divorce research report

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Divorce and Close Relationships: Findings, Themes, and Future Directions

David A. Sbarra, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

Connie J. A. Beck, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology, School of Mind, Brain, and Behavior, College of Science, University of Arizona, Tuscon, AZ

• Published: 01 August 2013
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This chapter provides an update on current research concerning marital dissolution: its history, epidemiology/demography, causes, correlates/consequences, and emerging themes in the literature (including cohabitation, stepfamilies, legal interventions for complex family situations, behavior and genetic studies of family functioning, and the potential mechanisms of child and adult resilience in the face of divorce). In the United States, the divorce rate rests near 40 percent of all first marriages; this statistic, however, masks considerable variability in risk for divorce as a function of education and socioeconomic standing, among other factors. Furthermore, the fastest growing family form in the United States is nonmarital unions, and relatively few high-quality data exist on the rates at which these relationships dissolve and how family arrangements (e.g., child custody) are decided in these situations. The chapter closes with a series of questions that are open for future research. We emphasize the need to conduct more research on prevention programs (including mandated parenting education programs and voluntary multisession group treatments for parents and children) and to develop a deeper understanding of how the intervention and prevention programs can be best applied to complex family situations.

Marital separation and divorce are major personal upheavals that have the potential to disrupt family functioning and to negatively affect both children’s and adults’ psychological and physical well-being. This chapter provides an update on current research concerning marital dissolution: its history, epidemiology/demography, causes, consequences, and emerging themes in the literature. Although the scope of the chapter is broad, we also aim to outline and highlight important questions for future research. To approach these tasks, we begin by discussing the history and demographics of marital separation and divorce.

Divorce: History and Demographics

Before the 1600s, in most European countries, divorce was governed by the Church of England or Catholic Church and was not permitted ( Amato & Irving, 2006 ). Marriage was defined as a relationship that lasted for life without the possibility of exit except through death. Although the American Colonies were established to gain religious freedom, religious traditions surrounding the regulation of divorce followed the Pilgrims into the New World. The Colonies were, however, split on whether a couple would be allowed to formally divorce, the reasons (grounds) a couple could divorce, and the authority given the responsibility for adjudicating cases.

Between 1600 and 1800 social reformers were successful in moving regulation of marriage and divorce from the control of the Church to colonial legislative authority and then eventually to the courts ( Ahrons, 1994 ). Although the move from Church control to legal control was successful, the change was difficult and was debated for centuries. In the mid-1800s social reformers Robert Dale Owen and Elizabeth Cady Stanton strongly argued that couples who did not want to remain married or were in a violent marriage must have the right to divorce ( Blake, 1977 ). Stanton continued to raise the issue of at the annual woman’s rights convention in 1860. The reasons or grounds under which a couple could divorce were determined colony by colony and sometimes differed for men and women. Whereas adultery was generally agreed to be a grounds for divorce for both men and women, women in some colonies needed additional grounds, such as bigamy and desertion, to be allowed to divorce ( Ahrons, 1994 ).

During the late nineteenth century, the general societal reaction to divorce began to shift. During this time the first collection of divorce statistics for any state was gathered for Connecticut ( Blake, 1977 ). These statistics revealed that in the period from 1849 to 1852, there were 544 divorces, followed by 1,235 for the period from 1861 to 1864. In 1880 another study of divorces in the New England states was published (Allen, 1880 cited in Blake 1977 ). Seizing on these statistics, reformers argued that the increase in divorce were the sole responsibility of lax divorce laws ( Blake, 1977 ). Divorce reform organizations were formed. In 1881 the New England Divorce Reform League was founded. In 1885 it was reorganized as the National Divorce Report League, later called the National League for the Protection of the Family. The focus of these organizations was to repeal what they saw as lenient, omnibus provisions, which allowed broader grounds for divorce in divorce laws, and to pass additional restrictions such as the Michigan statute, which provided safeguards against the parties colluding and manufacturing evidence and allowing the state to defend certain cases ( Blake, 1977 ).

In 1887 Congress allotted $10,000 to the Commissioner of Labor Carroll D. Wright to collect marriage and divorce statistics for the States and Territories and the District of Columbia and increased the sum to $17,500 the following year ( Blake, 1977 ). Statistics were collected from 2,700 counties for a 20-year period. In doing so Wright sent workers directly to the counties to review records; however, several county courthouses had burned down (e.g., Cook County, Chicago, and Hamilton County, Cincinnati). In addition only twenty-one of the thirty-eight states required registration of marriages ( Blake, 1977 ). Even with these limitations, the data were important.

Many of the themes existing in early divorce laws can still be found today. As a result of liberal residence requirements, for many years Reno, Nevada was the place people could go for a “quick” divorce ( Blake, 1977 ). In addition, the more recent no-fault divorce grounds are essentially the modern-day equivalent of the omnibus clauses found in early statutes. Arguments concerning whether strict divorce laws can curb divorce still rage. In response to these arguments, several states passed covenant marriage laws, which add restrictions and processes to divorce ( Nock, Sanchez, & Wright, 2008 ).

By the early 1970s, there was a growing cultural sense that requiring people to remain married, or to manufacture evidence in order to get divorced, was neither reasonable nor socially acceptable. To accommodate this cultural shift in attitudes, in 1970, California became the first state to change the statutory laws so that couples could divorce without having to provide evidence that one party was at fault. By 1977 nine states had adopted a no-fault based law; by late 1983 all states except South Dakota and New York had adopted some form of no-fault divorce. As of October 2010 all states and the District of Columbia allowed no-fault divorce. Over the years this shift to a no-fault policy has been hotly debated, and many states allow some form of fault-based grounds for divorce alongside no-fault based grounds ( Adams & Coltrane, 2007 ; Nock et al., 2008 ).

Divorce Rates: Who and How Many?

Divorce rates began to rise in the 1960s, reaching a peak in 1981 at 5.3 per 1,000. Rates of divorce then began to fall, levelling off at 4 per 1,000 in 2000. This rate has remained reasonably stable since that time. Although demographic data concerning marriage and divorce from the 2009 Survey of Income and Program Participation are beginning to appear ( Kreider & Ellis, 2011 ), the most detailed research on these topics comes from data collected during the 1990s ( Sweeney, 2010 ). Marriage and divorce rates vary widely by age and race; however, currently roughly 40 percent of marriages in the United States end in divorce ( Kreider & Ellis, 2011 ). Approximately 69 percent of women and 78 percent of men will remarry ( Kreider & Ellis, 2011 ), and approximately 50 to 60 percent of those who remarry will divorce again at least once ( Ganong, Coleman, & Haas, 2006 ). The average length of first marriages is 8 years, and the average length of time between divorce and remarriage is 4 years ( Kreider &Ellis, 2011 ). Time between remarriage and redivorce is approximately 8 years.

Although important, these statistics do not reflect the rates of nonmarital unions and dissolutions, which are the fastest growing family form in the United States ( Kreider & Ellis, 2011 ). We do know the formation and dissolution of these unions are more fluid, but the actual statistics are illusive because official recordkeeping has not been put in place. A by-product of this shift to nonmarital unions is that a higher proportion of those who do marry are staying married. The latest data indicate that for increasing birth cohort years, the divorce rates fall. For example, for birth cohort years 1965 to 1969, the percentage of ever divorced falls to 18 percent for men and 22 percent for women 35 years old ( Kreider & Ellis, 2011 ).

There are period, demographic, and geographical differences found in the number of divorces ( Teachman, Tedrow & Hall, 2006 ). So far, state laws do not seem to be responsible for this variability ( Ahrons, 1994 ). Instead, the overall economy has a great impact. Divorces increase during period of economic growth and fall in years of declining economy ( Teachman et al., 2006 ). During wartime, divorces decrease; increases are observed when wars end and during times of relative peace ( Ahrons, 1994 ). Religious affiliations are important as well. Divorce is lower among those religions whose doctrines oppose divorce (Catholics and Jews) and more frequent among those whose restrictions are more liberal (Protestants and those of mixed religious affiliations, agnostics, and atheists; Rodrigues, Hall, & Fincham, 2006 ). Divorce is more common among people with no children as opposed to parents. It is also higher in urban than rural areas and higher in early years of marriage as opposed to later years. Generally divorce rates are highest in the West and some areas of the South and the lowest in the Northeast and sections of the Midwest ( Rodrigues et al., 2006 ).

Although statistics reveal that the divorce rates have remained fairly stable for the past 40 years, what is not reflected is that American families are basically changing structure. What is increasing at a phenomenal pace are unmarried partnerships and unmarried partnerships with children that dissolve. Unmarried, separated parents now make up approximately 40 percent of custody and parenting time cases coming before courts in the United States. In the years 1970 to 1999, the number of children in the United States living in two-parent households decreased from 85 percent to 68 percent. In 1999, 23 percent of children lived in a mother-headed household, and 4 percent of children lived in a father-headed household (Barber & Demo, 2006). It is now estimated that by age 13 years, 50 percent of American children reside in a family comprising one biological parent and an intimate partner ( Bullard, Wachlarowicz, DeLeeuw, Snyder, Low, Forgatch, & DeGarmo, 2010 ).

Risk and Resilience for Children and Adults

Moving from the demography of divorce to its psychological correlates, one of the most important, recent trends in the divorce literature involves a shift away from research based on studying pathological outcomes (e.g., What problems do children and adults face following the end of marriage? What is the magnitude of risk for intrapersonal and interpersonal outcomes associated with divorce?) to research examining moderators of adjustment and the factors that promote resilience in the face of marital dissolution. We review these outcomes in detail later in this chapter, but, for now, understanding the history of research on divorce outcomes is important for understanding the entirety of the divorce literature. Amato (2003) described the distributions of psychological well-being among offspring with divorced and continuously married counterparts. A key finding from this work is that, for psychological well-being in adult offspring, there is a 90 percent overlap in distributions from offspring of divorced and continuously married parents ( Amato, 2003 ). The literature in this area has moved, in the past 20 years, from focusing almost exclusively on the 10 percent of offspring who do poorly following divorce to a revised study of well-being in the face of risk ( Amato, 2010 ; Emery, 2004 ; Hetherington & Kelly, 2002 ). These changes reflect, in part, a more general focus on resilience across all of psychological science ( Bonanno, 2004 ).

The major historical debate in the divorce literature revolves around the lasting effects of marital dissolution on children and pits qualitative and quantitative research findings against each other. Beginning in the early 1970s, Judith Wallerstein conducted a series of open-ended interviews with 60 families (131 children) filing for divorce in northern California. Wallerstein’s research, documented most completely in an initial and two follow-up books ( Wallerstein & Blakeslee, 1989 ; Wallerstein & Kelly, 1996 ; Wallerstein, Lewis, & Blakeslee, 2001 ), painted a grim picture for the lives of offspring from divorced families; children of divorced parents were believed to lived troubled lives as young men and women, with up to 50 percent demonstrating significant problems managing their moods or experiencing notable problems related to self-worth ( Wallerstein & Blakeslee, 1989 ). Wallerstein’s 25-year follow-up study suggested that the greatest effects of parental divorce on children are not evident until adulthood when people are faced with making important choices about romantic relationships. Not surprisingly, the suggestion that parental divorce in childhood exerts a major (and lasting) negative impact on who and how we choose to love as adults captured national attention and reified long-standing notions, based largely on Wallerstein’s earlier findings, that divorce is unequivocally bad for children.

Around the time Wallerstein and colleagues published results from her 25-year follow-up study, quantitative research was beginning to reveal a different pattern of outcomes for both children and adults following divorce. Two conclusions are noteworthy. First, most research on children of divorce supported what Amato (2003) has a called a “moderate version” of Wallerstein’s position; that is, on average, children of divorce tend to fare worse in important domains of functioning (reviewed in detail below) than children from continuously married families; the effect sizes of these differences, however, tend to be relatively small. Second, despite risk for poor outcomes, both children and adults tend to do well over time—that is, people are resilient in the face of divorce. Hetherington and Kelly (2002) noted that empirical research demonstrates that nearly 75 percent of children from divorce report a high level of psychological adjustment in adulthood. Emery (2004) echoed these conclusions by noting that, “Even though divorce increases the risk of psychological, academic and social problems for children, the vast majority of children whose parents divorce are functioning with the same level of competency as children whose parents are married ” (pp. 66, italics in original source). More recently, Amato (2010) concluded:

A reasonable assumption is that divorce can have varied consequences, with some children showing improvements in well-being, other children showing little or no change, some children showing decrements that gradually improve, and yet other children developing problems that persist well into adulthood….These considerations suggest that researchers should focus less attention on mean differences between children with divorced and continuously married parents and more attention on the factors that produce variability in children’s adjustment following divorce. (pp. 658)

Thus, in the time since 1971, when Wallerstein began her systematic studies of divorcing families in California, the field has moved largely away from debates about the magnitude of effects to studying mechanisms of action and the moderating variables that potentiate or attenuate risk.

Reconciling Risk and Resilience: Psychological Pain and the Divorce–Stress–Adjustment Model

As noted above, a major advance in the literature on child and adolescent outcomes following divorce was the discovery that relatively few children experience lasting problematic behavior disorders as a result of their parents’ divorce (see Amato, 2010 ). In thinking about child outcomes that can follow divorce, Laumann-Billings and Emery (2000) distinguished between disorder and distress, with the former being clinically significant psychopathology and the latter being lasting feelings of pain, regret, or inner turmoil regarding the loss of an idealized nuclear family. These authors found that whereas college-aged participants who experienced childhood divorce evidenced no differences in internalizing and externalizing symptoms compared with participants from intact families, significant differences emerged in subclinical distress, which the authors described as indicators of psychological pain ( Laumann-Billings & Emery, 2000 ). Distress does not cause functional impairment, but lasting feelings of pain or regret can guide life choices and shape how people think about relationships.

Another important development in the literature on divorce is Amato’s (2000) divorce–stress–adjustment model, which describes uncoupling as a developmental process for children and parents that can set into motion a series of life stressors that present adjustment challenges. Depending on people’s resources and the amount of stress and strain instantiated by the separation (e.g., at the parental level, is there ongoing conflict? and at the child level, is there a loss of contact with one parent?), different predictions can me made about child and adult outcomes. A key element of the model is that positive or negative outcomes are contingent on individual and family resources, as well as the short-term outcomes (e.g., the loss of custody or major changes in financial well-being). In this framework, the effects of short-term changes can be potentiated by the degree of chronic stress on a divorcing family. For example, the mental health of single mothers may depend heavily on the degree to which there is active co-parenting conflict with an ex-partner (see Sbarra & Emery, 2008 ). From this perspective, the divorce–stress–adjustment model is a useful framework for making specific predictions about who will navigate the end of marriage with only transient distress and who will succumb to ongoing distress as a result of accumulated stressors.

Predictors of Divorce

Most marriages begin happily and are characterized by a great deal of optimism. Baker and Emery (1993) conducted a study to reveal just how optimistic people are about their marriage. One hundred thirty-seven adults who had recently filed for a first marriage license were surveyed about their knowledge of the general divorce rate and their estimate of the likelihood that their own marriage would end in divorce. In terms of the general divorce rate, participants accurately reported that 50 percent of marriages (in the early 1990s) would end in divorce, but the median response was 0 percent when assessing the likelihood that they personally would divorce ( Baker & Emery, 1993 ). This finding illustrates a foundational point: The transition from an optimistic beginning to teetering on the brink of divorce is a developmental process that unfolds over time ( Bradbury, 1998 ). Gottman (1994) referred to this process as the cascade model of marital dissolution. In this section of the chapter, we detail three of the major approaches to understanding the cascade toward divorce. It is important to recognize that the deterioration of marital quality occurs at multiple levels, including psychological processes within individuals, interactions between partners, and contextual demands and stressors that affect both between- and within-person dynamics. Research on the predictors of divorce is a large and active area of study; below, we outline some of the major findings in this area.

