Marriage and Divorce Today

1
Marriage and Divorce Today
2
Marriage and Divorce U.S. 2001

• Number of Marriages 2,327,000
• Marriage Rate 8.4 per 1,000 total Population
• Divorce Rate 4.0 per 1,000 population (46
  States reporting and Washington D.C.)

3
The Average American Marriage

• Break into pairs.
• What is the ideal American Marriage like? Be
  sure to discuss roles, norms, and expectations.
• What is your experience? How does it compare and
  contrast to the ideal.
• Join with a second group of two and discuss.

4
Macro Influences on Marriage

• The Law
• Religion
• Social/Cultural Expectations

5
The Law

• Marriage is a legal contract.
• Only some can legally marry.

6
Discussion

• Using Opposing Viewpoints as a starting point,
  discuss the arguments for and against gay/lesbian
  marriage.
• What do you think?
• What do you think of recent events?
  (Massachusetts, San Francisco?)

7
Religion

• How does religion shape marriage norms?
• How do these norms vary?

8
Social/Cultural Gender Norms

• Marriage has long been considered a right of
  passage for both men and woman.
• How are men and women expected to approach
  marriage?
• How does this differ by gender?

9
Recent Trends- Age at First Marriage

• 90 of the population will eventually marry, but
  age of first marriage is increasing.
• In 1998 the average age of marriage for women was
  25.0 years. For men, the average age of first
  marriage was 26.7 years. For women, this
  represents the highest age of first marriage
  since statistics have been kept on this.

10
Recent Trends- Is Marriage Disappearing?

• Overall divorce rates increased between 1950s
  and 1970s, but stabilized in the 1980s.
• Black women have higher rates of marital breakup,
  lower rates of making the transition from
  separation to divorce and lower rates of
  remarriage.
• By age 30, 3/4 of women in the U.S. have been
  married and about half have cohabitated outside
  of marriage (CDC, 2002)

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Should We Be Concerned?

• -In the United States during the second half of
  the twentieth century, the proportion of peoples
  lives spent in marriage declined due to
  postponement of marriage to later ages and higher
  rates of divorce. The increase in nonmarital
  cohabiting has also contributed to the decline in
  the proportion of peoples lives spent in
  marriage. Increasing rates of cohabitation have
  largely offset decreasing rates of marriage.
  CDC July 2002 p. 4

12
Children in Families

• Today only half of American children live in
  nuclear families with both biological parents
  present. One child in five lives in a sepfamily
  and one in four lives in a single parent home.
  The number of single parents increased from 3.8
  million in 1970 to 6.9 million in 1980, a rate
  that averages out to a truly unprecedented 6
  increase each year. In the 1980s, the rate of
  increase slowed and from 1990 to 1995 it leveled
  off, but the total numbers have continued to
  mount, reaching 12.2 million by 1996. Coontz,
  1997 p. 79

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Is Divorce a Cause or a Consequence of Change

• Ahrons challenges us to think of divorce and
  other new family forms as adaptations to change
  rather than sources of change.
• Changes in
• Life span
• Gendered Division of Labor
• Work
• Family Expectations

14
Divorce Rates

• 43 of first marriages end in separation or
  divorce within 15 years. (CDC 2001).
• One in three first marriages ends within 10
  years, and one in 5 ends within the first 5 years
• Currently, divorce rates are relatively stable.

15
The Downside to Divorce

• Separation and divorce can have adverse effects
  on the health and well being of children and
  adults. CDC 2002
• Past research as shown that divorce is
  associated with higher rates of mortality, more
  health problems, and more risky behaviors such as
  increased alcohol use. Jeffrey Koplan,
  Director, CDC 2002
• White women are seven times more likely to be
  poor after a divorce, black and Latina women are
  four times more likely.
• For families experiencing economic hardship,
  marriage decreased the expected level. While a
  married-couple household with one child requires
  two or three times the income to escape hardship,
  a single-parent household needs four or five
  times the income.

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What Characteristics are Common to Communities
with More Stable Marriages

• Community Prosperity- As neighborhood poverty
  increases the likelihood that cohabitations and
  marriages will fail also increases.
• Important indicators include
• High median family income
• Low male unemployment
• Low poverty rate

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What Causes Marriages to Break Up?

• According to the CDC, first marriages are less
  likely to break up and more likely to succeed if
  the wife
• Grew up in a two parent home
• Is Asian
• Was 20 years of age or older at age of marriage.
• Did not have any children when she got married
• Is college educated
• Has more income
• Lives in a community with a higher than average
  median income
• Has a religious affiliation

18
Age at First Marriage Explored

• The older a woman is at first marriage, the
  longer that marriage is likely to last. 59 of
  marriages to brides under 18 end in separation or
  divorce within 15 years, compared to 36 of those
  married at age 20 or over.
• Early marriage is more likely for women in
  communities with higher male unemployment, lower
  median family income, higher poverty and higher
  receipt of welfare.

