergenerational earnings mobility and divorce

This paper examines the potential effect of marital disruption on intergenerational earnings mobility. We observe the earnings of children born in 1960 and 1970 along with their biological fathers and mothers. The earnings mobility between sons and daughters relative to the earnings of their mothers and fathers is estimated. Our results suggest that divorce is associated with increased mobility, except between mothers’ and daughters’ earnings. Transition matrices reveal that the direction of the mobility is negative; children of divorced parents tend to move downward in the earnings distribution compared to children from intact families. Finally, we utilize information on the earnings mobility of siblings in dissolved families who grew up when the family was intact. The difference between pre- and post-divorce siblings is in turn compared with sibling differences in intact families.     

Fragile Employment,Liquid Love: Employment Instability and Divorce in Israel

The study examines the relationship between the employment stability of first-marriage couples and risk of divorce in Israel. This research question is of particular interest owing to the centrality of the family in Israeli society, rising divorce rates, and increasing employment instability and “deregulation” of the labor market. We capture employment instability through two dimensions: the pattern of employment instability within couples and the continuity of each partner’s employment instability. We utilize this conceptualization to identify the link between employment instability and divorce, focusing on gender and socioeconomic resources. Data were from combined Israeli census files for 1995–2008, annual administrative employment records from the National Insurance Institute and the Tax Authority, and the Civil Registry of Divorce (N = 10,891 couples). Using a series of discrete-time event-history analysis models, findings indicate that husbands’ employment instability, especially when wives have stable employment, increases the risk of divorce; employment stability continuity has opposite gender effects on that risk; and the effect of employment instability on divorce remains significant after taking into account household economic resources. The findings reveal asymmetric gender patterns of the effect of employment instability on divorce, beyond the socioeconomic resources of the household.     

从“三种生产理论”到“多种生产理论”——科学发展观的一种新启示

随着生态环境问题的出现并严重化,“两种生产理论”的局限性逐渐暴露,将生态环境生产纳入其中的“三种生产理论”应运而生。但在当今知识经济时代,文化和制度等社会环境因素的力量逐渐突显并日趋强大,我们发现“三种生产理论”还有待于进一步丰富和发展。文章通过举例指出了“三种生产理论”的一些不足之处,并将文化生产和制度生产融入其中,提出“多种生产理论,”以期对科学发展观的形成有所启示。     

Correlates of divorce in the U.S.S.R.

The theoretical rationale of this study is that conditions associated with divorce reside outside the family within a broader social system where the family finds itself located. The absence of major differences in divorce law from one place to another within the Soviet Union makes it possible to explore this hypothesis by examining areal differentials in divorce rates. Crude divorce rates and crude marriage rates for 1960 have been published in Vestnik Statistiki for 109 political-administrative areas in the Soviet Union. Several indicators of modernization are available for the same areas from the 1959 U.S.S.R. Census of Population. About 80 per cent of the variation among areas with respect to the crude divorce rate is accounted for by six variables: the crude marriage rate, the percentage of urban population, and the employee-worker ratio in the labor force, each of which is positively associated with the divorce rate; and the proportion of poorly educated women, the ratio of children to adult males, and the mean household-family size, each of which is negatively associated with the divorce rate.     

The Effects of Quality of Life on National Elections: A Multi-Country Analysis

This paper studies the effects of several Quality ofLife (QOL) indicators on the outcomes of nationalelections. We test the hypothesis that declines innational QOL will have a negative effect on the votingsupport for the governing party in the next election. For each election since 1960 in thirteen countries, weuse objective measures of QOL for the previous year toestimate the voting function by using astate-of-the-art technique called Sliced InverseRegression (Li, 1991). These objective measuresinclude GDP per capita, food availability, inflation,crime rates, divorce rate, and percent of females inthe labor force, among others. The estimated votingfunction is the best predictor of voters' behavior asa function of the changes in QOL.The results show that changes in economic variablesand food availability significantly affect electionoutcomes. In addition, changes in crime rates werefound to be nearly as important as economic variablesin influencing the election outcomes. This marks thefirst time that a non-economic indicator has beenshown to affect elections. In contrast, measures ofsatisfaction with family life, such as divorce, infantmortality, and percent females in the workforce, showno effect on voting behavior, probably because votersdo not hold their governments responsible for familyaffairs.     