Intrapersonal Processes: Personality

Low positive emotion, high negative emotion, and low constraint are reliable predictors of divorce ( Kelly & Conley, 1987 ). One striking example of the way temperamental characteristics may increase risk for future divorce comes from a study by Caspi (1987) who followed children from the Berkeley Guidance Study into and through midlife. Children who evidenced explosive, uncontrollable temper tantrums were more than twice as likely to divorce later in life compared with children who did not display these angry outbursts. Another interesting example of work on this topic suggests that low positive emotion—indexed by smile intensity in yearbook photos—predicted subsequent divorce in later life ( Hertenstein, Hansel, Butts, & Hile, 2009 ). The authors suggested that the yearbook photos, which are extremely thin slices of behavior (literally, “snapshots of affect experience” in early life), reflected participants’ stable temperamental tendencies ( Hertenstein et al., 2009 ). Other research suggests that personality disorders (PDs) play a large role in the prediction of divorce. Using data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, Whisman and colleagues ( Whisman, Tolejko, & Chatav, 2007 ) found that compared with people without a diagnosed PD, those with paranoid, schizoid, antisocial, histrionic, avoidant, dependent, or obsessive-compulsive PDs were at substantially elevated risk to be divorced. Overall, research in this area suggests that variability in both the normal and dysfunctional domains of personality increase risk for divorce; later in this section we consider some of the interpersonal explanations for why this might be so.

The association between personality and divorce should be considered in light of the known genetic influences on marital instability. McGue and Lykken (1992) found greater concordance of divorce in monozygotic than dyzygotic twins, indicating that a substantial portion of the risk for marital dissolution can be explained by genetic factors (also see Jerskey et al., 2010 ). A follow-up study demonstrated that between 30 percent (in women) and 42 percent (in men) of heritable divorce risk was attributable to personality differences ( Jocklin, McGue, & Lykken, 1996 ), and other work shows that the genetic association with controllable life events, of which divorce is one, is entirely explained by differences in personality ( Saudino, Pedersen, Lichtenstein, McClearn, & Plomin, 1997 ).

Intrapersonal Processes: Parental Divorce History

As noted above, divorce is a heritable outcome, but the heritability of divorce is not 100 percent, indicating that environmental events play a large role in the dissolution of marriage. The intergenerational transmission of divorce can occur for both genetic and environmental reasons, but it is clear that individuals whose parents divorced are at substantial risk for seeing their own marriages end in divorce (e.g., Pryor & Rodgers, 2001 ). In a prospective empirical study focused on the environmental contributors to the intergenerational transmission of divorce, Amato and DeBoer (2001) demonstrated that parental divorce increased the risk of divorce in their offspring by nearly 50 percent. Interestingly, these authors found that the greatest risk for divorce in the second generation was observed among offspring whose parents reported low levels of discord prior to the divorce. Divorce in the second generation was better explained by a lack of commitment to marriage than by impaired relationship skills (which may be learned as a consequence of observing your parents’ behaviors leading up to and after the divorce). Other studies have investigated the possibility that father absence or large changes in socioeconomic status explain the intergenerational transmission effect, but neither of these explanations has much empirical support (see Lyngstad & Jalovaara, 2010 ).

More recently, D’Nofrio and colleagues ( D’Onofrio et al., 2007 ) used a children of twins (CoT) design (discussed more completely later in the chapter) to disentangle the genetic and environmental contributions to the intergenerational transmission of divorce. In a study of more than 2,300 adult offspring of twins, the authors found that 66 percent of the variability in risk for divorce among the offspring was accounted for directly by environmental experiences. This finding is consistent with a social causation explanation (i.e., divorce among adults operates through environmental processes to increase risk for subsequent divorce among adult offspring), whereas the remaining 34 percent of risk was due to genetic selection effects ( D’Nofrio et al., 2007 ). An important implication of this finding is that intervention efforts designed to reduce the stress and strain of marital dissolution among parents may also act to decrease the risk for subsequent divorce by children. This idea has yet to be tested empirically, but the approach represents an important route for determining precisely how parental divorce history may increase risk for later divorce in the next generation.

Intrapersonal Processes: Gender

There exists reliable evidence that men and women end marriage for different reasons. In reviewing literature on gender differences in the prediction of divorce, Amato and Rogers (1997) wrote:

…women often cite the husband’s use of authority, his cruelty, drinking habits, immaturity untrustworthiness, infidelity, poor money management, values, and lifestyle as causes of divorce. Although husbands often cite their wife’s infidelity as the cause of divorce, they also refer to their own drinking, drug use, as well as external causes such as family death, work commitments, and problems with in-laws. (p. 615)

In their prospective study of more than 1,500 adults, Amato and Rogers (1997) shed additional light on these differences by noting that women report more marital problems than men, largely because husbands were unlikely to report on wives’ experiences of marital distress; said differently, wives tended to monitor the emotional “pulse” of the marriage much more than husband, and this often leads to husbands underestimating the extent of problems in a marriage. Marital problems, in turn, were strong prospective predictors of divorce. Thus, women, relative to men, appear more sensitive to the variations in marital quality that predict the future likelihood of divorce.

In a more process-oriented investigation of the variables that predict divorce among couples, Gottman, Coan, Carrere, and Swanson (1998) studied a group of 130 couples over a 6-year period in a marital interaction paradigm that included behavioral coding of emotional expression as well as detailed assessments of physiological functioning during marital interaction tasks. The results revealed a specific patterning of interaction that predicted the future likelihood of divorce. Specifically, the highest probability of divorce was observed among couples in which wives demonstrated negative start-up behaviors (e.g., quickly accusing their husbands of wrongdoing in the marital interaction); in which husbands refused to accept influence from their wives; in which wives reciprocated low-intensity negative affect; and in which husbands failed to deescalate this low-intensity negativity ( Gottman et al., 1998 ).

These results are consistent with other gender differences that were first described by Gottman and Levenson (1988) , who proposed that the associations between affect and physiology may be more closely bound for men than for women. Indeed, Levenson, Carstensen, and Gottman (1994) found that during marital conversations husbands, but not wives, evidenced significant correlations between physiological arousal and negative affect. The authors suggested that this finding provides one explanation for the often-observed wife demand/husband withdraw pattern of marital interaction ( Christensen & Heavey, 1990 ), which is predictive of prospective declines in marital quality. In this dynamic, the demander pressures or criticizes his or her partner, which results in the withdrawer retreating through passive inaction or defensiveness. Levenson et al. (1994) proposed that one reason husbands may withdraw much more than wives is that when they engage in strong emotions, they often do so in the context of a high degree of physiological arousal, which is believed to impede effective communication during times of marital conflict.

Intrapersonal Processes: Attributions

The social-cognitive model of marital distress emphasizes the interpretations and evaluations that people make of their own and their partner’s behavior ( Karney & Bradbury, 1995 ). Compared with people who are satisfied with their relationship, dissatisfied partners are more likely to attribute each other’s negative behavior to broad and stable traits, and are more likely to view negative partner behavior as selfishly motivated and worthy of blame ( Bradbury & Fincham, 1990 ). Dissatisfied partners are also more likely to hold dysfunctional, extreme, or unreasonable assumptions (i.e., beliefs about how things are), standards (i.e., beliefs about how things should be), and expectations (i.e., beliefs about how things will be) with respect to oneself, one’s partner, and one’s relationship ( Baucom, Epstein, Sayers, & Sher, 1989 ). Buehlman, Gottman, and Katz (1992) combined data from a semi-structured oral (marital) history interview with a laboratory-based physiology task to study predictors of divorce among fifty-six couples. These authors found that husbands’ expressed disappointment in the marriage during the oral history interview was highly correlated with the future likelihood of divorce ( r = .68) ( Buehlman et al., 1992 ). This finding was interpreted in light of the larger constellation of marital problems: Wives of husbands who expressed disappointment also expressed greater marital unhappiness during the interview and evidenced greater contempt and anger, as well as a faster heart rate, during the marital interaction. Negative attributions about one’s partner play a critical role as kindling for arguments and disagreements that spur couples further in the cascade toward divorce ( Gottman, 1994 ).

Interpersonal Processes: Patterns of Interaction

The interaction patterns that are associated with high risk for divorce are well characterized ( Gottman & Levenson, 2000 ). Gottman (1994) described four interactional patterns (criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling) as highly predictive of divorce. He also outlined a marital balance theory and demonstrated that during marital interaction tasks, couples who remained married used as many as 5:1 instances of positive to negative affect (whereas the ratio was much closer to 1:1 in married couples who subsequently divorced). Markman and colleagues ( Markman, Rhoades, Stanley, Ragan, & Whitton, 2010 ) found that the precursors of decreases in marital satisfaction could be observed even before couples became married; in a sample of 210 couples, couples who evidenced a decrease in negative communication patterns were most likely to remain married over the first 5 years of marriage, and the authors interpreted these data as indicating that stable couples learn positive ways of handling negative communication in the early years of marriage ( Markman et al., 2010 ).

Contextual Variables

In addition to these intrapersonal and interpersonal processes, the past 10 years have witnessed a surge of research dedicated to understanding how life circumstances are associated with relational quality ( Bodenmann, 2005 ; Story & Bradbury, 2004 ; Story & Repetti, 2006 ). It is well established that financial hardship and daily stress increase risk for divorce ( Lavee, McCubbin, & Olson, 1987 ), and a major focus of the research in this area is to understand how external forces are associated with decays in marital quality and increases in the risk for divorce. Important distinctions in this area include whether the stressors are chronic (e.g., job loss) or acute (e.g., a heavy workload), and whether individuals and couples can adjust to these demands ( Story & Bradbury, 2004 ).

When external stressors decay relationship quality, how do these spillover processes operate? Neff and Karney ( Neff & Karney, 2004 ; see also Chapter 30 , this volume) assessed eighty-two newlywed couples every 6 months for the first 4 years of marriage and found that wives who experienced the highest levels of stress spillover demonstrated the greatest declines in marital satisfaction over the study period. Importantly, as reported stress levels increased, wives reported a corresponding increase in the perceptions of specific relationship problems, and these negative cognitions mediated the association between stress and relationship quality. Neff and Karney (2004) noted, “Stress may lead to lower satisfaction by hindering spouses’ ability to separate negative specific relationship perceptions from their global relationship satisfaction” (p. 145). Story and Repetti ( Story & Repetti, 2006 ) provided a conceptual replication of the spillover effect, demonstrating that negative mood mediated the association between wives’ daily workload and marital anger. Building on this research, Neff and Karney ( Neff & Karney, 2007 ) provided another replication of the spillover effect and also found evidence for a dyadic crossover effect, whereby husbands reported lower satisfaction when their wives experienced higher stress. This latter finding demonstrates that mediating processes linking contextual variables and relationship quality must be consider in terms of moderating processes that include different effects for husbands and wives.

One of the most well studied contextual factors impacting marital satisfaction is the transition to parenthood, especially for couples having their first child ( Cowan & Cowan, 2000 ). Cowan and Cowan (1995) reported that following the birth of a first child, about 15 percent of men and women move from above to below the clinical cut-off for marital distress on standard self-report assessment instruments. A meta-analysis of the studies on parenthood and marital satisfaction found that parents report lower marital satisfaction compared with nonparents and that marital satisfaction was negatively correlated with the number of children ( Twenge, Campbell, & Foster, 2003 ). However, the effect sizes obtained from the meta-analysis were small in magnitude and were moderated by individual differences: the effect of parenthood on marital satisfaction was stronger for younger couples and people from higher socioeconomic groups. Recent evidence suggests that these declines are more pronounced in couples who are highly satisfied with the first 6 months of marriage relative to less satisfied couples ( Lawrence, Rothman, Cobb, Rothman, & Bradbury, 2008 ).

Child Outcomes

For decades, the effects of divorce on children and adolescents have been the subject of intense research and policy debate. As noted above, researchers generally relied on a deficit family model assuming that family structure deviations from the ideal heterosexual, biological, always-married two-parent status would produce a number of problems for children and adolescent ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ). Dimensions of adjustment studied include psychopathology (externalizing and internalizing disorders), academic achievement, and interpersonal relationships (romantic, social, and parental).

Psychopathology (Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors)

As mentioned briefly above, the earliest findings about children’s well-being following divorce come from the influential study conducting by Wallerstein and colleagues ( Wallerstein & Kelly, 1980 ; Wallerstein & Blakeslee, 1989 ; Wallerstein, Lewis, & Blakeslee, 2001 ), who used semi-structured interviews of both parents and children with a nonrandom sample of parents who were seeking treatment. The families were followed-up at 18 months, 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, and 25 years ( Wallerstein et al., 2001 ). Entering the study, a large proportion of the parents had serious psychological problems ( Wallerstein & Kelly, 1980 ). The main finding from this study was that divorce is devastating and negatively affects the mental health, academics, and social relationships in most children both short and long term ( Lansford, 2009 ; Marquardt, 2006 ; Wallerstein et al., 2001 ). In this view, most children from divorced parents become psychologically disturbed adults. These adults go on to form unstable, unsatisfying intimate relationships that often end in divorce ( Amato, 2003 ; Wallerstein et al., 2000). Regardless of the problems with the research (discussed above), the Wallerstein findings are used by advocates to promote social policies to further restrict divorce and to socially ostracize parents who choose this option ( Popenoe, 2009 ). Beyond the findings from this single study, other investigations have provided evidence that divorce is associated with an increased risk for psychopathology. Depression, also referred to as internalizing problems, has been found to be higher in children and adolescents in divorced versus always-married families ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ). Depression also tends to be higher in girls as opposed to boys from divorced families ( Emery, 1999 ). In comparison, boys as opposed to girls from divorced families engage in more externalizing behaviors (aggressive, noncompliant, and socially deviant behaviors). Boys also exhibit higher levels of substance use and delinquency ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ). These findings are consistent across a number of studies.

Academic Outcomes

One of the major topics studied with respect to child outcomes following divorce is academic achievement. Parental divorce is associated with lower cognitive and academic performance and with increases in high school and college dropouts ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ; Hetherington, 1993 ). A 2001 meta-analysis investigating a decade of studies found the standardized (effect size) difference in academic achievement between children from divorced versus always-married parents to be 0.16. Using a longitudinal data set from a nationally representative sample, researchers found that differences in academic achievement could be nearly entirely accounted for by family functioning before divorce ( Lansford, 2009 ; Sun & Li, 2001 ).

Relationships

Romantic relationships are also the focus of research on differences between children from divorced versus always-married families. Several studies investigating the intergenerational transmission of divorce noted above indicate that a parental divorce doubles the risk of divorce in the second generation ( Amato & DeBoer, 2001 ; Lansford, 2009 ). This risk is even higher if both spouses have parents who divorced ( Hetherington & Elmore, 2004 ; Lansford, 2009 ). The reasons for this difference are hypothesized to be lack of a strong commitment to marriage and poor role models for stability of relationships, compromise, and negotiation skills. In some studies the risk associated with a parental divorce is higher for women than men. One of the reasons for this increased risk is that women are traditionally the partners who monitor the emotional tenor of the relationship. If women do not have the interpersonal skills necessary to effectively communicate and stabilize the marriage, the relationship will fail. Mediators of the intergenerational transmission of divorce have been investigated and deficits in interpersonal skills (e.g., problems with anger, jealousy, hurt feelings, communication, infidelity) were found among those from divorced families, making it difficult to maintain stable intimate relationships ( Amato, 1996 ).

