The impact of job loss on family dissolution

The impact of involuntary job displacements on the probability of divorce is analysed using discrete duration models. The analysis uses the sample of couples from the British Household Panel Survey and distinguishes between types of displacements. Results show that couples in which the husband experiences a job loss are more likely to divorce. Redundancies have small, positive, often insignificant and short-lived effects while dismissals and temporary job endings have larger positive impacts. This is consistent with the interpretation of redundancies as capturing negative income shocks while other types of job loss also convey new information about potential future earnings and match quality.     

Lost jobs, broken marriages

This paper examines the impact of both husbands’ and wives’ job displacement on the risk that the marriage ends in divorce. Using Swedish-linked employee–employer data, all married couples in which one of the spouses lost his or her job because of an establishment closure in 1987 or 1988 and a comparison sample were identified. Over a 12-year period, the excess risk of divorce among couples’ in which the husband was displaced was 13% and statistically significant. The estimated impact of wives’ job displacements was of almost the same size, but not statistically significant.     

Not your lucky day: romantically and numerically special wedding date divorce risks

Characteristics of couples on or about their wedding day and characteristics of weddings have been shown to predict marital outcomes. Little is known, however, about how the dates of the weddings correlate with marriage durability. Using Dutch marriage and divorce registries from 1999 to 2013, this study compares the durations of marriages that began on unusually popular wedding dates with marriages on ordinary dates. We identify several distinct types of popular dates, including Valentine’s Day and numerically special days (dates with the same or sequential number values, e.g., 9.9.99, 1.2.03), showing that on an adjusted basis, the incidence of weddings on such dates was 137–509% higher than ordinary dates. The hazard odds of divorce for these special-date weddings were 18–36% higher than ordinary-date weddings. Sorting on couples’ observable characteristics accounts for some of the higher divorce risks, but even after controlling for these characteristics, special-date weddings were more vulnerable, with 10–17% higher divorce odds compared to ordinary dates. These relationships are even stronger for couples who have not married before.     

Social class and socio-economic differentials in divorce in England and Wales

Summary The characteristics of a national sample of over 2,000 couples who divorced in 1979 are analysed according to the social class and socio-economic position of the husband. The demographic variables investigated for social class and socio-economic differentials include ages at marriage and divorce, duration of marriage, previous marital status, family size and the presence of a pre-maritally conceived child. In addition, an age-standardized measure, the 'standardized divorce ratio' is used to summarise the relative rates of divorce for the different social classes and socio-economic groups. Using this measure, the rate of divorce for couples in Social Class I is only half that for the average couple, whereas for couples in Social Class V and couples in which the husband is unemployed it is more than double.     

The resort to divorce in England and Wales, 1858–1957

This paper consists of a statistical analysis of the increasing resort to divorce in England and Wales over the past hundred years. In view of the social, financial and procedural barriers surrounding the Divorce Court over most of the period it is impossible to regard the spread of divorce as an index of increasing marital breakdown. It indicates merely the greater ability and willingness of estranged couples to take advantage of the legal machinery for bringing their marriages to a formal end.

The analysis of published data shows that since 1857, the rate of petitioning per 10,000 married couples (of whom the wives were 15–49 years of age) has risen from 0.83 to 37.98. Various factors have been responsible for this fifty-foild increase: it seems that a five-fold rise was due specifically to the lowering of formal barriers (which made divorce more accessible to the poor and to women petitioners), while the remaining tenfold increase was brought about by the growing acceptance by society and by discordant couples, of divorce as an appropriate end to a broken marriage. This change in public opinion can be seen not only in the slow yet persistent rise in the rate of petitioning over all but the last few years, but also in the long-term effects of the two world wars.

Divorces since 1921 have been allocated to the various marriage cohorts involved so as to estimate the proportion of each cohort divorced by successive marriage anniversaries. This procedure has shown that the recent war had its greaters disruptive impact on the “hastliy contracted” marriages of the early war years; the impact on these cohorts was, however, only slightly in excess of that exerted on the immediately preceding cohorts married in the later 1930's. In fact the war took its toll of all cohorts back to 1921.