19
Does Separation Lead to Divorce?

• -According to the CDC about 97 of separated
  non-Hispanic white women are divorced within 5
  years of separation, compared with 77 of
  separated Hispanic women and only 67 of
  non-Hispanic black women.
• This does not mean the marriage remains intact,
  however, it may mean a permanent separation.

20
Remarriage?

• Younger women who divorce are more likely to
  remarry 81 of those divorced before age 25
  remarry within 10 years, compared with 68 of
  those divorced at age 25 or over.
• Black women are less likely than other women to
  remain in a first marriage, to make the
  transition from separation to divorce, to
  remarry, and to remain in a remarriage.
• The likelihood that divorced women will remarry
  has been declining since the 1950's, when women
  who divorced had a 65 chance of remarrying.
  Data for 1995 show that women who divorced in the
  1980's only had a 50 chance of remarrying. CDC
  2002

21
The Benefits of Marriage

• Marriage relationships promote healthy behaviors.
  The unmarried are more likely to die from all
  causes.
• The married have better mental health than the
  nonmarried.
• Marriage enhances the sex lives of the partners.
• The married have more economic resources.

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How Does Marriage Produce These Benefits?

• The institution of marriage assumes a long-term
  contract, which provides the couple with social
  support by imposing social and economic costs on
  those who dissolve the union
• Marriage assumes the sharing of economic and
  social resources, which is a form of
  co-insurance, protecting the partners from
  unexpected events
• Married couples benefits from economies of scale
• Marriage connects people to others. Connections
  and obligations provide life with meaning.

23
Cautions

• Not all marriages share the same benefits.
• The marriage of two poor people may decrease
  available resources
• The Gendered Marriage
• His and Her marriages

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His and Her Marriages

• His
• Men receive greater health benefits than women
  from marriage.
• Men receive more social support, housework and
  kin work when married.

• Hers
• Wives benefit, but less so than husbands. Women
  do more household and family labor when married.

25
Cohabitation, Marriage and Partnership

• Though cohabitation has existed for centuries- if
  one examines recent trends, it has recently
  become a more common alternative to marriage.
• According to the U.S. Census the number of
  couples cohabiting increased from 439,000 in 1960
  to 4,236,000 in 1998.

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Are Cohabitations as Stable as Marriages?

• The probability of a first marriage ending in
  divorce or separation after 5 years is 20, but
  the probability of a premarital cohabitation
  breaking up within 5 years is 49. After 10
  years, the probability of a first marriage ending
  is 33, compared with 62 for cohabitations.

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Types of Cohabitors

• 1) Couples planning to marry
• 2) Couples Cohabiting as a temporary alternative
  to marriage
• 3) Couples cohabiting as a permanent alternative
  to marriage
• 4) Couples who are not legally allowed to marry

28
Cohabitation and Marriage

• Only about 1 in 10 remain cohabiting after five
  years without either marrying or breaking up.
  However the CDC reports that intact premarital
  cohabitation that lasts 5 years or more has 70
  odds of resulting in marriage.
• In 1970 about 11 had cohabited prior to first
  marriage to nearly half for recent first
  marriages in 1989.
• About 40 of cohabiting unions break up without
  the couple getting married. Usually the break up
  is within the first 1 and ½ years.

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Cohabitation is More Often an Alternative to
Marriage Among the Previously Married

• People who are divorced and then cohabitate tend
  to form longer and more stable partnerships.
• This group is more likely to view cohabitation as
  a permanent alternative to marriage.

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The probability that an intact first premarital
cohabitation becomes a marriage is higher if

• The woman is white rather than black.
• The couple has a higher than average income
• The woman has any religious affiliation

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Is it a College Student Phenomenon?

• Cohabitation has compensated for declining
  marriages the least among persons who have
  attended college. It offsets 84 of the decline
  in marriages before age 25 among persons not
  completing high school, but only 63 of those who
  attended college.
• A higher proportion of working class people
  cohabit. Probably for economic reasons, marriage
  is out of the question for some.

32
Children and Cohabitation

• 4 out of every 10 cohabiting couples have
  children present, though it is more likely to be
  older, divorced cohabitors.
• 1/6 of never married cohabiting couples have a
  child that was born since they began living
  together.
• Partners children that are not the respondents
  increases the report of trouble and decreases
  marriage expectations, whereas, if the respondent
  has children in the household that are not the
  partners, it markedly increases the expectation
  of marriage and decreases the expectation of
  never marrying.

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Micro Aspects of Marriage

• Correlates of Marital Quality
• Shared Social Characteristics
• Economic and Personal Resources
• Dual Earner Couples
• The Division of Household Labor
• Role Fit (consensus between the spouses on roles)
• Social Class
• Children (Satisfaction dips during raising of
  children)
• Life Cycle

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Communication and Gender

• Male and female roles and norms are directly at
  odds.
• Competition versus cooperation
• Solutions versus acknowledgement

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Power in Marriage

• Sex as Power
• Social Stratification
• Intersections of race, class and gender

36
The Future of Marriage

• What kind of marriage do you want to have?
• What resources would facilitated you having that
  type of marriage?