Considering relationships with parents, approximately 25 percent of adolescents in divorced families, compared with 10 percent in always-married families, become disengaged from their families, spend little time at home, and avoid activities, communication, and interactions with their families ( Hetherington, 1993 ; Hetherington & Stanley-Hagan, 1999 ). Disengagement can be a healthy solution to family engaged in high conflict, provided there is a caring adult from outside the immediate family (aunt or uncle, grandparent, neighbor, teacher) who remains engaged with the adolescent ( Hetherington & Stanley-Hagan, 1999 ). Disengagement can also be due to lack of involvement and monitoring by the parents, which if coupled with association with a delinquent peer group, leads to academic problems and antisocial behaviors (substance abuse, delinquency, teenage sexuality, and childbearing) ( Hetherington & Stanley-Hagan, 1999 ).

Considering adolescent sexual behavior, a number of scholars have found strong evidence for a link between early father absence from the household and early adolescent sexuality ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ). This is particularly true for adolescent girls ( Ellis, Bates, Dodge, Fergusson, Horwood, Pettit, & Woodward, 2003 ). Several researchers have found that girls whose fathers left the household when the girls were very young (before age 5 years) reportedly have the earliest onset of sexual relations ( Donahue, D’Onofrio, Bates, Lansford, Dodge, & Pettit, 2010 ), participate in riskier sexual practices, and have higher rates of teen pregnancy ( Ellis et al., 2003 ). Interestingly, the differences in timing of first sexual relations and teen pregnancy when comparing girls from always-married to divorce family households are significantly reduced or sometimes disappear when control variables are used (including income, parental occupation, affiliation with defiant peers, mothers’ permissive sexual attitudes, inept parenting) ( Barber & Demo, 2006 , Ellis et al., 2003 ).

The relationship that most often suffers the greatest in a divorce is the relationship between children and their father. Across studies, the general conclusion is that there is a substantial reduction in the amount of contact between children and adolescents and their fathers after divorce ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ). As noted above, the lack of contact with adolescent girls has a significant impact on the timing of first sexual relations. If the family remains in high conflict or the father has antisocial characteristics, contact with the father does not appear to be positive for the children. If, on the other hand, the family is able to co-parent in a reasonably healthy manner, contact with the father is very positive for the children. An important aspect of father involvement is the quality of parenting. If the father is able to create an atmosphere of closeness and noncoercive discipline, providing advice and monitoring activities, the result is higher academic achievement and fewer externalizing and internalizing problems among the children ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ).

Meta-analyses on Child Outcomes

Two important meta-analyses were conducted, one in early 1990 ( Amato & Keith, 1991 ) and then its updated version in early 2000 ( Amato, 2001 ), to further summarize findings concerning child and adolescent academic achievement, conduct, psychological adjustment, self-concept, and social relations in divorced families. These two studies confirmed that across decades of research, the differences between children from divorced and always-married families were extremely small. In the 1990 meta-analysis, research from the 1950s through the 1980s found that the median differences between children from divorced and married families was 0.14 of a standard deviation ( Amato & Keith, 1991 ). This study also found that the more methodologically sophisticated studies yielded weaker effect sizes, as did more recent studies. In addition, when researchers used control variables (such as a child’s predivorce functioning or family income in analyses), the effect sizes were lowered.

The second meta-analysis ( Amato, 2001 ) investigated the studies conducted in the 1990s and found an overall difference of 0.24. This overall 0.24 effect size difference represents a range of differences between 0.12 and 0.22. Measures of academic achievement yielded a 0.16 difference; conduct problems 0.22; psychological adjustment 0.21; self-concept 0.12; and social relationships 0.15 ( Amato, 2001 ). In other words, children from divorced families scored approximately one-tenth to one-fifth of a standard deviation below children with always-married parents, across a range of outcomes ( Amato, 2003 ). To complicate matters, there are potential moderators that could affect adjustment not considered in these two meta-analyses, which may further attenuate the small differences found. Essentially, cross-sectional research cannot account for two important moderators: (1) predivorce individual and family functioning, and (2) number of transitions in family composition, family relationships, and resources in the short and long term ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ).

Moderators of Child Outcomes: Multiple Transitions

Experiences with multiple parenting transitions, changes in family living conditions, and changes in family resources are a consistent moderator of predivorce and postdivorce adjustment ( Ahrons, 2004 ; Amato, 2003 ; Hetherington & Kelly, 2002 ). Children live in a diverse set of ever-changing family living arrangements after separation that do not necessarily constitute a traditional mother- or father-headed, single-family household ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ). Those family forms include a parent cohabitating with another single adult or a series of adults, a parent cohabiting or marrying into a stepfamily or serial stepfamilies, and children moving into and out of households headed by grandparents or other relatives ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ). Amato (2003) found a direct relationship between the number of family transitions, defined as parental remarriages, and reductions in levels of psychological well-being of offspring. Children experiencing zero transitions (always-married families) and one transition (a divorce but neither parent remarries) had equal levels of psychological well-being. As the number of transitions increased, the offspring’s well-being declined. Children in multiple-transition families are thrust into and then back out of relationships with adults, new stepsiblings, grandparents, and extended families. As these relationships dissolve, the culture does not have good role models for whether or how to remain in contact.

Moderators of Child Outcomes: Parental Discord

Divorce is a dynamic process that unfolds across the life course of both adults and children. Careful longitudinal research has documented that marital disruption per se is not the most important factor leading to psychological problems for children and adolescents. In other words, family structure is not the determining factor, but family process can be extremely detrimental. Whether families remain married or divorce, high levels of family discord are consistently found to relate to negative outcomes for children ( Amato, 2003 ; Hetherington & Kelly, 2002 ).

Across studies, parental conflict has been associated with both internalizing (anxiety, withdrawal, low self-esteem, and depression) and externalizing problems (aggression and conduct problems), poor academic performance, and problems with peers ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ). If a divorce reduces the parental conflict, a divorce is actually better for children than if the parents remain married ( Morrison & Coiro, 1999 ). Divorce, however, does not always reduce parental conflict. Several longitudinal studies find that for most families, the first 2 years after divorce are particularly difficult ( Ahrons, 2004 ; Hetherington & Kelly, 2002 ), although for a group of parents, the conflict continues beyond the initial 2-year period. When it does, it is particularly detrimental for children.

Are Child and Adolescent Outcomes a Causal Consequence of Parent Divorce?

A major advance in family psychology is the application of genetically informed research designs that help researchers disentangle the potential genetic and environmental effects of parental divorce on child outcomes ( D’Onofrio et al., 2003 ). A long-standing assumption in family psychology is that the often-observed negative outcomes of divorce are causal consequences of the separation experience. However, a competing perspective is that third variables (e.g., low socioeconomic standing) may lead to both divorce and poor outcomes ( Emery, Waldron, Kitzmann, & Aaron, 1999 ; Peris & Emery, 2004 ) or that the underlying genetically liability for divorce ( McGue & Lykken, 1992 ) can be passed on to offspring through passive gene–environment correlations (see D’Nofrio et al., 2003 ). The processes, often referred to as social selection , pose a serious problem for making causal attributions from correlational research. Adoption studies provide an excellent means of separating nature and nurture. Using this method, O’Connor and colleagues ( O’Connor, Caspi, DeFries, & Plomin, 2000 ) found that divorce among adoptive parents was associated with increased rates of behavior problems and substance use in children but showed no differences (relative to adoptees whose parents did not separate) in terms of school achievement and social competence; this finding suggests that the latter two effects, which are often observed in uncontrolled correlational research ( Amato & Keith, 1991 ), may be due to passive gene–environment correlations.

More recently, investigators have started using a CoT design to disentangle causation and selection processes following parental divorce. In this design, the concordance rates of outcomes among the children of monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins are compared when the twins are discordance for divorce (e.g., rates of behavioral problems in children from divorced families are compared with those of their cousins in intact households). Because offspring of MZ twins share the same genetic relationship with their parent and their parent’s twin (i.e., their aunt or uncle), comparison of concordance rates among cousins of discordant MZ twins provides an estimate of a potential environment effect that is free of genetic confounds. For example, if the effect of divorce on children’s increased risk for substance abuse is explained by hostility, the passive correlation between hostility and child outcomes is controlled because cousins share the same genetic association with their aunt or uncle as they do with their parent (i.e., their aunt or uncle’s identical twin).

The CoT design has led to a number of important findings in this area: (1) Parental divorce appears to play a causal role in young adults’ drug and alcohol use, internalizing, and externalizing symptoms ( D’Onofrio et al., 2005 ), although the effect on internalizing symptoms was explained by passive genetic liability (selection) in another study; (2) parental divorce is associated with earlier initiation of sexual intercourse, and a greater probability of educational problems, depressed mood, and suicidal ideation, although increased risk for cohabitation and earlier initiation of drug use is explained by selection factors ( D’Onofrio et al., 2006 ); and (3) the association between parents’ marital conflict (a key element of outcomes in divorcing families) and children’s conduct problems is explained by passive gene–environment correlations in which the children’s outcomes are explained by the same genetic liabilities contributing to parents’ conflict ( Harden et al., 2007 ). The emerging literature using the CoT design is far from clear (e.g., one report indicates internalizing problems in children are a causal consequence of divorce, another paper suggest the effect is due to selection processes), but the method holds tremendous promise for developing a more precise account of the effects of divorce on children (see Amato, 2010 ).

Adult Outcomes

There is a large literature linking the experience of divorce with increased mental health problems in adults, and research is clear in documenting that the experience of marital separation or divorce can have a negative impact on adults’ parenting skills (see Hetherington, Bridges, & Insabella, 1998 ; Lansford, 2009 ). In this respect, it is nearly impossible to separate adult and child outcomes following divorce; parental well-being is inextricably linked to child and adolescent outcomes, but for the purposes of this chapter, we consider changes in parenting as an indicator of adults’ responses to separation.

In her review of the mechanisms linking divorce to child outcomes, Lansford (2009) notes that parenting practices can be disrupted in a variety of ways following divorce, including decreased effectiveness in monitoring and supervising children, problems with consistent discipline, and decreases in warmth and affection. Work in this area first emerged in the early 1980s, and Hetherington, Cox, and Cox (1982) reported that up to 1 year after divorce, custodial mothers showed less affection to their children, greater use of inconsistent discipline, and harsher punishments compared with mothers from nondivorced families. It is important to recognize that differences in parenting practices observed in divorced and married families are not necessarily a consequence of the marital separation process. In a large prospective study, for example, Amato and Booth (1996) found that parents who would subsequently divorce reported significant problems in their relationships with their children as early as 8 to 12 years before the separation. It is notable that this study also found that divorce was associated with additional decreases in affection between fathers and their children, but not mothers and their children ( Amato & Booth, 1996 ). Although disentangling whether decrements in parenting skills predate or follow divorce is complicated, it is clear that interventions designed to improve parenting following divorce do have a positive effect on child and adolescent outcomes, and we describe this work later in the chapter.

Adults’ Mental Health Outcomes

A great deal of research focuses on adults’ psychological functioning following separation and divorce experiences. Data on this topic come from many different fields, including epidemiology, psychology, and sociology. For example, using data from the US National Comorbidity Study ( N = 1,534), Afifi, Cox, and Enns (2006) recently found that compared with never-married and married mothers, separated or divorced mothers evidenced significantly higher rates of clinically significant major depression and generalized anxiety disorders after controlling for household income, education, ethnicity, age, and number of children. In a prospective panel study of more than 30,000 German adults, Lucas (2005) demonstrated that adults’ life satisfaction dropped precipitously in their years before a divorce and, on average, did not recover to predivorce levels up to 6 years after the divorce. Similarly, in a four-wave panel study spanning 12 years, Johnson and Wu (2002) found that divorce was associated with increased rates of psychological distress after accounting for levels of predivorce distress. Wade and Pevalin (2004) replicated these findings in a sample of more than 10,000 adults from the British Household Panel Survey that spanned 9 years. Specifically, this study found evidence that (1) adults who have mental health problems are more likely to be selected out of marriage in each successive wave of the study, and (2) after accounting for these selection processes, the experience of divorce was associated with a significant short-term, but not long-term, increase in mental health problems.

The findings described above illustrate what is the most important, and perhaps the most vexing, question in the literature on adults and divorce: Are the mental health correlates of divorce explained by problems that predate the separation or are they a causal consequence of the stress and strain conferred by the end of a marriage? These processes are typically described as the social selection and the social causation explanations for the association between divorce and mental health ( Amato, 2010 ), and there exists reasonable evidence for both processes. Social selection process may operate in two primary ways: (1) Mental health problems and psychopathology increase risk for divorce (e.g., Kessler, Walters, & Forthofer, 1998 ), and/or (2) the outcomes of divorce are better explained by marital processes (e.g., large decreases in marital quality) that predate the separation (e.g., Overbeek et al., 2006 ). Using data from more than 4,500 adults in The Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study, for example, Overbeek and colleagues (2006) found that the association between DSM-III-R diagnosed dysthymic disorder and divorce was entirely eliminated when accounting for marital discord that preceded the actual divorce. In this study, the association between divorce and substance abuse problems was not accounted for by marital quality, suggesting that both the marital process and the divorce itself may increase risk for poor outcomes depending on the outcomes in question ( Overbeek et al., 2006 ). The general, working consensus in the literature is that although selection effects are operating, they cannot account for the entirety of the association between the experience of marital separation/divorce and increased risk for poor mental health problems, including diagnosable psychopathology and decrements in psychological well-being or life satisfaction.

The strongest evidence that divorce exerts a causal effect on consequent mood disturbances comes from co-twin control designs. Because MZ twins are genetically identical, differences in mental health outcomes between twins who are discordant for life-event exposures are presumed causal. In a large study of middle-aged Danish twins, Osler, McGue, Lund, and Christensen (2008) found significantly higher rates of depression among both male and female MZ twins who experienced divorce or widowhood, leading to the conclusion that the end of marriage exerts a causal effect of mood symptom severity (independent of the way mood symptoms may predict the end of marriage). Of course, divorce and widowhood are different life events, and additional co-twin studies are needed to determine whether these events exert equally causal effects.

In considering the overall question of divorce and psychological outcomes, an interesting methodological issue concerns how the studies described above quantify their effects. Almost all of the research in the area of divorce and psychological outcomes uses average scores (i.e., mean summary statistics) as the outcomes of interests. In some cases, outcomes are described as the average rates of diagnosable psychopathology among divorced (versus married) people, and in other cases psychological outcomes are reported as mean trajectories across time (e.g., see Lucas, 2005 , for a description of mean changes in life satisfaction). Mancini, Bonanno, and Clark (2011) have recently suggested that average summary statistics obscure important within-sample variability in outcomes. Importantly, the authors note that because grand mean values are sensitive to the undue influence of outliers (i.e., the arithmetic average can be negatively skewed when a small number of people do particularly poorly following a stressful event), the effects of “loss events,” like widowhood and divorce, may appear worse than they actually are, and most people cope quite well over time. Using the same German panel data as Lucas (2005) , the authors conducted a series of latent class growth mixture models and demonstrated that 71.8 percent of participants could be classified as experiencing no change in subjective well-being before or following divorce, 9.1 percent of participants could be classified as experiencing considerable improvement in well-being scores following divorce, and 19.1 percent could be classified as experiencing moderate decreases in well-being following divorce (Mancini et al., in press). These results bolster the idea that resilience is the norm and not the exception following marital dissolution, and that it is possible that mean level summary statistics obfuscate the fact that nearly 80 percent of divorced adults do well in time.

