Divorce as risky behavior

Given that divorce often represents a high-stakes income gamble, we ask how individual levels of risk tolerance affect the decision to divorce. We extend the orthodox divorce model by assuming that individuals are risk averse, that marriage is risky, and that divorce is even riskier. The model predicts that conditional on the expected gains to marriage and divorce, the probability of divorce increases with relative risk tolerance because risk averse individuals require compensation for the additional risk that is inherent in divorce. To implement the model empirically, we use data for first-married women and men from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to estimate a probit model of divorce in which a measure of risk tolerance is among the covariates. The estimates reveal that a 1-point increase in risk tolerance raises the predicted probability of divorce by 4.3% for a representative man and by 11.4% for a representative woman. These findings are consistent with the notion that divorce entails a greater income gamble for women than for men.     

Gender-specific labor market conditions and family formation

Slack labor market conditions for women relative to men increase the marriage rate in the USA. This paper examines the long-term consequences of such marriages. Despite the significant effect on marriage timing, labor market conditions experienced in youth do not affect the probability that a woman will marry by the age of 30. Further, labor market conditions at the time of marriage are uncorrelated with the probability of divorce, spouses?? characteristics, or the number of children. These findings suggest that labor market fluctuations induce only intertemporal adjustments for marriage timing without affecting reservation match quality or total fertility.     

No trend in the intergenerational transmission of divorce

Previous studies on trends in the intergenerational transmission of divorce have produced mixed findings, with two studies (McLanahan and Bumpass 1988; Teachman 2002) reporting no trend in divorce transmission and one study (Wolfinger 1999) finding that divorce transmission has weakened substantially. Using a stratified Cox proportional hazard model, we analyze data from the National Survey of Families and Households and find no evidence for any trend in divorce transmission. To reconcile apparent differences in results, we note that the General Social Survey data used by Wolfinger lack information on marital duration, permitting analysis only for whether respondents have divorced by interview. As a result, an apparent decline in divorce transmission could be due to inadequate adjustments for the longer exposures to risk by earlier marriage cohorts, yielding a higher probability of divorce by interview for earlier cohorts relative to more recent cohorts even if divorce risks are identical across all marriage cohorts. We confirm this possibility by using a series of discrete-time hazard logistic regressions to investigate the sensitivity of estimates of trends in divorce transmission to different adjustments for exposure to risk. We conclude that there has been no trend in the intergenerational transmission of divorce.     

Estimating a marriage matching model with spillover effects

We use marriage matching functions to study how marital patterns change when population supplies change. Specifically, we use a behavioral marriage matching function with spillover effects to rationalize marriage and cohabitation behavior in contemporary Canada. The model can estimate a couple's systematic gains to marriage and cohabitation relative to remaining single. These gains are invariant to changes in population supplies. Instead, changes in population supplies redistribute these gains between a couple. Although the model is behavioral, it is nonparametric. It can fit any observed cross-sectional marriage matching distribution. We use the estimated model to quantify the impacts of gender differences in mortality rates and the baby boom on observed marital behavior in Canada. The higher mortality rate of men makes men scarcer than women. We show that the scarceness of men modestly reduced the welfare of women and increased the welfare of men in the marriage market. On the other hand, the baby boom increased older men's net gains to entering the marriage market and lowered middle-aged women's net gains.     

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.     

Strategic non-marital cohabitation: theory and empirical implications

Non-marital cohabitation is a rapidly growing global phenomenon. Prior literature examines the puzzling empirical regularity that premarital cohabitation is associated with higher divorce rates. Since cohabitation should yield improved match-quality information, one might expect the opposite. This result, and its recent weakening, have been explored empirically and produced theoretically using matching models. In this paper, we develop an intra-household bargaining model of alternative dating and cohabitation paths to marriage in which higher relationship exit costs for cohabitors relative to daters generates the observed higher divorce rate. We also show that asymmetric exit costs can produce rejection and generate exits that would not otherwise occur. In addition, we show that even when cohabitors have lower average marriage quality, expected utility for a given match quality is higher, and some utility enhancing marriages that would not have taken place without cohabitation will occur in its presence.     

Unobserved variables and marital status The schooling connection

Studies increasingly indicate that some of the characteristics of individuals are jointly determined with marital status, fertility, and labor supply. This study focuses on the effect of schooling on marital status. A Hausman-type test shows that schooling cannot be legitimately treated as an exogenous determinant of marriage and divorce. It is shown that if schooling is treated as an exogenous variable, the negative effect of schooling on the odds of marriage is underestimated. Further, the results indicate that schooling has a significant negative effect on divorce if it is treated as an exogenous variable; the coefficient for schooling is positive if it is treated as an endogenous variable.I wish to thank Gary Becker, T W. Schultz, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments. In addition, I am grateful for research support from DePaul's College of Commerce and Research Board.     