As complement to this study of trends the position near the beginning and near the end of the whole period was investigated by analysing a special extraction of statistics relating to all the 1871 petitions and to a sample of those of 1951. The study of couples involved in divorce in these two years, illustrates its extension in the intervening period to most sectors of the married population. From a tiny group of predominantly well-to-do and frequently childless couples in 1871, the divorce population by 1951 appeared to have become very nearly a cross-section of all married couples, at least in respect to occupational structure and family size. To some extent, the close similarity between the divorcing and the still married couples in 1951 was a temporary phenomenon, due to the entry into the divorce courts in that year of an unuually large number of poor petitioners using the new legal aid provisions introduced in 1950. Nevertheless, there is good reasong to believe that this factor has led to only slight over-emphasis of the long-term trend for the poor and those with families to take an increasing share in divorce petitioning.

So far as the mid-twentieth century position is concerned cohort analysis shows that, at least in the early years of matrimony, the couples married since 1945 have petitioned for divorce less than their immediate elders in the wartime or just pre-war cohorts. While the post-war marriages have not run their full course through the most divorce-prone years, this finding suggests that the rate of petitioning is not likely to go on increasing in the future nearly so rapidly or so persistently as it has done in the past. It seems possible that the rate may be stabilized in the next few years at approximately its present level, i.e. within the range of 5%–10% of each marriage cohort. If this should occur, it would probably mean that divorce in England and Wales had found its own level, and that virtually all those requiring to terminate marriage in the existing context of social circumstances were no longer prevented by extraneous barriers from using the appropriate legal procedures.     

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.     

Hiv status and union dissolution in Sub-saharan Africa: The case of Rakai,Uganda

Little is known about the impact of HIV infection on the disruption of families through separation, divorce, and widowhood. Using life tables and multinomial logistic regression, this research examined the influence of HIV status on the risk of separation or divorce and widowhood among women in Rakai, Uganda. The multivariate results revealed that dissolution is more common among HIV-infected women and that infected women in HIV-discordant couples are especially likely to face separation or divorce than women in other HIV-status couples. These results highlight women's vulnerability to the social impact of HIV infection and the importance of dyadic studies of the disruption of unions.     

Life course events and residential change: unpacking age effects on the probability of moving

We know that life course events, especially divorce and separation, trigger residential moves, but we know less about how these and other life course events intersect with how far people move and the relationship with labour market change. This research uses data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics Survey in Australia to model a set of life course events and their intersection with the distance of move. I examine essentially positive events, marriage and new births and not so positive events, separation and divorce, and the unexpected events of widowhood and job loss, and their outcomes in the housing market. For the decision to move, the models partly parallel other studies of life course events and their role in the mobility decision, but the results provide enriched results about how age and life course events intersect. The analysis shows in greater detail how age acts as a proxy for complicated life course intersections with moving. The disruption of divorce and separation, as expected, increases the probability of moving but with different effects over distance. Households move in response to these life events but they are much less likely to change metropolitan locations, which reflects the embedded nature of family change and location. Overall, the research enriches previous studies of age-related links to migration and mobility.     

Divorce and parity progression following the death of a child: A register-based study from Finland

Most studies that have examined whether a child’s death influences parental relationship stability have used small-scale data sets and their results are inconclusive. A likely reason is that child loss affects not only the risk of parental separation, but also the risk of having another child. Hence parity progression and separation must be treated as two competing events in relation to child loss. The analysis in this paper used Finnish register data from 1971 to 2003, covering over 100,000 married couples whose durations of both first marriage and parenthood could be observed. We ran parity-specific Cox regressions in which process time started from the birth of each additional child. All marriages included women of childbearing age, none of whom had experienced any child death on entering the analysis. We find that child loss only modestly influences the divorce risk, whereas its effect on the risk of parity progression is considerable.     