Accounting for this variability in divorce outcomes is an important research task. One possibility is that the association between divorce and later emotional distress depends on the quality of the marriage before the loss. Amato and Hohmann-Marriott (2007) found that adults in high-conflict marriages reported an increase in life happiness following divorce, whereas adults in low-conflict marriages reported a decrease. An interesting feature of this study is that the authors were able to identify and find marriages that were characterized by moderate levels of happiness and low levels of conflict even in the years immediately before the divorce ( Amato & Hohmann-Marriott, 2007 ). Similarly, in the bereavement literature, positive psychological adjustment to widowhood is associated with lower levels of dependence on a spouse before his or her death, whereas greater distress is observed among widows who reported a high degree of marital closeness before the loss (Carr et al., 2000). Findings of this nature also are observed in the literature on children of divorce. Amato (2010) noted that predivorce levels of marital discord condition the probability of poor outcomes; following divorce in high-conflict families, children tend to show little change in well-being, whereas the end of low-conflict marriages is associated with decreases in well-being and increases in distress (e.g., Strohschein, 2005 )

Finally, one of the primary weaknesses of the literature on divorce and adult mental health outcomes is that few studies have focused on the mechanisms, or psychological processes, that connect the end of marriage and subsequent emotional distress. High-quality, processes-focused research in this area is almost absent. This lack of empirical research on mechanisms is surprising, given observations that divorce can induce shame, longing, loneliness, humiliation, rumination, identity disruptions, and prolonged anger or grief ( Emery, 1994 ; Weiss, 1975 ). Presumably, it is these emotional experiences that give rise to, or at least covary with, more severe forms of psychopathology. Using a dyadic model, Sbarra and Emery (2008) recently showed that fathers’ rates of co-parenting conflict following child custody dispute settlements depended on mothers’ rates of acceptance of the relationship termination. Specifically, fathers who reported the greatest levels of conflict were previously married to mothers who reported the greatest acceptance of the separation, and the authors interpreted this finding to suggest that prolonged co-parenting conflict (among fathers) following divorce might operate as an attempt to promote a reunion with an ex-partner who is no longer invested in the relationship. In a prospective analysis over 12 years, Sbarra and Emery (2005) also reported that mothers who continued to show regrets about the separation experience (i.e., low levels of acceptance) also reported the highest rates of depression. In the context of a divorce mediation study, these effects were interpreted to suggest that a potentially adverse effect of helping parents cooperatively renegotiate their separation relationship may be to prolong feelings of grief. Although these studies provide some insight into the correlates of better and worse adjustment to divorce, we still have a great deal to learn about both the mechanisms of recovery (i.e., variables associated with changes in psychological adjustment) and the variables that explain the association between marital status and mental health outcomes.

Adults’ Physical Health Outcomes

The literature on the physical health outcomes following divorce is less well developed than the literature on mental health outcomes, but work in this area is growing rapidly ( Sbarra, 2012 ; Sbarra, Law, & Portley, 2011 ). The rationale for much of the work in this area is that because divorce is an acute stressor (for many people) with the potential to become a chronic stressor (for some people), studying the processes associated with marital separation serves as an important model for studying how stressful life events may be associated with health-relevant biological endpoints. When considering the literature on divorce and health, it makes sense to consider broad-based population-level effects and the mechanisms that can potentially explain these effects. Given space limitations, we discuss the broad population level effects and the role of psychological stress and health outcomes, but we point the reader to other sources for the most current information on the study of marital status and health.

One of the most consistently replicated effects in the social relationships and health literature is the epidemiological finding that marital status is associated with risk for early death. A recent meta-analysis of thirty-two prospective studies (involving more than 6.5 million people, 160,000 deaths, and more than 755,000 divorces in eleven different countries) revealed that, compared with their married counterparts, separated or divorced adults evidenced a significant increase in risk for early death ( Sbarra, Law, & Portley, 2011 ). Divorced or separated adults evidence increased rates of early, all-cause mortality even in the fully adjusted models (that control not only for age but also for a variety of sociodemographic, health, and health behavior covariates). The effect size (an adjusted risk hazard of 1.23, which indicates that, on average, divorced adults are at 23 percent greater likelihood to experience death at each successive follow-up period in any given prospective study than married adults) is consistent with the magnitude of association observed in other large-scale studies, and it is notable that divorced men appear to have the highest death rates among unmarried adults (for a review of evidence from sixteen developed countries, see Hu & Goldman, 1990 ).

The research reviewed above focuses on all-cause mortality, but a more specific literature also focuses on suicide. For example, in a 10-year, prospective epidemiological study of mortality risk in 471,922 noninstitutionalized adults living in the United States, Kposowa (2000) found that men who were separated or divorced at the start of the study were 2.28 times more likely to kill themselves during the follow-up period than their married counterparts, whereas no significant association was found between marital status and suicide for women. In a follow-up analysis, Kposowa (2003) reported that divorced men were more than nine times more likely to kill themselves than were divorced women.

What do we know about the mechanisms linking the end of marriage and risk for poor health outcomes? First, consistent with the discussion above, social selection explains some of the physical health outcomes observed following divorce. In the previous section, we described work by Osler and colleagues (2008) , who used a co-twin control design to investigate rates of health outcomes between twins who were discordant for widowhood or divorce. The results indicated that depression and rates of smoking may follow from the ending of a marriage, but that differences in many other health outcomes (e.g., self-rated health, alcohol use, body mass index [BMI]) may be due to underlying genetic explanations, and not the stress of a relationship transition. In addition, the association between divorce and physical health may be explained by third variables that both increase the risk for divorce and increase the risk for poor health, such as hostility and neuroticism, but the evidence for this hypothesis is relatively scant. Using data from the Terman Life Cycle study, Tucker and colleagues ( Tucker, Friedman, Wingard, & Schwartz, 1996 ) reported that the risk associated with having ever experienced a divorce and early mortality could be reduced (by 21 percent for men and 15 percent for women) after accounting for childhood conscientiousness and a history of parental divorce.

Beyond social selection processes, separation and divorce can instantiate changes in social resources, health behaviors, and psychological stress that have long-term implications for physical health (for a description of each process, see Sbarra et al., 2011 ). Only a handful of studies have examined how the psychological responses to marital separation and divorce may be associated with biomarkers that have health implications. The work in this area began in the 1980s with a series of now seminal studies by Kiecolt-Glaser and colleagues (1987 ; Kiecolt-Glaser, Kennedy, Malkoff, Fisher, & et al., 1988 ). More recently, Sbarra and colleagues ( Sbarra, Law, Lee, & Mason, 2009 ) found that participants who reported greater divorce-related emotional intrusion (e.g., dreaming about the separation, experiencing waves of sudden emotion about the separation) evidenced significantly higher levels of resting systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP). In addition, during a task in which participants mentally reflected on their separation experience, men who reported that the task required a great deal of emotion regulatory effort (i.e., feeling upset combined with a need to exert control of one’s emotions in order to prevent a worsening of distress) evidenced the largest increases in BP, and these effects were in addition to those observed for baseline functioning.

In summary, marital separation and divorce are associated with a statistically reliable increase in the probability of early death, yet we still know little about the mechanisms that explain this association. Only a few studies have examined emotional responding to divorce and associations with biomarkers that have distinct implications for endpoint health outcomes. Despite the nascent nature of this work, divorce-related subjective emotional experiences are consistently associated with heightened biological stress responses. Future research is needed to see if these emotional responses predict clinically meaningful health outcomes over the long term.

Barriers to Positive Adjustment: Conflict and Partner Abuse

As noted above, high levels of marital discord between parents seriously jeopardizes children’s and adolescents’ healthy development in multiple areas (emotional, social, and academic). Unfortunately, the marital discord and the divorce “high-conflict” couple literatures are not well integrated, particularly in relation to the quality of parenting. High-conflict divorcing parents are those engaged in intractable, ongoing, and unresolved conflict, and rather than diminishing, it intensifies after divorce or separation ( Coates & Fieldstone, 2008 ). Generated by their need to control or punish one another, these couples continue to relitigate minor and inconsequential issues (one-time changes to a parenting plan, telephone access, vacation planning, after school activities, and child hygiene). Parents often jump from one attorney to another, file multiple motions over child-related issues, and also misuse the child welfare system by filing multiple child abuse allegations ( Coates & Fieldstone, 2008 ). Sometimes it is one very troubled parent who drives the high conflict; although, it is presumed that in the vast majority of cases, both parents are actively involved in continuing the conflict ( Coates & Fieldstone, 2008 ). An interesting observation is that intimate partner abuse may be present, but it is not a feature of all high-conflict couples ( Coates & Fieldstone, 2008 ).

Unfortunately, as with the marital discord and high-conflict literatures, the intimate partner abuse (IPA) literature is also not well integrated; therefore, clear definitions of high conflict and the relationship between high conflict and intimate partner abuse are lacking ( Demo & Fine, 2010 ; see also Chapter 20 , this volume). Also lacking is the connection between the intimate partner abuse and parenting. The practical result of these divergent, poorly integrated research literatures is that there is precious little research that bears on the important question of whether a parent who commits intimate partner abuse against a partner can nevertheless be a good parent.

Divorce Interventions: Legal, Psycholegal, and Therapeutic

It is painfully obvious to any professional working with couples in the transition out of marriage that this is a period of financial, legal, and psychological crisis ( Sbarra & Emery, 2005 ). Unfortunately, this crisis occurs at precisely the point in time when important decisions about long-term structure of the family must be made ( Sbarra & Emery, 2005 ). For example, at this time couples must make decisions concerning legal and physical custody of children, parenting time arrangements, division of family assets, and payment of child support and/or spousal maintenance. These decisions then have long-term ramifications for families. Increasingly the process of divorce itself has been implicated as an added stressor for divorcing families.

Within the legal system, one of the main challenges is to process the necessary financial and child-related matters within the legal confines of state statutes without exacerbating existing problems between parents ( Erickson, 2010 ). The legal process is defined as the set of procedures used to obtain a legal divorce. It is a linear process with a set of complicated, rigid rules that unfolds over months to years. To begin the divorce process, one spouse files with the court a set of specific documents detailing why they are requesting a divorce, information about the children (if any), financial assets and liabilities, property (if any) and a detailed plan of how the spouse wishes all these matters to be resolved. The rigid rules detail what documents must be filed, the specific wording to be used, and how and when the documents must be given to the other spouse. The second spouse then has a particular period to submit his or her own set of documents to respond, to question any of the positions in the beginning set of documents, and to put forth an alternative plan. From this point forward, the legal process varies widely depending on whether the spouses agree, whether additional procedures are needed to help the spouses agree (attorney negotiations or mediation), or whether the disputed issues need to be settled by a judge in court at a trial.

Traditional litigation to resolve legal issues also varies widely. In its simplest form couples can negotiate on their own or hire attorneys to negotiate an agreement that addresses financial and child-related issues and file it with the court. Depending on the level of cooperation between the couple and the attorney, if any, the process of negotiation can be lengthy or relatively swift ( Beck & Tanha, 2009 ). At the extreme, couples can be so polarized in their desires and hostile emotionally as to require hours of attorney and other professionals’ time (accountants, appraisers, psychologists or psychiatrists, attorneys for the children), multiple documents filed with the courts, and court appearances to resolve the issues ( Beck & Tanha, 2009 ). This extreme form of traditional two-attorney litigation is seen as formalized competition in which there is a winner and a loser for each issue raised ( Sbarra & Emery, 2005 ). It is inherently competitive, adversarial, and expensive ( Beck & Tanha, 2009 ). For some couples, the competition becomes the focus, rather than what is in the best interests of the children. Unfortunately, little research has focused on this litigation process. The popular perception is that all divorce lawyers are argumentative, are hostile, and refuse to settle for what is fair, thus creating acrimony between their clients and boosting fees. This perception has not been empirically investigated or validated ( Beck & Tanha, 2009 ).

Couples can also opt out of hiring attorneys, and increasingly they are doing so ( Feitz, 2008 ). Some legal scholars argue that the self-represented (pro se) litigant is the single most important issue facing family courts today ( Schepard, 2002 ), and that pro se litigation the second most frequently cited problem by judges and court staff who process divorce cases ( Goerdt, 1992 ). These litigants arrive without knowledge of basic procedural requirements such as statutory time deadlines or understanding of the procedural requirements for conducting court hearings (e.g., subpoenaing witnesses). Evaluating the reliability of evidence and the advantages and disadvantages of various options is probably the most important factor in a divorce case and is the most difficult for pro se litigants ( Snukals & Sturtevant, 2007 ). Unless legally trained, pro se litigants are at a significant disadvantage in this regard. The number of these cases is substantial, though it varies across jurisdictions and types of proceedings. Studies have indicated that the range of family court cases that have at least one pro se client is 55 to 90 percent ( Feitz, 2008 ; McEwen, Rogers, & Maiman, 1995 ). Results from studies of the process indicate that couples with children and personal assets have tremendous difficulties navigating a process designed for legal professionals ( Sales, Beck, & Haan, 1993 ). What has not been investigated are the effects of couples navigating the divorce process on their own in terms of the levels of conflict between parents, types of divorce and parenting agreements developed, or effects (if any) on children in the short or long term.

What is clear is that individual judges have tremendous discretion in deciding divorce-related issues that come before them. This discretion leans to uncertainty in the potential outcomes of cases. In addition, attorneys have particular styles in working with each other and with clients, some more argumentative than others. Judges and attorneys are frustrated with clients attempting the legal divorce process designed for legal professionals. Thus, a level of uncertainty is introduced into the divorce process when couples rely on attorneys and judges to resolve disputed issues or rely on themselves without an adequate understanding of substantive law governing divorce or legal procedures. At a time when couples are emotionally and financially in crisis, many desire clarity from the legal process and are instead faced with uncertainty

Psycholegal Interventions

The contentious, emotionally and financially costly and uncertain nature of the traditional litigation process for resolving disputed divorce issues both before and after divorce has prompted scholars, practitioners, and policy makers to develop and implement less divisive forms of dispute resolution and divorce-specific education programs for couples at these times ( Beck & Sales, 2001 ). The programs remain based in law because most often attendance is legally mandated and important legal issues are addressed; however, the focus of the interventions facilitate discussion of emotionally laden issues and are based in psychological constructs.

Mediation has been advocated for its potential to resolve disputes with less acrimony among disputants, reduce economic costs, and increase satisfaction with divorce agreements ( Beck & Sales, 2001 ). Mediation is a task-oriented, time-limited intervention premised on the theory that disputing parties can negotiate equitable agreements in a confidential, collaborative dispute resolution process with a neutral third party, in a more casual forum than a courtroom ( Beck & Sales, 2001 ).