Who gets custody?

Changes in the living arrangements of children have implications for social policy and children’s well-being. Understanding who gets custody on divorce—mother, father, or both sharing custody—can also inform our understanding of family organization and the merits of alternative theories of marriage and divorce. We examine physical-custody outcomes among recent Wisconsin divorces in an effort to understand the factors associated with shared custody as well as mother-sole custody and father-sole custody. Although mother-sole custody remains the dominant arrangement, shared custody has increased over a nine-year period. We find that the probability of shared custody increases with parent’s income. Prior marital history. parents’ ages, the age and gender of children, and the legal process also have an impact on the probability of shared custody. In contrast to shared custody, the probability of father-sole custody decreases with parent’s income, while the relationship with other significant factors is generally similar. The notable exception is that, unlike shared custody, we find no evidence for an increase over time in the probability of father-sole custody. We also find that when the father has a higher proportion of the Couple’s total income, both shared custody and father-sole custody are more likely.     

The effect of marital status at first birth on marital dissolution among adolescent mothers

The sequencing of marriage and first birth was expected to play an important role in the stability of marriage among adolescent mothers. We hypothesized that adolescent women who married prior to conception would have the lowest rates of marital disruption, followed by those who married between conception and birth. Adolescent women who gave birth prior to marriage were expected to suffer the highest rates of marital dissolution. The results provide partial support for our hypotheses. There is little difference in the probability of separation between adolescent mothers who had a postmarital conception and those who had a premarital conception but married before the birth. Having a premarital birth, however, significantly increases the probability of marital dissolution. We also hypothesized that marital status at first birth would have less effect on the probability of marital dissolution for blacks than for whites. This, too, is generally supported by our findings. Among black females, those with a premarital birth are the first to suffer a marital disruption, but by the end of ten years there is little difference in the probability of separation among the three marital status groups. In contrast, among white females, those with a premarital birth are the first to experience a disruption, and this differential persists over all subsequent marriage duration intervals. Thus, the sequencing of marriage relative to birth has similar short term effects for whites and blacks, but the effect for blacks is evident only in the short term. Ten years after the marriage, black adolescent mothers have similar rates of marital stability regardless of the sequencing of marriage. This is consistent with the findings of previous research and with our hypothesis; with the black family pattern of lower rates of marriage, higher rates of illegitimacy and higher divorce rates, the sequencing of marriage has no long lasting consequences on marital stability. Finally, our predicted decline in the effect of marital status at first birth over historical time also finds partial support. For white females there has been a change in the effect of marriage-first birth sequencing on separation over time. In the period encompassed by the women in our study, white adolescent mothers who married subsequent to the birth have been the most likely to experience a separation at all marriage duration intervals, but this differential narrows as age at interview declines. Among black females there has been no change in the effect of a premarital birth over time.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

A joint model of marital childbearing and marital disruption

Married couples with children appear to be less likely to end their marriages than childless couples, especially when the children are young. Although this suggests that children affect the chances that their parents will divorce, the process may not be so simple: the chances that the marriage will last also may affect couples’ willingness to make the commitment to the marriage implied by having children. This paper uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to test the hypothesis that the risk of disruption faced by a married woman affects the chances that she will conceive and bear a child. The model used takes into account the simultaneous relationships between marital dissolution and marital fertility by including the hazard of disruption as a predictor of timing and likelihood of marital conception, and by including the results of previous fertility decisions as predictors of disruption of the marriage. We find that the hazard of disruption has strong negative effects on the hazard of marital childbearing, lengthening the intervals between births and decreasing the chances that a child will be born. This effect appears to be strongest for women who have had at least one child, either before or during the current marriage, although it is also large for childless women. Explicitly including the hazard of disruption in models of marital childbearing has sizable and important effects on many predictors of fertility.     

Effect of family structure on life satisfaction: australian evidence

How do family arrangements affect subjective well-being? We investigate this issue using data pooled from the IsssA and HILDA, both large, representative national samples of Australia (pooled n=38 447). Our regression analysis of cross-sectional and panel data examines how large are the differences in life satisfaction according to marital status and cohabitation. We find that women and men in formal marriages experience higher levels of life satisfaction than do people in other family arrangements. Moreover, both multiple tests in the cross-section, and tests controlling for prior happiness in the panel analysis, suggest that this is a causal relationship. Aggregating up the levels of life satisfaction generated by different marriage and cohabitation arrangements across a lifetime, suggests that a life-long marriage is the most satisfying. Early divorce followed by an enduring second marriage is little worse (because little time is spent outside the married state). But divorce without remarriage, or long lasting cohabitation without formal marriage, reduce the lifetime sum of subjective well-being by 4–12% for both women and men.     