Divorce in sub‐Saharan Africa: Are Unions Becoming Less Stable?

Divorce is one of the main drivers of family instability in sub‐Saharan Africa. Using data from 101 Demographic and Health Surveys and novel estimation techniques, we 1) provide the first systematic estimates of divorce across 33 countries; 2) assess trends in divorce in 20 countries; and 3) investigate the key country‐level correlates of divorce both across and within countries. Despite considerable geographic variation, our estimates show that divorce is common in most countries. Contrary to expectations, however, we find no evidence that divorce is increasing. Instead, divorce has been either stable or declining in recent decades. We show that socioeconomic factors associated with industrialization have countervailing effects on divorce. Urbanization and female employment are associated with higher levels of divorce, while age at first marriage and female education correspond to lower rates. These findings have implications for current and future family dynamics in sub‐Saharan Africa.     

Does Culture Affect Divorce? Evidence From European Immigrants in the United States

This article explores the role of culture in determining divorce by examining country-of-origin differences in divorce rates of immigrants in the United States. Because childhood-arriving immigrants are all exposed to a common set of U.S. laws and institutions, we interpret relationships between their divorce tendencies and home-country divorce rates as evidence of the effect of culture. Our results are robust to controlling for several home-country variables, including average church attendance and gross domestic product (GDP). Moreover, specifications with country-of-origin fixed effects suggest that immigrants from countries with low divorce rates are especially less likely to be divorced if they reside among a large number of coethnics. Supplemental analyses indicate that divorce culture has a stronger impact on the divorce decisions of females than of males, pointing to a potentially gendered nature of divorce taboos.     

当代中国的离婚态势分析和婚姻展望

本文根据有关离婚的统计资料及其他相关资料客观描述和分析了当代中国离婚的态势、特点和原因，并展望了中国未来婚姻之趋势。认为导致当代中国离婚诸多现象的原因。除了很多学者强调的政治、经济、文化影响因素之外。还有社会及家庭伦理的关系变化、道德调节机制弱化、婚姻主体的多元化价值取向冲突、责任缺席等伦理道德的影响因素：建议通过法制、道德和心理相结合的社会调控。既保障合法合理的离婚自由，又反对轻率离婚。并预测中国在本世纪离婚率仍会稳步上升但保持较低的水平,离婚文明化成为社会趋势，离婚带来的消极影响日益减小。婚姻关系将更加自主、自由、健康和平等。家庭形式将更加文明、立体、民主和多元。     

For richer, if not for poorer? Marriage and divorce over the business cycle

Despite anecdotal evidence that recessions affect marriage and divorce rates, researchers do not agree about the direction and magnitude of the relationship. This paper reexamines the effect of business cycles on flows into and out of marriage, finding that increased unemployment rates are associated with reductions in both outcomes. The results are robust to the use of alternative measures of economic conditions, hold for both blacks and whites, and are concentrated among working-age individuals. Lag specifications and impulse response functions suggest that the effect of an unemployment shock on marriage is permanent, while the effect on divorce is temporary.     

Suicides in Poland as an indicator of social disintegration

This paper reviews the social conditions of suicides in Poland in 1951–82, based on the complete statistical data pertaining to suicidal deaths registered with the Central Statistical Office of Poland (grouped and recalculated by the author for the purposes of her analysis). Poland has one of the lowest suicide rates for women: the ratio of men to women who take their own lives is 5 to 1. The rates of suicides are higher in the rural than in the urban milieu (that tendency has been observed since the 1970s). But suicides in the rural areas are in general committed not by farmers, but by argricultural labourers, lumbermen, people employed in earth works, geodetic work, communication and transport. Those and other groups of workers are particularly liable to suicide resulting from sudden loneliness (due to becoming a widower or to divorce). During the last thirty years the number of suicides in Poland increased by over 200 percent. As in other countries suicides in Poland decrease in periods of a strong social integration, and increase during social crises.