There has been a steady rise in the popularity of mediation for resolving divorce disputes concerning custody and parenting time. Divorce mediation in some form now exists in nearly every state, or in jurisdictions within each state, in the United States ( Murphy & Rubinson, 2005 ). If a couple is disputing custody or parenting time, then before setting a date for trial, twelve states mandate that the couple attend mediation ( Johnson, Saccuzzo, & Koen, 2005 ). In an additional thirty-three states, judges are given the authority to order (mandate) couples to attend mediation. The remaining states rely on a variety of local court rules that use each of these referral mechanisms ( Johnson, Saccuzzo & Koen., 2005 ). In litigation, spouses can resolve all disputed issues. In some states, all the divorce issues can be mediated (e.g., Alaska, Kansas), whereas others limit it to custody and parenting time issues (e.g., Arizona, Nevada). Paralleling the rise in popularity of mediation, there have been several empirical studies reporting very encouraging findings regarding the success of mediation (see Beck & Sales, 2001 ; Bickerdike & Littlefield, 2000 ; Emery, 1994 ; Emery, Laumann-Billings, Waldron, Sbarra, & Dillon, 2001 ; Emery, Matthews, & Kitzmann, 1994 ; Emery, Matthews, & Wyer, 1991 ; Emery, Sbarra, & Grover, 2005 ; Emery & Wyer, 1987 ; Kelly, 1989 , 1996 ; McIntosh, 2000 ).

Despite mediation’s increasing popularity and encouraging findings, legitimate concerns exist about mandating mediation when IPA is alleged ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011 ). In the context of IPA, concerns about victim and child safety, along with questions about the voluntariness and fairness of the mediation process, are the fulcrum of this debate ( Beck, Walsh & Weston, 2009 ). The proportion of divorcing couples in mediation that report having some type of IPA is high. Depending on the type of IPA assessed (i.e., psychological abuse, physical abuse, coercive control, physical or sexual violence), reported rates of IPA were 59 to 98 percent ( Beck, Walsh, Mechanic, & Taylor, 2010 ; Beck et al., 2009 ; CFCC Research Update, 2010). The IPA in these families also can be extremely serious. In one study, in 41 percent of the cases, there was a restraining order against one of the parties (with 15 percent currently in effect), and 7 percent of the participants did not feel safe at the mediation session (CFCC Research Update, 2010). The idea of a self-representation victim of IPA negotiating long-term legal agreements concerning children in mediation is extremely concerning. Lawyers are not judges and cannot order abusers to agree to terms in agreements that would provide safety for a victim (e.g., supervised parenting time and exchanges of children, restrictions on contact between victim and abuser) ( Beck et al., 2009 ). Unfortunately, at present there are few alternatives for the safe processing of these cases. Victims of IPA and without financial resources have few choices.

Parenting Coordination

For many couples, mediation presents an opportunity to negotiate both predivorce and postdivorce plans. There are, however, a small percentage of couples (8 to 12 percent) ( Coates, Deutsch, Starnes, Sullivan, & Sydlik, 2004 ) for whom mediation does not work. Even if agreements are negotiated, they quickly unravel. It has become clear that there need to be additional programs for these high-conflict families. One option gaining popularity is parenting coordinator programs (PCPs) (e.g., Beck, Putterman, Sbarra, & Mehl, 2008 ). In the early 2000s these programs arose across the United States and Canada driven by the frustration experienced by judges, court personnel, and others working with high-conflict families ( Deutsch, Coates & Fieldstone, 2008 ). Like other court-based programs, PCPs vary considerably in who delivers the intervention, the intervention provided, and the governing legal authority. Broadly, parenting coordinators (PCs) are lawyers and mental health professionals appointed by the courts to perform a quasi-judicial role with the families. The PCs are court-appointed for 1 to 2 years and work with the family to address and resolve a limited scope of parenting conflicts.

The proposed benefit of PCPs is that disputed issues will be resolved much more quickly and without the costly involvement of attorneys and lengthy delays necessary for court hearings. Originally PCPs focused on assisting parents in implementing their parenting plans after the divorce ( Greenberg, 2010 ); however, they now are providing a wider array of services both before and after divorce (parent education, case management, and support) ( Greenberg, 2010 ; Henry et al., 2009 ). Despite widespread implementation of these programs in the court systems across the North America, empirical research into the effects of PC programs is “practically nonexistent” ( Henry et al., 2009 , p. 684), but recent studies have addressed professionals’ points of view about the parenting program ( Beck et al., 2008 ) and the effectiveness of the PCP from the perspectives of clients and the court ( Henry et al., 2009 ). For future clients of these programs and for public policies concerning these programs, it is important to conduct empirically rigorous research (i.e., research using manual treatments control groups, random assignment to conditions, clearly defined goals and outcomes) to determine whether they are effective, and if so, for which clients the PCP was helpful and for which it was not.

Mandatory Informational Divorce Education Programs

Although a small percentage of high-conflict families often require intensive interventions (such as PCPs) to resolve routine parenting issues, there are more general issues all divorcing couples face, particularly in relation to managing interparental conflict and maintaining positive parenting practices. Many court administrators across the United States and Canada recognized divorcing parents were struggling, and Informational Divorce Education Programs (IDEPs) were created as a means to provide targeted education for parents early in the divorce process in the hopes that this education would in turn lessen the detrimental effects of divorce on children ( Pollet & Lombreglia, 2008 ; Sigal, Sandler, Wolchik, & Braver, 2011 ).

The first IDEPs began in 1970s, and they expanded quickly in the 1980s and 1990s. As of 2008, forty-six states had IDEPs, with mandatory attendance for all divorcing couples with children. Couples thus must participate in the program before their case can move forward or for the provision of any other services by the court ( Pollet & Lombreglia, 2008 ). Most IDEPs are short term (i.e., 2 to 4 hours) and are provided by either court-connected services (conciliation courts) or by service providers contracted by the local courts. The content of these programs varies considerably across programs and has continued to evolve.

Three recent reviews of IDEPs ( Fackrell, Hawkins, & Kay, 2011 ; Pollet & Lombreglia, 2008 ; Sigal, Sandler, Wolchik, & Braver, 2011 ) and several earlier reviews ( Braver, Salem, Pearson, & Deluse, 1996 ; Hughes & Kirby, 2000 ; Kramer & Kowal, 1998 ; Thoennes & Pearson, 1999 ) provide conflicting conclusions regarding the effectiveness of these programs. The most positive of the three recent reviews ( Pollet & Lombreglia, 2008 ) summarizes the conclusions presented by the program providers in journal articles without analyzing the research methods used to arrive at the conclusions. Nearly all outcomes measured were self-reported by attendees. The second review detailed a meta-analytic study of twenty-eight court-affiliated mandatory and voluntary programs targeting parents ( Fackrell, Hawkins, & Kay, 2011 ). The overall effect size for the nineteen control group studies was d = .39 ( p 〈 .000) indicating a moderate effect size. Examination of five specific outcomes also yielded generally moderate effect sizes for: co-parenting conflict, d = .36 ( p 〈 .001, k = 17); parent–child relationships and parental discipline, d = .49 ( p 〈 .01, k = 9); child well-being, d = .34 ( p 〈 .001, k = 5). Results for parental well-being was large at d = .61, although the significance of the effect was marginal ( p 〈 .10, k = 17). The result for differences in relitigation rates was reported to be small and insignificant at d = .19, k = 6. The authors conclude that the results of the meta-analysis are encouraging; however, relatively few IDEPs have been evaluated for effectiveness using sound experimental techniques (e.g., observational measures of child outcomes, objective measures of parent and child outcomes, long-term outcomes, randomized assignment).

The final review of IDEPs was an in-depth analysis of fourteen published studies evaluating various Parent Education Programs ( Sigal, Sandler, Wolchik & Braver, 2011 ). These authors found that there was a high level of reported satisfaction with the PEPs studied, but they took a more critical stance toward the adequacy of the research thus far. These authors concluded that because of limitations in study designs (e.g., lack of random assignment, clear specification of treatment, sufficient sample sizes, reliable and valid measures of outcomes), there is currently little evidence that the programs are achieving their stated goals of improving the quality of nonresidential parent–child contact, fostering quality parent–child relationships with both parents, reducing interparental conflict, improving co-parenting, reducing relitigation, or improving outcomes for children. The authors also note that it is premature to argue that the programs do not work; rather, it is more accurate to conclude that the programs have not been subjected to rigorous evaluation, so it is unclear whether or not they are effective ( Sigal et al., 2011 ).

Multisession Group Treatments for Parents and Children

Although research assessing the effectiveness of short-term, informational, often mandatory, court-connected divorce education programs (IDEPS) targeting parents is at best encouraging, there now exists strong evidence of the efficacy of several carefully designed randomized controlled trials of voluntary divorce-focused preventive parenting programs, some focusing on fathers ( Braver, Griffin, & Cookston, 2005 ; Cookston, Braver, Griffin, Deluse, & Miles, 2006 ; DeGarmo & Forgatch, 2005 ; DeGarmo, Patterson, & Forgatch, 2004 ), others focusing on mothers (Sandler, Miles, Cookston, & Braver, 2008; Zhou, Sandler, Millsap, Wolchik, & Dawson-McClure, 2008 ), and still others focused on stepfamilies ( Forgatch, DeGarmo, & Beldavs, 2005 ) and stepfathers specifically ( Bullard, Wachlarowicz, DeLeeuw, Snyder, Low, Forgatch, & DeGarmo, 2010 ; DeGarmo & Forgatch, 2007 ).

Sandler, Schoenfelder, Wolchik, and McKinnon (2010) found that outcome evaluations indicate that intervention effects on important aspects of parenting, including improvements in the quality of the parent–child relationship and increases in effective discipline ( DeGarmo & Forgatch, 2005 ; Wolchik, Sandler, Milsap, Plummer, & Greene, 2002 ), and increases in maternal warmth ( Wolchik et al., 2002 ). Improvements were found to last from 1 year after completion from the program ( Forgatch, Patterson, DeGarmo, & Beldavis, 2009 ) up to 6 years after completion ( Wolchik et al., 2002 ). The programs were also effective in reducing several important child and adolescent problems 2 to 9 years after intervention, including diagnosed mental disorders ( Wolchik et al., 2002 ), externalizing behavior problems ( DeGarmo & Forgatch, 2005 ; Wolchik et al., 2002 ), police arrests and delinquency ( Forgatch, et al., 2009 ), internalizing problems ( Braver, Griffin, & Cookston, 2005 ; Wolchik et al., 2002 ), substance use ( Wolchik et al., 2002 ), school performance, self-esteem, risky sexual behaviors, and active coping ( Wolchik et al., 2002 ). Interestingly, the New Beginnings Program ( Wolchik, et al., 2002 ) found that adding a child component to the parent intervention program did not provide significant additive effects over and above the parental program. In addition, stronger effects occurred for those who were at higher risk when entering the intervention program.

Important issues for the future of prevention programs for divorcing families are dissemination and broadening the scope to other, more complex family forms. Although the efficacy of these parenting interventions on improving long-term outcomes for youth is clear, what is less clear is whether effectiveness research in practice settings can also maintain the positive effects. Exciting new research is underway examining whether this is possible. The New Beginnings Program is currently being implemented in six community-based test sites (personal communication with Irwin Sandler, June 4, 2011 ). Another important focus is to extend the reach of these programs to include stepparents in the programs. Before age 13 years, 50 percent of children in the United States will live in a family that includes a biological parent and an intimate partner of the biological parent ( Stewart, 2007 ). The constellations of these families are complex and can include children brought to the new family from both partners and birth children of the new unions. Parenting practices in these complex families are extremely challenging.

Research on Nonmarital Unions and Stepfamilies

In 2007, nearly 40 percent of all children born in the United States were born to unmarried parents ( Ventura, 2009 ). These rates are up from 34 percent in 2002 and nearly double the rate in 1980 (18.4 percent) ( Ventura, 2009 ). In the past decade, research on nonmarital (cohabitating) and informal unions is increasing both in quantity and sophistication. The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) is a collaboration between Columbia and Princeton Universities investigating a nationally representative, longitudinal survey of 5,000 children born in the United States between 1998 and 2000, including a large oversampling of children born to unmarried parents (3,700 born to unmarried mothers and 1,200 to married mothers) ( McLanahan, Garfinkel, Mincy, & Donahue, 2010 ; Osborne, McLanahan, & Brooks-Gunn, 2004 ). Parents were interviewed in the hospital immediately after the birth of a child with follow-up interviews when the same child was 1, 3, and 5 years old ( http://www.fragilefamilies.princeton.edu/ ).

The FFCWS findings indicate that most unmarried parents were romantically involved at the time of the child’s birth. Fifty percent of the couples were living together, another 32 percent were “visiting” (romantically involved but living apart), and 18 percent were “single” (8 percent were friends and 10 percent reported little to no contact) ( McLanahan & Beck, 2010 ). Therefore, approximately half of these children live at least initially with a single mother, whereas the other half live with both biological parents in a cohabitating union ( Waldfogel, Craigie, & Brooks-Gunn, 2010 ).

The stability of these families was, however, fragile. Approximately 60 percent of the relationships dissolved within 5 years of the child’s birth ( McLanahan & Beck, 2010 ). Of the three types of unions, cohabitating unions were the most stable, with 60 percent still living together or married 5 years after birth, compared with only 20 percent of the visiting parents. Adding to the complexity of these families, of those relationships that did not remain stable, many mothers (20 percent for cohabitating to 45 percent for single) formed new co-residential relationships and had an additional child or children (15 percent for cohabitating and 33 percent for single) by year 5 ( McLanahan & Beck, 2010 ).

Concerning the processes and consequences for children, the FFCWS assessed cognitive development, behavioral problems, and child health (obesity, asthma, hospitalization, accidents or injuries in the past year, and overall health). For those children of unmarried parents at the time of the birth but later married, the marriage improved the cognitive scores of their children compared with children whose biological parents never married ( Liu & Heiland, 2008 ). For children who remained in nonmarital families, consistent findings from several researchers indicated that the stability of the family form was the important factor in the children’s cognitive development. Children living under stable single-parent or stable cohabitating unions fared better than children in homes that were unstable ( Craigie, 2008 ). This finding has held with other data sets. Amato (2003) found a direct negative relationship between the number of family transitions and levels of psychological well-being of children. Sun and Li (2001) also found that the negative effects of multiple family transitions on children’s academic achievement were not only sustained but also could escalate over time.

The pattern of findings for the FFCWS data was more mixed for behavioral problems. Behavioral problems were elevated in cohabitating and single-parent families compared with married families and grew worse with each change in family structure ( Waldfogel et al., 2010 ). Behavioral problems were also elevated in stable single-mother families; however, mothers’ level of stress and parenting quality mediated this association ( Osborne & McLanahan, 2007 ; Waldfogel et al., 2010 ). Using a separate data set with observational measures and analyzing family structure and mother–child interactions by race and ethnicity, researchers found that a cohabitating relationship was not uniformly associated with more positive mother–child interaction; cohabitation was particularly difficult for the relationships of Hispanic women and their children ( Gibson-Davis & Gassman-Pines, 2010 ).

Data from the FFCWS concerning child health outcomes indicate that, overall, children born into nonmarital unions show consistently worse health even when researchers control for other potential differences (maternal age, race and ethnicity, education) ( Bzostek & Beck, 2008 ; Waldfogel et al., 2010 ). Single-mother headed households have the worst outcomes on all five measures of child health, whereas cohabitating families have poorer outcomes on some but not all measures ( Bzostek & Beck, 2008 ; Waldfogel, et al. 2010 ). Although these analyses considered and controlled for important group differences, not many do; thus, selection effects could drive some of the differences between unmarried unions and married families. In addition, only a limited number of studies investigate the influence of the children themselves on the family environments ( Hawkins, Amato, & King, 2007 ).

