Remarried Men and Remarried Women

The study of remarriage after divorce has by and large been ignored by family sociologists. Previous studies on remarriage focused primarily on the individual's adjustment to or the aftermath of remarriage. Employing 1972-82 General Social Survey data, 1 use regression techniques to investigate the relationship between socioeconomic variables and the state of remarriage, for divorced men and women. I test the hypotheses that for men, education, occupation and income level are positively related to remarriage, while for women these variables are inversely associated with remarriage. As hypothesized, highly educated divorced women are less likely to be remarried, as are divorced women who are occupationally and financially independent. The important factor for divorced women considering remarriage is whether or not they are working. Divorced men, on the other hand, are likely to be remarried when they are older and have higher incomes. Unexpectedly, education is inversely related to remarriage for divorced men.