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.     

The economic costs of marital disruption for Young Women over the past two decades

This paper examines the economic costs of separation and divorce for young women in the United States from the late 1960s through the late 1980s. Broadened opportunities for women outside marriage may have alleviated some of the severe economic costs of marital disruption for women. This paper contrasts the experiences of two cohorts of young women: those who married and separated or divorced in the late 1960s through the mid-1970s and those who experienced these events in the 1980s. Based on panel data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth 1979–1988, Young Women 1968–1978, and Young Men 1966–1978, the results show stability in the costs of disruption. A multivariate analysis shows that young women in the more recent cohort have more labor force experience before disruption than those in the earlier cohort, but prior work history does not protect women from the severe costs of marital disruption.     

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).

     

Interrelationships between fertility and marital dissolution: Results of a simultaneous logit model

Previous studies have failed to examine (a) the simultaneity of decisions to bear children and to dissolve a marriage and (b) the effects of the childbearing in the period just before dissolution on the likelihood of disruption. We attempted to resolve both problems by developing a simultaneous logit model of the interrelationship between the probability of separation and of having a birth during this period (when dissolution presumably is being considered). The model was estimated at successive durations of first marriage, using data for white women in the 1970 National Fertility Survey. The results indicate that childbearing patterns— number of children and age of youngest child at the beginning of the marital interval being studied and fertility during the interval—did not influence the likelihood of separation in simple or consistent ways over the marital life course, nor did marital strife (as indicated by separation) seem to affect childbearing throughout marriage.     

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.     

Marriage Markets and Intermarriage: Exchange in First Marriages and Remarriages

Drawing on data from the American Community Survey, we compare patterns of assortative mating in first marriages, remarriages, and mixed-order marriages. We identify a number of ascribed and achieved characteristics that are viewed as resources available for exchange, both as complements and substitutes. We apply conditional logit models to show how patterns of assortative mating among never-married and previously married persons are subject to local marriage market opportunities and constraints. The results reveal that previously married individuals “cast a wider net”: spousal pairings are more heterogamous among remarriages than among first marriages. Marital heterogamy, however, is reflected in systematic evidence of trade-offs showing that marriage order (i.e., status of being never-married) is a valued trait for exchange. Never-married persons are better positioned than previously married persons to marry more attractive marital partners, variously measured (e.g., highly educated partners). Previously married persons—especially women—are disadvantaged in the marriage market, facing demographic shortages of potential partners to marry. Marriage market constraints take demographic expression in low remarriage rates and in heterogamous patterns of mate selection in which previously married partners often substitute other valued characteristics in marriage with never-married persons.     

Recent trends in marital disruption

The post-1980 decline in the crude divorce rate must be interpreted in the context of the long-term trend and in terms of what we know about composition effects on crude measures-particularly given shifts in age at marriage and the age composition effects of the baby boom. Data from the June 1985 Current Population Survey permit more detailed, exposure-specific measurements as well as the use of separation as the event terminating marriage. Estimates from these data suggest a decline followed by a recovery. Taking into account well-known levels of underreporting, we find that recent rates imply that about two-thirds of all first marriages are likely to end in separation or divorce. We examine the persistence of major differences in marital stability and evaluate the comparative stability of first and second marriages.     

Differentials in divorce in maryland

The basic data needed for measurement of the risks of termination of the legal relationship of marriage by characteristics of the marital partners are not available at this time for the United States because the national divorce registration area includes less than half the States. Special studies based on selected census data or the records of marriages and divorces occurring in one State or community have provided much of the valuable but limited information at hand. Statistics for individual States are subject to substantial bias as a consequence of inter-State migration between time of marriage and time of divorce, but they must serve as a basic data source until national reporting has improved. A record linkage study was undertaken which tied marriages occurring in the State of Maryland in 1959 with divorces occurring in the State in the years 1959–66. Relative, not actual, divorce risks by race, age at marriage, and previous marital status were calculated for couples with at least one partner an in-State resident at the time of marriage. The dissolution rate was higher for whites than for nonwhites. Marriages contracted by persons at very youthful ages and by persons who had been married previously were found subject to greater than average risks of dissolution through divorce.     

“Living in sin” and marriage: A matching model

This paper develops a two sided matching model of premarital cohabitation and marriage in which premarital cohabitation serves as a period of learning. We solve for the optimal policy to be followed by individuals by treating the model as a three stage dynamic programming problem. We find that couples are more discriminating when forming marital unions than when forming cohabiting unions. Cohabitation unions arise among members of the same “class” and there is overlap between the classes formed by marital unions and cohabiting unions. This implies that some cohabiting unions progress to marriage while others do not, a finding borne out by empirical studies. Received: 4 November 1999/Accepted: 4 September 2000