In terms of the number of stepfamilies, a historically strong finding in the literature is that the majority of divorced parents do remarry; 68 percent of women over age 25 years and 81 percent of women under age 25 years remarry within 10 years after divorce ( Bramlett & Mosher, 2002 ). This study also found that between 34 and 50 percent of these second marriages dissolve within the first 10 years of remarriage. Focusing on the number of people with stepfamily relatives, a recent nationally representative study of 2,691 adults found that 42 percent of the adults surveyed indicated they had at least one step relative, 30 percent had a step or half sibling, 18 percent had a living stepparent, and 13 percent had a stepchild (Pew Research Center, 2011). The demographic pattern of those who are most likely to live in a stepfamily is also the same as that of those who are most likely to cohabitate rather than marry (young people, blacks, those of lower income, and those without a college degree). Also, research finds that cohabitating couples are more likely to enter a new union with children (48 percent) than are those who remarry (37 percent) ( Coleman, Ganong, & Fine, 2000 ).

What has not been studied until recently is the process of postdivorce repartnering (the movement in and out of new romantic relationships) during the intermarriage interval. Anderson and Greene (2005) found that within 60 days of the divorce filing, 45 percent of parents in their study were dating in some form, 26 percent were interested but had not met someone, and 29 percent were not interested in dating. By the 2-year follow-up, 86 percent reported some dating experience, 71 percent reported having a serious relationship, and 24 percent reported a break-up of a serious relationship. Thus, there appear to be many transitions within the first 2 years after divorce.

A recent study focused on factors leading to the instability of second marriages and found that women who brought stepchildren into their second marriage experienced a higher risk of divorce, although the reverse was not true (man bringing a child into a second marriage) ( Teachman, 2008 ). Cohabitating with or having a child while cohabitating with a man, who eventually became a husband, also did not increase the risk of divorce ( Teachman, 2008 ). If this trend holds, it is women with children from previous relationships who are at highest risk of multiple family structure changes. This finding is important in that, as noted earlier, 40 percent of children are born to unmarried parents, and the vast majority of children remain with their mothers after divorce.

Although remarriage can have positive effects on physical and emotional well-being and standard of living, it does not appear to be as consistently positive for children ( Amato, 2000 ). When comparing children living with a stepparent rather than a single mother, poorer outcomes were found for children living in stepparent families concerning emotional well-being but somewhat better outcomes were found for these children concerning health and some behavioral measures ( Amato, 2000 ; Sweeney, 2010 ). The variability in outcomes may be partly due to the variability in dynamics of stepfamilies and in particular the variability in relationships between stepparents and stepchildren and between step and half siblings (Sweeney, 2010). For example, not surprisingly, high-quality relationships with both resident stepfathers and nonresident biological fathers are associated with better outcomes for children ( Sweeney, 2010 ). Consequences for children living in stepfamilies are complex, given that most children live through a parental break-up, live with a single parent, and then live through several relationship transitions ( Anderson & Greene, 2005 ) before living with a stepparent ( Sweeney, 2010 ). Disentangling the effects of these family transitions from those from the stepparent per se is difficult.

Emerging Themes and Future Directions

In concluding his review article on the past decade of research on divorce for the Journal of Marriage and Family,   Amato (2010) outlines eleven areas for future research. Rather than simply reiterate his points, our final section of this chapter attempts to build on Amato’s (2010) major conclusions; we emphasize the areas he covered that we view to be particularly important and also try to outline other new and emerging research directions.

What Are the Psychological Mechanisms that Underpin Resilience in Children and Adults after Divorce?

The general literature on human resilience to stress is well developed, but we know far less about why and how some people fare well or poorly following divorce. Research in the area of post-traumatic ( Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004 ; Tedeschi, Park, & Calhoun, 1998 ) and stress-related ( Park, Cohen, & Murch, 1996 ; Park & Helgeson, 2006 ) growth is beginning to shed light on how people can thrive in the face of even severe adversities. The essential idea underpinning these constructs is that difficult life events challenge people’s basic beliefs about the world and their place in the world, which then initiates the search for meaning to rebuild these beliefs (see Janoff-Bulman, 1992 ). Although notable controversies surround the measurement of perceptions of growth, evidence indicates that actual growth following a traumatic event is associated with improved (self-reported) well-being ( Frazier et al., 2009 ). Applied to the study of divorce, these constructs hold much potential for future work ( Tashiro & Frazier, 2003 ; Tashiro, Frazier, & Berman, 2006 ), but many questions remain. In what ways are beliefs about a just world and meaning structures disrupted by divorce? Among adults and children who are challenged or stressed by divorce, what characteristics promote meaning making and the emergence of growth? These are essential questions for understanding the mechanisms that define resilient outcomes in the face of marital dissolution, and the field will benefit from basic research rooted in theories of stress-related growth.

Deeper into Social Selection and Social Causation

At this point, it is incontrovertible that some of the alleged (child and adult) outcomes of divorce may be predate the divorce itself or be explained by the same underlying genetic associations that account for poor divorce outcomes (e.g., temperament or personality). What is not yet clear is precisely which outcomes can be deemed causal consequences of marital separation and divorce. The field needs to become aware of replicated findings from CoT and co-twin control designs, and then place greater emphasis on explaining the mechanisms of these outcomes in particular. In addition, experiments and clinical interventions remain the best way to determine causation. As reviewed above, child outcomes can be improved through parent education programs, but there is limited experimental or intervention research in the area of adult adjustment (for an exception, see Rye, Folck, Heim, Olszewski, & Traina, 2004 ). There is no area in which this is as critical as isolating the potential causal effects on adults’ health outcomes. Cohen and Janicki-Deverts (2009) recently argued that with the exception of a very few studies, the entire literature on social relationships and health is correlational in nature. In order to understand whether the social and psychological correlates of divorce translate into risk for poor health outcomes, interventions that target these social and psychological processes can be designed, and health-relevant biomarkers can be examined. An increase in experimentation and treatment development in this area would be a major contribution.

Learning More about Diverse Family Forms

Because of the sheer numbers of children living in complex and fluid family forms, much more attention needs to be placed on understanding these family forms and their effects on adults and children. Children in multiple-transition families are thrust into and then back out of relationships with adults, new stepsiblings, grandparents, and extended families. These changes in the demographics of any particular family, as well as in families in general, have led to new questions. Questions concerning the trajectories of parental relationships when partners have children from multiple partners, and the trajectories of children in these complex family forms, are very important to more fully understand. Recent evidence indicates, for example, that children born to men with children from prior partners will be less likely to grow up in an intact family, that the women who partner with these men are likely to spend time as a single parent, and that men who have children from multiple partners are less likely to establish stable family households ( Monte, 2011 ). The sheer diversity of family forms emerging today has many ramifications for many important legal, societal, and personal outcomes (e.g., custody, parenting time, calculations and payment of consistent child support, odds of marriage), leading to new research questions. For example, are current and formal, legal and cohabitating, partners of biological parents (and children of those dispirit unions) to be considered family ( Schmeeckle, Giarrusso, Feng, & Bengtson, 2006 )? Recent research examining the relationship between adult children and former stepparents indicates that, under certain circumstances (e.g., co-residence, marriage to biological parent, the perception of stepparent as a parent), these relationships continue ( Schmeeckle et al., 2006 ).

Legal, Psycholegal, and Therapeutic Interventions for Complex Families

What are the best ways to serve these complex families through legal, psycholegal, and therapeutic interventions? The information gleaned from additional research with these families can be used to assess and revise mediation, parenting coordination, parent education, and existing multisession group treatments for stepparents. Recent research in just one of these areas (multisession group interventions) indicates that it is in its infancy and suffers from many of the same problems as other programs for families (i.e., small samples, no control groups, no randomization to treatments, short-term follow-up periods, and no standardized outcome measures) ( Bullard et al., 2010 ; Whitton, Nicholson & Markman, 2008 ). One program for new stepfamilies is focused on enhancing parental practices in five core areas: skill encouragement, discipline, monitoring, problem solving, and positive involvement. The results of a randomized controlled trial with 2-year follow-up found that this program enhanced marital relationship processes, improved parenting practices, prevented deterioration in mothers’ marital satisfaction, and prevented increased teacher reports of children’s externalizing behavior problems ( Bullard et al, 2010 ).

Concluding Remarks

This chapter reviewed a relatively large body of research on the demography, the predictors, and the mental and physical health correlates of marital separation and divorce. We also reviewed research on several psycholegal intervention and prevention programs, as well as the changing face of American families and the implications of divorce for changing family structures. The chapter closes with a series of questions that are open for future research. We emphasize the need to (1) learn more about the social selection and causation processes that are operating to explain health outcomes; (2) focus greater research attention of resilience—for both children and adults—in the face of divorce, as well as the mechanisms that explain psychological outcomes following marital dissolution; (3) conduct more research on prevention programs, including mandated parenting education programs and voluntary multisession group treatments for parents and children; and (4) develop a deeper understanding of how the intervention and prevention programs can be readily applied to complex family situations that involve not only the dissolution of legal marriages but also the end of nonmarital unions. It is clear that these issues require interdisciplinary research, and advances will be realized through research that integrates, in some capacity, sociological, psychological, and legal theory and scholarship.

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Divorce Research Paper

This sample divorce research paper features: 9000 words (approx. 30 pages), an outline, and a bibliography with 82 sources. Browse other research paper examples for more inspiration. If you need a thorough research paper written according to all the academic standards, you can always turn to our experienced writers for help. This is how your paper can get an A! Feel free to contact our writing service for professional assistance. We offer high-quality assignments for reasonable rates.

Introduction

Public pronouncements and vital social statistics, the social myth surrounding divorce, the marriage and divorce data, conclusion: marriage and divorce in the 21st century.

• Bibliography

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The perpetuity of marriage is enforced by law as a protection for children, for whose education and support society as such makes no other provision than the frequently aborted attempt to compel an efficient guardianship of the parent by penal enactments. (Andrews 1975:12) Academic Writing, Editing, Proofreading, And Problem Solving Services Get 10% OFF with 24START discount code var form_action="https://www.iresearchnet.com/order/"; var partner_id = 3870; var sub_id = "CAL"; (function() { var sc = document.createElement('script'); sc.type = 'text/javascript'; sc.async = true; sc.src = 'https://www.edu-profit.com/orderformph-new3.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(sc, s); })(); The Romans bemoaned their high divorce rates, which they contrasted with an earlier era of family stability. The European settlers in America began lamenting the decline of the family and the disobedience of women and children almost as soon as they stepped off the boats. (Coontz 2005:1) No trend in American life since World War II has received more attention or caused more concern than the rising rate of divorce. (Cherlin 1992:20) (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

As an often-cited U.S. government report indicates, “Current concerns about the condition of the American family, as well as discussion about ‘family values’ indicate a need for timely information about factors contributing to major shifts in family structure” (Norton and Miller 1992:iii). With the emphasis on marriage, divorce, and remarriage, the government is looking closely at well-known sociological facts pertaining to changes in the family, sex and gender roles, and issues relating to human sexuality. As noted by Cherlin (1992), “Although the family undoubtedly has a future, its present form differs from its past form in important aspects, at least in part because of recent changes in patterns of cohabiting, marrying, divorcing, and remarrying” (p. 2).

Although marriage may be a damaged institution (Cherlin 1992) and a marriage crisis is a global concern (Coontz 2005:2–3), social attitudes do not necessarily reflect a consistent assessment of these occurrences. Early alarmists, such as William F. Ogburn (1927) and Ogburn and Nimkoff (1955), who considered the family as a damaged institution and thus as a subject of sociological inquiry, raised important problems concerning marriage and divorce. In addressing family issues, these sociologists recognized that the economic, protective, recreational, and religious functions of the family had shifted since the 1920s. Consequently, functions like as protection, education, economics, religious instruction, and recreation have been outsourced to other institutions (Newman 1950; Zellner 2001:38–39). Indeed, the economic unit functions of the family were replaced by the factory, the restaurant, and the store, while the protective responsibilities were assumed by the courts, the school, and the health department (Ogburn 1927:7).

William Fielding Ogburn wrote in 1927 that marriage is a significant social institution due to its correlation with happiness. Ogburn may have been the first analyst to discover the significant disparity in the mortality rates of married and unmarried men. He acknowledged that divorce is of particular significance to society because, as he notes (p. 7), divorce typically occurs with the expectation that a new family will be created through remarriage.

In 1632, the Grand Assembly of Virginia mandated that all ministers in the commonwealth record all burials, christenings, and marriages. Since then, the United States has maintained a long tradition of recording key occurrences. In 1639, the Massachusetts Bay Colony established a law mandating that all births, funerals, and marriages be recorded by government officials. Other colonies, including Plymouth Colony in 1646 and the Connecticut Court of Elections in 1644 and 1650, quickly ordered town clerks or registrars to record similar birth, marriage, and death information. In Massachusetts, however, a regular registration system and form were not established until 1842, when the Secretary of the Commonwealth assumed responsibility for collecting such data (Jacobson 1959:7–8).

Vital data such as births, deaths, marriages, and divorces were well-recognized declarations of public significance before the mid-1850s, when the collection of vital information became an important part of the official state census gathering. Possibly for this reason alone, the philosophy around marriage and divorce, especially in the United States, has been hampered by social, religious, and political interpretations for a very long time. Further legislation was interrupted by the Civil War, but in 1889, an issue of the Political Science Quarterly lent credence to the fact that issues relating to marriage and divorce were receiving significant exposure. Dike (1889) noted the following:

Twenty years ago President Woolsey’s Divorce and Divorce Legislation contained in a dozen scanty pages about all the existing statistics regarding both this country and Europe. Since then, the collections of their statistics by four or five more states (in a meager way, excepting the excellent work in Massachusetts begun by Mr. Wright, the Commissioner of Labor in 1879 and contained since under provision of statute); [and] the few additions by the National Divorce Reform League. (P. 592) Lobbying for more efficient registration legislation led to important advances at the federal level by the early twentieth century with the creation in 1902 of the Bureau of the Census and, in 1903, a Congressional resolution calling for a cooperative effort between the states and the newly established Bureau to establish a uniform system of birth and death registration for the entire country. At the time, only 15 states and the District of Columbia had established a central filing system; by 1919, all states had legislation that required such registration even if strict enforcement did not occur (Jacobson 1959). Despite these advances in statistical gathering procedures, as late as the mid-twentieth century only three-fourths of the states had a provision for recording marriages and about one-half for divorces (Newman 1950).

In 1877, the first government database on marriage and divorce was formed, and Walter F. Willcox conducted the inaugural examination of the data (1891, 1893, 1897). Since then, there has been a significant deal of public discourse as numerous analysts utilize the vital statistics data to challenge parts of what was to become a complex social matrix including the structure and function of the institution of the family.

In the 1950s, it was hypothesized that divorce was more prevalent among lower socioeconomic levels and that the highly publicized divorces of prominent middle- to upper-class individuals generated an inaccurate impression of the incidence of divorce in the United States (Monahan 1955). In the late 1980s, it was asserted that two-thirds of first marriages would result in divorce (Martin and Bumpass 1989). Following this claim, White (1990), arguing that divorce is a macro-level problem, wrote that “A shift in the lifetime divorce probability from 10% to well over 50% cannot be explained at the micro level” (p. 904).