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 joint effects of marriage partners’ socioeconomic positions on the risk of divorce

This study investigated the joint effects of spouses' socioeconomic positions on the risk of divorce in Finland. For couples in which both partners were at the lowest educational level, the risk of divorce was lower than could be expected on the basis of the previously documented overall inverse association between each spouse's education and the risk of divorce. Women who were employed or were homemakers, and who had employed husbands, had comparatively stable marriages; couples in which the husband, the wife, or both partners were unemployed had an elevated risk of divorce. A husband's high income decreased the risk of divorce, and a wife's high income increased the risk at all levels of the other spouse's income, but especially when the wife's income exceeded the husband's.     

The demographics of same-sex marriages in Norway and Sweden

The present study investigates the demographics of same-sex marriages--that is, registered partnerships-in Norway and Sweden. We give an overview of the demographic characteristics of the spouses of these partnerships, study patterns of their divorce risks, and compare the dynamics of same-sex couples with those of heterosexual marriages. We use longitudinal information from the population registers of the two countries that cover all persons in partnerships. Our demographic analyses include information on characteristics such as age, sex, geographic background, experience of previous opposite-sex marriage, parenthood, and educational attainment of the partners involved. The results show that in many respects, the distributions of married populations on these characteristics differ by the sex composition of the couples. Patterns in divorce risks are rather similar in same-sex and opposite-sex marriages, but divorce-risk levels are considerably higher in same-sex marriages. The divorce riskforfemale partnerships is double that for male partnerships.     

New realities of the American family

The demographic, social, and economic characteristics of American families have changed dramatically over the past few decades. While the male breadwinner/female homemaker model was long traditionally typical,l contemporary families may be openly made up of single-parents, remarried couples, unmarried couples, stepfamilies, foster families, extended or multigenerational families, or 2 families within 1 household. Families are now most likely to have 3 or fewer children, a mother employed outside of the home, and a 50% chance of parental divorce before the children are grown. These trends are common not only in America, but in most industrialized nations around the world. In fact, family trends are so fluid that the US Census Bureau and workplace policy find it difficult to keep pace. This report presents and discusses social and demographic trends behind the ever-changing face of the American family. Households and types of families are further defined, as are the living arrangements of children, young adults, and the elderly. Marriage, divorce, and remarriage trends, age at marriage rates, and interracial marriage are then discussed. Next examined are declining family size, teenage parents, contraception and abortion, unwed mothers, and technological routes to parenthood. The changing roles of family members and family economic well-being are discussed in sections preceding closing comments on the outlook for the American family.     

Why are cohabiting relationships more violent than marriages?

In response to increases in cohabitation in the United States, researchers have recently focused on differences between cohabiting and marital unions. One consistent finding is a higher rate of domestic violence among cohabiting couples as compared with married couples. A prominent explanation for this finding is that cohabitation is governed by a different set of institutionalized controls than marriage. This article explores an alternative explanation, namely, that differences in selection out of cohabitation and marriage, including selection of the least-violent cohabiting couples into marriage and the most-violent married couples into divorce, lead to higher observed rates of violence among cohabiting couples in cross-sectional samples. Our results suggest that researchers should be cautious when making comparisons between married and cohabiting couples in which the dependent variable of interest is related to selection into and out of relationship status.     

An empirical analysis of the matching patterns of same-sex and opposite-sex couples

We used 1990 Census data to compare the matching behaviors of four types of cohabiting couples: same-sex male couples, same-sex female couples, opposite-sex unmarried couples, and married couples. In general, we found evidence of positive assortative mating for all traits and across all types of couples. The positive assortative mating, however, is stronger for non-labor-market traits (e.g., age, education) than for labor-market traits (e.g., hourly earnings). Further, members of married couples are more alike with respect to most characteristics than are members of opposite-sex cohabiting couples, and members of opposite-sex cohabiting couples are more alike than are members of same-sex couples.     

