IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/demogr/v51y2014i2p587-598.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Sheela Kennedy
  • Steven Ruggles

Abstract

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. Copyright Population Association of America 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Sheela Kennedy & Steven Ruggles, 2014. "Breaking Up Is Hard to Count: The Rise of Divorce in the United States, 1980–2010," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(2), pages 587-598, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:demogr:v:51:y:2014:i:2:p:587-598
    DOI: 10.1007/s13524-013-0270-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s13524-013-0270-9
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s13524-013-0270-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2007. "Marriage and Divorce: Changes and their Driving Forces," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 27-52, Spring.
    2. Joshua Goldstein, 1999. "The leveling of divorce in the united states," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 36(3), pages 409-414, August.
    3. Adam Isen & Betsey Stevenson, 2010. "Women's Education and Family Behavior: Trends in Marriage, Divorce and Fertility," NBER Chapters, in: Demography and the Economy, pages 107-140, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. James McCarthy, 1978. "A comparison of the probability of the dissolution of first and second marriages," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 15(3), pages 345-359, August.
    5. Steven P. Martin, 2006. "Trends in Marital Dissolution by Women's Education in the United States," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 15(20), pages 537-560.
    6. Steven Ruggles, 1997. "The rise of divorce and separation in the United States, 1880–1990," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 34(4), pages 455-466, November.
    7. R. Kelly Raley & Larry L. Bumpass, 2003. "The topography of the divorce plateau," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 8(8), pages 245-260.
    8. Jessamyn Schaller, 2013. "For richer, if not for poorer? Marriage and divorce over the business cycle," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 1007-1033, July.
    9. Teresa Martin & Larry Bumpass, 1989. "Recent trends in marital disruption," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 26(1), pages 37-51, February.
    10. Susan L. Brown & I-Fen Lin, 2012. "The Gray Divorce Revolution: Rising Divorce Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults, 1990-2010," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 67(6), pages 731-741.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lowell Hargens, 2019. "Incidence of first-marriage divorce among women in the 1979 panel of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 40(52), pages 1529-1536.
    2. Philip Cohen, 2014. "Recession and Divorce in the United States, 2008–2011," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 33(5), pages 615-628, October.
    3. Arun S. Hendi, 2019. "Proximate Sources of Change in Trajectories of First Marriage in the United States, 1960–2010," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(3), pages 835-862, June.
    4. Heggeness, Misty L., 2009. "Evidence of shifts in intra-household allocation under exogenous changes in family policy and administrative procedures: The case of school enrollment in Chile," 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 49450, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Andriana Bellou, 2017. "Male wage inequality and marital dissolution: Is there a link?," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(1), pages 40-71, February.
    6. Adam Isen & Betsey Stevenson, 2010. "Women's Education and Family Behavior: Trends in Marriage, Divorce and Fertility," NBER Chapters, in: Demography and the Economy, pages 107-140, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Lucia Coppola & Mariachiara Di Cesare, 2008. "How fertility and union stability interact in shaping new family patterns in Italy and Spain," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 18(4), pages 117-144.
    8. John Douglas Skåtun, 2017. "Bargaining on your Spouse: Coasean and Non-Coasean Behaviour Within Marriage," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 263-278, June.
    9. Delia Furtado & Miriam Marcén & Almudena Sevilla, 2013. "Does Culture Affect Divorce? Evidence From European Immigrants in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(3), pages 1013-1038, June.
    10. Bellido, Héctor & Marcén, Miriam, 2020. "On the relationship between body mass index and marital dissolution," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 326-340.
    11. Evelyn Lehrer, 2008. "Age at marriage and marital instability: revisiting the Becker–Landes–Michael hypothesis," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 21(2), pages 463-484, April.
    12. Elizabeth Thomson & Trude Lappegård & Marcia Carlson & Ann Evans & Edith Gray, 2014. "Childbearing Across Partnerships in Australia, the United States, Norway, and Sweden," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(2), pages 485-508, April.
    13. Lehrer, Evelyn L. & Son, Yeon Jeong, 2017. "Marital Instability in the United States: Trends, Driving Forces, and Implications for Children," IZA Discussion Papers 10503, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. R. Kelly Raley & Larry L. Bumpass, 2003. "The topography of the divorce plateau," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 8(8), pages 245-260.
    15. Todd Kendall, 2011. "The Relationship Between Internet Access and Divorce Rate," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 449-460, September.
    16. Elyse A. Jennings, 2016. "Predictors of Marital Dissolution During a Period of Rapid Social Change: Evidence From South Asia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(5), pages 1351-1375, October.
    17. Jennifer Montez & Erika Sabbath & M. Glymour & Lisa Berkman, 2014. "Trends in Work–Family Context Among U.S. Women by Education Level, 1976 to 2011," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 33(5), pages 629-648, October.
    18. Christopher Tamborini & Howard Iams & Gayle Reznik, 2012. "Women’s Earnings Before and After Marital Dissolution: Evidence from Longitudinal Earnings Records Matched to Survey Data," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 69-82, March.
    19. Lehrer, Evelyn L. & Chen, Yu, 2012. "Delayed Entry into First Marriage: Further Evidence on the Becker-Landes-Michael Hypothesis," IZA Discussion Papers 6729, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. José-Manuel Rey, 2010. "A Mathematical Model of Sentimental Dynamics Accounting for Marital Dissolution," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(3), pages 1-8, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:demogr:v:51:y:2014:i:2:p:587-598. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.