Such a view of and debate over marriage and divorce issues continues in the contemporary experience, prompted in part by the findings reported and commentary attributed to analysts such as Martin and Bumpass (1989), Riley 1991, and Cherlin (1992). Andrew J. Cherlin wrote (1992:7) that “During the 1980s the divorce rate declined slightly but remained high enough that about half of marriages, at current rates, would end in divorce.” Cherlin (1992) also observed that divorce “rates in the 1980s, although stable, still imply that about half of all the marriages begun in the mid-1970s will end in divorce or separation” (p. 30). Such information is also cited in the most learned of reference publications, as noted by Norton and Miller (1992) and Kurz (2001:3811), for example, who, drawing upon Cherlin (1992), among others, state, “The USA has one of the highest divorce rates—50 percent of all marriages now end in divorce.” Because of the respectable position these analysts hold, other analysts make good use of the information to further perpetuate the myth of a 50 percent divorce rate. For example, Ruggles (1997), in citing Cherlin’s work, stated, “Only about 5% of marriages contracted in 1867 were expected to end in divorce, but over one-half of marriages contracted in 1967 are expected to end in divorce” (p. 455). And of course, publications that champion women’s issues cannot neglect the divorce problem, as noted in Deborah Perry’s discussion on the economy: “with more than half of marriages ending in divorce, many stay-at-home women may not be entitled to the Social Security benefits of their former spouses” (Malveaux and Perry 2003:109).

Due to its seeming veracity, the common perception of a 50 percent divorce rate dominated the later decades of the twentieth century, and the myth continues to persist in the early years of the twenty-first. Despite its legendary quality, the presumed high divorce rate placed the institution of marriage and the event of divorce at the center of a core of societal concerns that confront our sensibilities. Indeed, since the publishing of the first public report of marriage and divorce statistics around one hundred years ago, tales of a more golden past surrounding marriage and the institution of the family have been prevalent (Calhoun 1917, 1919; Coontz 1992, 2000, 2005). However, rigorous analysis of the data demonstrates that the myth of a 50 percent divorce rate is not substantiated by social facts.

A discussion of the incidence and rate of marriage and divorce, as well as the debunking of the myth that the United States has a 50 percent divorce rate, is supported by official government documents. In the following sections, these data are applied to the historical and present marriage and divorce experience in the United States. These official statistics reveal that the prevalent myth of a reduction in the conventional family structure and the continuous exponential expansion of the U.S. divorce rate constitute an unsubstantiated social construct.

Some concerns related to the study of marriage and divorce are discussed in the sections that follow. Newman (1950) noted, however, that these topics cannot be studied in isolation because the study of marriage and divorce is related to vast changes in a complex social order that necessitate an investigation into the cultural, social, political, and economic aspects of the family, as well as changes in the structure and function of the family. If this evaluation was accurate more than fifty years ago, the message may be even more pertinent in the early twenty-first century.

The History of Marriage and Divorce

If civilization is to be founded on family life, then marriage also is essential. The family in its current form emerged during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the conjugal family developed concomitant with the soon-tobe-discovered concept “childhood.” At that point in time and over the next two centuries, the primary task of the family was to train and nurture children; family life became increasingly oriented toward children. Thus, the modern family developed the concept “home” with its characteristics to include privacy, isolation, and the domestic life (O’Neill 1967:4–6). The history of the marriage institution and the cross-cultural complexity of divorce became well chronicled in an early-twentieth-century three-volume treatise titled A History of Matrimonial Institutions. Written by George Elliott Howard and published in 1904, this grand, scholarly series addressed the vast accumulated knowledge of marriage and divorce within a global context. Published during a period when many interesting questions were being raised about the family institution (see, e.g., Shively’s ([1853, 1889] 1975) edited work Love, Marriage, and Divorce, and the Sovereignty of the Individual: A Discussion between Henry James, Horace Greeley, and Stephen Pearl Andrews ), a previously unpublished work by Stephen Pearl Andrews (1975, edited by Shively) titled Love Marriage, and the Condition of Women, and the references found in the cross-cultural and regional comparative analyses of Willcox (1893), such resources established the import that subsequent research would offer policymakers of the future.

Walter Willcox’s demographic work was the first influential empirical assessment of marriage and divorce and helped to establish the foundation for future population analyses. But the first scholarly American study of the family appears to have been published in 1887 by Charles F. Thwing ([1913] 1887), a minister and later university president, whose analysis of divorce led to the belief that excessive individualism and modern secularism were the root causes of the divorce problem (as cited in O’Neill 1967:170–71). Thirty years later, Arthur W. Calhoun’s three-volume set Social History of the American Family (1917–1919) was to serve social analysts and policymakers well. In the latter instance, the important sociological inquiry into the family institution helped to establish a university-level curriculum for the developing discipline of sociology.

A more limited but no less important inquiry into the history of American divorce is offered by Blake (1962), whose work builds upon the issue of “migratory divorce” raised by Cavers (1937) a generation earlier. Blake’s questions about the conservative New York State’s position on divorce led him to further explore the issue on a national basis, especially as it led to Nevada’s liberal divorce laws. Willcox (1893:90), on the other hand, recognized long before Nevada’s developing reputation that states like Rhode Island offered more liberal opportunities, including divorce, to the residents of New York State.

The rapid expansion of the American frontier as a result of pioneering, the rise of industrialism and urbanization, and the improvement of living conditions in the northern United States had significant effects on the evolution of the American family. This included a greater emphasis on marriage, early marriage for both men and women, and high birth rates to ensure big families (Calhoun 1918:11–25). The following statement illustrates the cultural necessity of these early Americans. Marriage, according to Lowie (1933), is human mating that receives moral appraisal

according to the norms distinctive of each society. Marriage denotes those unequivocally sanctioned unions which persist beyond sensual satisfaction and thus come to underlie family life. It is therefore not coextensive with sex life, which embraces matings of inferior status in the social scheme of values. (P. 146)

As observed by Coontz (1992, 2000, 2005), a single standard definition of marriage is difficult to create due to the wealth of cross-cultural anthropological study literature (see, for example, Lowie 1933). However, marriage is a sort of cooperation between the sexes designed to ensure the perpetuation and ultimate survival of the species (Hankins 1931).

Despite conceptual difficulties, marriage and divorce are two family-related issues that have been the subject of extensive discussion, analysis, and criticism for over 125 years. Arthur W. Calhoun (1917) stated that the American family institution is the outcome of three evolutionary phases: “the complex of medieval tradition . . . on the basis of ancient civilization . . . ; the economic transition from medieval landlordism to modern capitalism; and the influence of environment in an unfolding continent” (p. 13).

Later, in the third volume of a series on the history of the American family, this author indicated that systematic study of the family began in earnest around the same time as the introduction of early inventions (i.e., the telephone, the incandescent lamp, the trolley car, and the typewriter) into American culture, each of which was to have dramatic effects on communications and transportation (Calhoun 1919:7–10). Similarly, Ogburn and Nimkoff (1955:iii) note that changes in the American family and family living from the early 1800s are influenced by what they describe as three clusters of inventions and discoveries: steam and steel, contraceptives, and the numerous scientific discoveries that have influenced religious beliefs. Almost ninety years after the publication of Calhoun’s family treatise, it is acceptable to assert that the American family institution continues to be influenced by a fluid social context, even though the economic forces that thrive today are vastly different from those of the past.

Official records of marriage behavior collected and maintained by states can be traced back to the act of 1842, when Massachusetts began collecting marriage data, including information on age, sex, and place of birth (Monahan 1951). According to Willcox (1893) and Jacobson (1959), the first state censuses to contain information on marital status were those of Michigan in 1854 and New York in 1855. Twenty years later, numerous additional states began collecting comparable census data. However, the national effort to gather and analyze data did not emerge until many decades later, when Willcox (1891, 1893, 1897) applied newly learning methods to a number of demographic analysts’ areas of interest. Interestingly, Willcox (1893) notes the following: “Only in five states, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Ohio, and in the District of Columbia, can the number of marriages be obtained with approximate completeness for each of the twenty years [1867–1886]” (p. 73).

Divorce has long been of interest to sociologists, and the topic has even been cast in importance alongside other social problems. Witness the effort of one eugenics-oriented author, D. George Fournad (1929), who wrote in the Journal of Educational Sociology,

The unfortunate fact . . . remains that the homes of millions of farmers, miners, laboring men, and especially bootblacks are actually cursed by six or more poorly brought up, if not perfectly neglected children, for no other reason than the lack of eugenics or the need of birth-control information. Small wonder that crime, insanity, suicide, homicide, divorce, and physical or mental degeneration are steadily on the increase. (P. 179)

Other observers, however, are more positive, noting that Puritan settlers in the 1600s introduced divorce to the American colonies, where it has a long and venerable tradition (Howard 1909:767). Howard demonstrates that the divorce process has experienced four centuries of liberalization. Long before the twentieth century, moralists, theologians, and statesmen debated the societal implications of a liberal divorce policy. In essence, then, the institution of divorce in the United States was active and expanding well before late-twentieth-century Americans brought it to its present level (Riley 1991:3).

Some of the earliest sociological observers of divorce and its rise lament the decline of the conventional family while describing its demise. However, the incidence of divorce was not the only cause for concern. Rather, divorce was considered at the turn of the twentieth century as “an evil which gravely threatens the social order, which threatens our most profound thought, our most mature wisdom, and our most persistent courage and endeavor” (Howard 1909:767). This is the same complaint that Riley (1991) claims originated in the late 1800s during the Victorian era, which has been designated by some modern alarmists as the model for family life. However, according to Coontz (2005:2–3), each generation over the past 100 years seems dissatisfied with the current arrangement, believing that the marriage connections of their parents and grandparents were significantly more satisfying.

Despite disparities in attitudes regarding divorce across the northern and southern parts of the United States, religious influences were unable to prevent divorce from being regarded as a social safety valve that insures the continuation of marriage (O’Neill 1967:6–10). From this perspective, divorce is not a sign of a failing family system, but rather a characteristic of Victorian patriarchal and industrial households. However, within the postindustrial/postmodernist family, there are still echoes of worry around the proper roles of the husband and wife and their children.

Some contemporary social critics view a high divorce rate as a threat to the institution of marriage, while condemning the liberal legislation that encourages this conduct as weakening traditional family stability. However, the idea that the demise of the patriarchal family is congruent with the movement toward political democracy that shaped American children and young people over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has been overlooked (Calhoun 1918:53). The findings presented in the remainder of the research paper tend to support this assertion. However, such lamentations and the image of an ideal, conventional marriage that is constantly in the past are neither new nor have they become so after the passage of the No-Fault Divorce Act. In fact, it has a considerably longer history. Witness the opinion crafted by Justice Thornton in Martin v. Robson, 1872:

The maxims and authorities and adjudications of the past have faded away. The foundations hitherto deemed so essential for the preservation of the nuptial contract, and the maintenance of the marriage relation, are crumbling. The unity of husband and wife has been severed . . . she no longer clings to and depends upon man. (as cited in Vernier 1935:3)

Moreover, Howard (1904:1–160) documents that during the colonial period, it was established that there would exist a free and tolerant divorce policy, and throughout the century following the founding of the United States, divorce legislation was liberalized even further. And during the mid-nineteenth century, social analysts such as Stephen Pearl Andrews (1975:12–13) recognized that despite the need to provide for and succor children, divorce might be a necessary option to maintaining a relationship between two individuals who never loved one another or who may have ceased to love.

As the legal dissolution of marriage, divorce is a cultural problem-solving technique (Honigmann 1953), and it is a normal remedy for those who are in less-than-fortunate family situations (Blake 1962:iii). John J. Honigmann (1953:38) recognized that divorce is a standardized social response that people employ to change their interpersonal relationships, and, as indicated by Hankin (1931:177), divorce is designed to relieve hardships placed upon and experienced by individuals because of customary marriage rules. And like marriage, divorce also

is a product of social evolution, therefore it is normal and to be accepted . . . inasmuch as certain functions of the parent have passed to the state we must begin to reconcile ourselves to the idea of state care of children to the virtual exclusion of home influence. (Calhoun 1919:10)

According to Calhoun (1919:7–10), the National Divorce Reform League, which began in the early 1880s, and in 1897 became the National League for the Protection of the Family, developed its focus on “existing evils relating to marriage and divorce” (p. 8). Although the extent of the poverty and divorce were unknown at the time, some analysts thought of poverty and divorce as important components of the emerging sociological studies of the family. In Volume III of the three-volume treatise Social History of the American Family, Calhoun documents this emerging relationship through the writings of analysts of the late nineteenth century who were looking into the “divorce question” and the “problems of marriage and divorce.” Many questions were raised, including those relating to polygamy, charity, and children as well as education, economics, politics, and religion—each of these issues and related questions was raised within the context of the lack of information pertaining to the 1880s’American family.

A false idea once implanted is hard to dislodge, and the difficulty of dislodging it is proportional to the ignorance of those holding the idea. (George Cantor’s law of the conservation of ignorance)

The mythology surrounding the American divorce rate is supported by individuals who develop what Sears et al. (1988:98) refer to as the “illusory correlation.” Thus, two factors, the “high divorce rate” and the perceived “breakdown of the family” as a viable social institution, are believed to be highly correlated. Both factors may be contrary to commonly shared set of values, but repeated exposure to such illusory correlation stimuli is consistent with Canter’s law of the conservation of ignorance: Myth eventually assumes the character of a social fact. Within this context, the news media and responsible citizens establish a portion of the public agenda that is based on an inappropriate social reality of the U.S. divorce problem. Dissemination of information in which the work of scholars is either misinterpreted or misrepresented serves to perpetuate social myths (see, for instance, Norton and Miller 1992:1; Kurz 2001).

The lack of public information is also important. In quoting a number of prominent analysts of divorce, Hurley (2005) noted the following:

Part of the uncertainty about the most recent trends (in marriage and divorce) derives from the fact that no detailed annual figures have been available since 1996, when the National Center for Health Statistics stopped collecting detailed data from states on the age, income, education and race of people who divorce. (P. D57)

Perhaps because of the more recent paucity of information, some analysts of the past contributed information that continues to receive notoriety (see, for example, Martin and Bumpass 1989; Cherlin 1992). Despite the fact that Cherlin did not have access to actual data to support his contention, he predicted that approximately one-half of the marriages contracted during the 1970s would end in divorce. Further misunderstanding emerges. In assessing the rise of divorce and separation in the United States during the period from 1880 to 1990, for example, Ruggles (1997), citing Cherlin’s work, stated, “Only about 5% of marriages contracted in 1867 ended in divorce, but over one-half of marriages contracted in 1967 are expected to end in divorce” (p. 455).

William L. O’Neill observes that divorce was rare during the eighteenth century, and, according to Jacobson (1959) and Furstenberg (1990:382), during the 1800s formal divorce was difficult to obtain; thus dissolution of some marriages resulting from desertion were undercounted. But as shown in Table 1, during the next century, marriage and divorce were considered important enough to warrant official documentation, an accounting that began under the stewardship of Carroll D. Wright, then Commissioner of Labor (Dike 1889:592).

The first assessment of the American marriage and divorce question was addressed by Walter F. Willcox (1891, 1893, 1897). Portions of the data shown in the tables reported in this section are from these initial reports. These data beg the question as to why the myth of the 50 percent divorce rate prevails. One possible explanation may lie in the salience of attitude toward divorce reported by Peck (1993). Since the passage of the No-Fault Divorce Act in 1972, divorce, a fairly common event during the final decades of the twentieth century, emerged as a subject of considerable debate with important social policy implications. First, divorce is considered problematic when the union dissolution affects children. This is especially true when the quality of family life in terms of social, economic, and health-related factors for women and children, affected by diminished financial resources, is at risk (Furstenberg 1990). Divorce thus remains a salient issue, especially in terms of the conservative public attitude toward so-called traditional family values.