Income dynamics in couples and the dissolution of marriage and cohabitation

Several studies have shown that a wife's strong (socio)economic position is associated with an increase in the risk of divorce. Less is known about such effects for cohabiting relationships. Using a unique and large-scale sample of administrative records from The Netherlands, we analyze the link between couples' income dynamics and union dissolution for married and cohabiting unions over a 10-year period. We find negative effects of household income on separation and positive effects of the woman's relative income, in line with earlier studies. The shape of the effect of the woman's relative income, however, depends on the type of union. Movements away from income equality toward a male-dominant pattern tend to increase the dissolution risk for cohabiting couples, whereas they reduce the dissolution risk for married couples. Movements away from income equality toward a female-dominant pattern (reverse specialization) increase the dissolution risks for both marriage and cohabitation. The findings suggest that equality is more protective for cohabitation, whereas specialization is more protective for marriage, although only when it fits a traditional pattern. Finally, we find that the stabilizing effects of income equality are more pronounced early in the marriage and that income equality also reduces the dissolution risk for same-sex couples.     

The changing American family

This Bulletin documents recent changes in American family patterns resulting both from longterm trends in urbanization, industrialization, and economic growth and the disruption of the Great Depression and World War 2, as well as changed attitudes toward marriage, parenthood, divorce, and the roles of women. Following a postwar boom in the 1950s and 1960s, marriage rates have now fallen to levels observed in the early 20th century. Since 1970, the number of unmarried couples living together has more than tripled to 1.9 million in 1983. The divorce rate has now stabilized after more than doubling since 1960, but at the current level, 1/2 of all recent marriages will end in divorce. Most divorced persons remarry fairly quickly, often creating complex families of "step-relatives." With 19% of households with minor children now headed by a women with no husband present, up to 1/2 of all children will live for sometime in a fatherless family before age 18. Over 1/2 of all married women, including 49% of married mothers of preschool children, now hold a paid job outside the home. Working wives boost a family's income by an average 40% but still are expected to shoulder most responsiblility for home and childcare. White women now in their 20s say they expect to have an average of 2 children, but are delaying childbearing to such an extent that 29% could end up childless. Most of the elderly live on their own but usually near children whom they see frequently. Despite changes in traditional family patterns, Americans consistently report that a happy marriage and good family are the most important aspects of life. And though most Americans now live with few or no family members, they maintain active contact with a large network of family.     

Gray divorce: Explaining midlife marital splits

Recent research suggests that one out of every four divorces in the United States is now “gray,” meaning that at least one half of the couple has reached the age of 50 when the marriage breaks down. To understand why this age group—the Baby Boomer generation—is splitting up, this study conducted 40 in-depth, semistructured interviews with men and 40 with women who have experienced a gray divorce in their lifetimes. Respondents’ beliefs in an expressive individualistic model of marriage, where partnerships are only valuable if they help individuals achieve personal growth, were compared against their potential adherence to what I call a commitment-based model of marriage, where binding, romantic love holds couples together unless there is severe relationship strain. The results demonstrated that the commitment-based model most strongly governs marriage and the decision to divorce among Baby Boomers for both sexes, although some specific reasons for divorce differ for men and women.     

The Changing Pattern of Educational Differentials in Divorce in the Context of Gender Egalitarianization: The Case of Taiwan

Regarding educational differentials in divorce, similar trends have been reported across countries. Some report increasing educational differentials, while others identify an educational crossover pattern. The commonality is that education seems to play a role of stabilizing marriage more than ever before. Using data from the Women??s Marriage, Fertility, and Employment Survey, this study investigates the case of Taiwan by portraying the changing pattern of women??s educational differentials in divorce. There are three major findings. First, among previous marriage cohorts, women with relatively higher levels of formal education are significantly more likely to divorce. Second, the marital-dissolution rates for less educated women are rising faster than the corresponding rates for women with more education. Third, this trend does not stop at the catch-up point and eventually leads to a reversal in the association between education and divorce from positive to negative. In short, such educational differentials in divorce vary dramatically across marriage cohorts. A pattern of educational crossover in divorce has been displayed during the rapid social change in Taiwan. Other than William Goode??s argument raised a half-century ago, the marriage model transformation from specialization toward symmetry in the context of gender egalitarianization has to be taken into consideration in order to obtain a full understanding of the phenomenon.     

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.