Evaluation of marriage and divorce in the United States is possible based on data from 1867 to the early twentyfirst century. Included in these data are those published in the first statistical study conducted in the United States and the national vital statistics gathered throughout the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Marriage and divorce data for 1887 to 1906 first became available in 1908, and sociologists quickly acknowledged the information as representing a “great report” (Howard 1909:766). The data shown in Table 1 are from this first effort to offer an overall view of marriage and divorce in the United States. The researchers avoided reporting data in Part 1, actually reported in 1909, due to general underreporting/nonreporting jurisdictions. Indeed, Calhoun’s (1919:199) assessment of these initial numbers indicates that few jurisdictions outside New England did anything more than supply some numbers. But it is noteworthy that the period from 1896 to 1905, according to Calhoun (1919), was “distinctly prone to marriage” (p. 199) and divorce, which Howard (1909:776) argued was frequent in the two most enlightened and democratic nations in the world, namely, the United States and Switzerland.

     Table 1

Clifford Kirkpatrick (1968) argues that divorce is an imperfect index of marital and social disorganization. The reason is straightforward: There can be disorganization in the family without divorce. This is one oft-cited reason why the divorce laws have liberalized in Western societies from the early to mid-twentieth century (Kurz 2001). Moreover, when the modern family became the dominant form during the nineteenth century, divorce became much more common (O’Neill 1967). Then, during the Progressive Era from approximately 1880 to 1919, a more liberal interpretation of marriage and divorce arose among the urban, industrial middle class. Indeed, O’Neill (1967:viii) found that as the Victorian family was to represent the ideal throughout the nineteenth century, divorce was to become the first in a series of adjustments that emerged from the clash between ideas surrounding the patriarchal family and the new sexual ethic arising in turn from the new urban, industrial society.

Despite the suggested inaccuracy of the data and ofttimes inconsistent method in recording and reporting procedures through which these data were gathered, at least some data are available. During the 40-year period from 1867 to 1906, a total of 1,274,341 divorces were reported in the then states, the District of Columbia, and the Indian Territory (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1908). As shown in Table 1, there is a steady increase in the number of divorces from 1867 on and in the number of marriages from 1887 to 1906. One would anticipate such a trend, given the growth of the general population during this same period. Yet this did not seem so logical to those analysts who defined divorce in problematic terms. Note the not-uncommon statement of the early twentieth century attributed to William Fielding Ogburn (1927),

In 1924, there was one divorce granted to about every 7 marriages performed indicates that divorce is very common. Moreover, the chances of a marriage entered in 1924 being broken by divorce may perhaps be nearer to 1 to 5 or 6 than 1 to 7. There were in 1924 about 15 to 16 times as many divorces as there were in 1870, and yet the population is only about 3 times as large. (P. 7)

A similar, albeit misguided, statement is even later attributed to Newman (1950:89), who looked at the numeric increases instead of the rates of marriage and divorce.

In Table 2, the divorce “granted to whom”—husband or wife category—for most of the period from 1887 to 1932 isshown.Althoughnotavailableforallyears,thepercentage column for “granted to wife” represents a statistic that is noteworthy. Without exception, for each year two-thirds or more of divorces granted are to the wife. The first data for calculating ratios noting the number of divorces per 1,000 marriages also are shown. With a few exceptions, notably the years 1913, 1918, 1921, and 1922, the number of divorces increases throughout the period from 1887 to 1929. For the period from 1930 to 1932, however, the data show a moderate downward trend toward fewer divorces. With the exception of 1928 and the period from 1930 to 1932, the same observation can be made for marriages in that the trend in the marriage rate is downward.

     Table 2

Perhaps the most important aspect of these rich data is the fact that they were to serve well the needs of an admiring and ever-growing community of scientists, and these analysts began to raise important theoretical and methodological cause-and-effect questions. Prominent among these early sociologists was George Elliott Howard (1909), whose interest in the complexities of sex, marriage, and the family and especially the role education might play in solving social problems led him to focus on the officially recorded cause of divorce. Other less obvious reasons for establishing the importance of causal factors of what became known as a “divorce movement” included the excessive use of liquor and the platform advocated by the Temperance Movement.

The most frequently cited legal ground, as noted by Hankins (1931) and shown in Tables 3a, b, and c, represents the legally recognized grounds for divorce—namely, adultery, cruelty, desertion, drunkenness, and neglect to provide. Each was common during the period from 1887 to 1891 and for some time thereafter, lending support to the contention by Flexner and Fitzpatrick ([1908] 1996), who, in 1908, wrote, “Women were only granted divorces in instances of ‘adultery, desertion, non-support, and extreme cruelty.’” Other grounds for divorce, although less frequently cited, included bigamy, coercion, conviction of a crime, impotence, insanity, incompatibility, misconduct, fraudulent representation, vagrancy, infection with venereal disease (Hankins 1931). But what is perhaps most interesting is that even though the legal reasons for divorce currently cited may be less offensive by virtue of the descriptor employed, the general reasons for dissolving marriages cited in the past continue in the present.

The numbers and causes of divorces granted to a husband and wife for the five-year periods for 1887 to 1906 (Table 3a) and for 1906 to 1932 (Tables 3b and c) are shown. As noted in Table 2, throughout the period 1887 to 1906 a total of 1,274,341 divorces were granted. Of this total, 428,687 divorces were granted to the husband; to the wife the number is almost double, at 845,652, and serves as testimony that the women’s movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries worked to gain recognition from the courts to allow the initiation of divorce on behalf of women. As one can ascertain from these data, in the United States this right was granted to women in the nineteenth century (Anderson and Wolchik (2001). The causal factors identified within a legal context seem to hold at least up to the mid-twentieth century, for which period Harmsworth and Minnis (1955:316) reported that the legal functional categories, such as extreme cruelty, desertion, adultery, and nonsupport, represent overt manifestations of the factors leading to divorce but these did not necessarily represent the causes of divorce.

      Table 3a

      Table 3b

      Table 3c

Despite such issues, the position assumed by Howard (1904:Vol. 3, pp. 1–160) appears to be supported by the data reported in Tables 3a, b, and c and Tables 4a and b: Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, divorce legislation became more liberalized, reflecting a social need caused by migratory expansion and social changes in attitudes toward the marital bond. Competing definitions of need and justifiable causes also are reflected in the diversity of state legislation, which led to liberal legislation and thereby an increased number of legally acceptable causes for divorce. By 1891, for example, Washington State’s code included 11 causes, of which at least one cause codified a previous more abstract cause.

      Table 4a

      Table 4b

To this point the data raise interesting issues as to whether the traditional family some contemporary critics argue existed in the past did in fact really exist. Based on these five-year-period data, images of the traditional family may have been just that—images but not necessarily a reality of positive marital bliss. Some interesting findings reported in Tables 3a, b, and c include “adultery” and “desertion.” Although the data for divorces granted to the wife based on allegations of adultery and desertion are most extensive, the divorce data for these same categories granted to the husband also are noteworthy. Other categories include cruelty, a combination of causes granted to the wife. Such historical times hardly seem idyllic. Perhaps it can also be suggested that the reasons cited for divorce have not changed since 1887, albeit the contemporary law allows categories such as irretrievable breakdown of the marriage, incompatibility, or irreconcilable differences to serve as the more general reasons for filing for divorce, reasons allowed even if the divorce being sought is not mutually agreeable (Kurz 2001:3811). But other causes include crimes against nature, impotency, conviction of a felony and imprisonment, pregnancy prior to marriage, and unknown factors.

As with the information reported in Tables 3a, b, and c, the data in Tables 4a and b show the proportion of divorce by cause granted to husband and to wife. These data are broken down into proportions for the periods 1887 to 1927 and 1930 to 1932. Again, the “adultery” cause for divorce granted to husband is noteworthy as is the steady decreasing trend for this specific category. Of course the opposite effect for the “adultery” cause is noted for the “granted to wife” category. Focusing on the “desertion” cause category, the percentages are markedly consistent information pertaining to the sexual behavior of the throughout the entire periods from 1887 to 1927 and from 1930 to 1932 for both the husband and the wife.

Finally, the incompleteness of the data for the early 1930s is attributed to the fact that Congress mandated that the Marriage and Divorce study in progress since the early part of the century cease after publication of the 1932 study phase. By 1959, analysts such as Jacobson (1959) emphatically stated that marriage and divorce statistics represent the least developed branch of American vital statistics even though national data on divorce were available for many years before such information was available for births and deaths (p. 9).

Table 5 shows the 1921 to 1989 three-year average data for marriage and divorce. The three-year average rates increase from 1921 to 1923 up to the 1978 to 1980 period, and then a modest decline throughout the decade of the 1980s is documented. More important perhaps is that these data are from the oft-cited U.S. government report referred to above. It is important to recognize the historical rise and fall in the rate of first marriages. When placed within an historical context to include the relative prosperity of the 1920s, the Depression years, World War II, the tranquil years of the 1950s, and then the more activist years of the 1960s and 1970s, these data provide interesting American people.

      Table 5

Frank F. Furstenberg Jr. (1990) suggests that “Americans have always had a higher propensity to divorce than do Europeans and people of North Atlantic Countries,” a contention that receives empirical support from sources such as the Statistical Office of the European Communities report covering the 1960 to 1988 period. Although the United States is shown to have the highest divorces per 1,000 married women, the same reports indicate that the United States also had the highest marriages per 1,000 persons for this period.

The incidence, rate, and ratio of marriages reported for the United Status during the period from 1887 to 2004 are reported in Table 6. Although the data on the number of marriages are incomplete for the entire period, they are both interesting and suggestive. Ranging from a low of 7.9 for the year 1932 (the heart of the Depression period) and then 7.6 for 2003 and 2004 to a high of 16.4 in 1946 (the end of World War II), the marriage rate had been declining or at a steady state since the peak period from 1980 to 1982. The rates recorded for 2002 through 2004 are the lowest since 1932, at which time the 7.9 rate was the lowest ever recorded for the United States. Trendwise, the highest marriage rate for the entire 118-year period was during 1940 to 1950 or just prior to and immediately after World War II.

      Table 6

Finally, the ratios are important as well. Because of their refinement (but missing for the final decade of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century), the ratios that are reported in this table may be more representative of the state of marriage.

Calvin L. Beale (1950) recognized the important role separation held as a factor in divorce, especially from the year 1940 onward, a period that includes the years prior to, during, and in the aftermath of World War II. Aside from couple separation as a major factor, as shown in Table 6, an upward trend in the divorce rate can be observed for the period from 1961 to 1981. Since 1981, however, the divorce rate declined, ranging between 5.2 and 4.0. The persistent myth of an increasing U.S. divorce problem may be attributed in part to a focus on the number of marriages and divorces recorded annually, rather than the divorce rate.

In Table 7, the rate of divorce and annulments for the United States during 1887 to 2004 are presented. Most noteworthy is the declining divorce rate since the year 1981, at which time a high of 5.3 per 1,000 population was recorded. The estimates for the years 2003 and 2004, 3.7 and 3.8, respectively, are the lowest since 1972, one year prior to the passage of the California No-Fault Divorce Act legislation.

      Table 7

Use of the ratio for the years from 1920 to 1996 offers a more balanced representation of divorce in the United States. The highest divorce ratio recorded officially is for the year 1979 (22.8). Early ratios offered by the federal government were the number of divorces divided by marriages for a given year; such data are not useful and tend to offer some modest if ill-informed support to the mythical oft-cited 50 percent divorce rate. The empirical facts differ from the myth. Indeed, the data show that after peaking to a high in 1979 (5.3 and 22.8, respectively), the U.S. divorce rate has decreased beginning in 1982 (5.0 and 21.7).

The reaction to divorce data represents an emotional response to social change, and this reaction may be especially noteworthy when the effect of divorce influences the delivery of social services. One example is the national concern that a large number of children from single-parent families are denied the requisite financial support to allow them the opportunity to prepare for the future. This concern has generated policies to make parents, especially males, more financially accountable for the well-being of their children (Anderson and Wolchik 2001). But the traditional view that men were responsible for women throughout their entire life changed with the passage of the no-fault divorce legislation. Women are now expected to provide their own support through employment to be supplemented by child support and an equal distribution of property (Kurz 2001:3811).

Second, as noted by Sears et al. (1988:134–135), the social milieu affects salience. More than a generation of conservative thinking and a changed economy affect social values. The divorce and marriage rates also may be affected by the economic conditions of the late 1980s and early 1990s that prompted people to consider the financial effects of divorce. The reasons for this kind of decision, such as “for the sake of the children,” “the cost of making two housing payments,” and “to keep intact an estate,” are similar to those reported after research carried out by Cuber and Harroff (1966) in a classic study of the attitudes held by upper-middle-class Americans toward maintaining an unhappy marriage. Another salient factor is the emotional desire to bond to one individual and the strong public attitude toward AIDS. Such external constraints, according to Sears et al. (1988:136), are likely to be salient factors that continue to target divorce as a social issue of import. In addition, the experience of growing up in a single-parent home, according to Dickinson and Leming (1990), is the cause of people viewing marriage differently compared with the past.

However, any discussion of the nature and origin of civil laws in debates over divorce remain relatively unexplored. If introduced into such discussions, evaluation of divorce law usually is confined to family law or the no-fault divorce statutes of the 1970s, especially the California Act of 1973. Thus, the argument as to whether the no-fault divorce laws are the cause or an effect of the U.S. divorce rate continues unabated. What is known is that the statutes currently referred to as “no-fault divorce” eliminate the requirement of providing proof in a court of law, as was required under common law, that one of the marital partners had engaged in adultery or some other act unacceptable to the marital relationship. No-fault divorce statutes eliminate the need to enumerate anything derogative as a sufficient ground for divorce. In other words, the no-fault divorce legislation eliminates the requirement to provide potentially damaging evidence by providing for the dissolution of a marriage based on the finding that the relationship is no longer compatible or viable (www.law.cornell.edu—retrieved January 23, 2003). Other acceptable reasons that lie outside the incriminating criteria used under the common law now include irreconcilable differences and incompatibility.

In the sixteenth century, reformists viewed divorce as the medicine for the disease of marriage, while in 1919 Calhoun observed that the American people demonstrate a remarkable inclination toward marriage, a statement that was supported by the census of 1890 and the census Special Reports Marriage and Divorce 1867–1906 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1908, 1909). In 1933, Robert H. Lowie wrote, “It may be safely predicted . . . that the future of marriage will be shaped not merely by utilitarianism but largely on the basis of pregnant ideologies (p. 154). And in 1931, Hankin observed, “Divorce, a symptom of the liberalizing tendencies of modern culture, seems likely to increase as long as underlying conditions continue their present trends” (p. 184). Such statements hold a general appeal—the ideas are not spatially bound or time bound—so that it may be safe to predict that a similar statement offers to forecast the initial decades of the twenty-first century. Witness the early returns. During the first three years of this century, the marriage rate averaged 8.1 per 1,000 population, while the yearly divorce rate averaged 4.0 per 1,000 population. These figures also characterize the final two decades of the twentieth century in that the marriage and divorce rates were lower than in previous years and both these rates declined throughout the final years of the past millennium. Indeed, the rate of divorce in the United States is at its lowest level since 1971, and this downward trend will probably continue or at least remain steady if only because of yet another trend observed by Norton and Miller (1992). These analysts documented the decline in the percentage of ever-married males and females between 1975 and 1990, thereby providing the evidence essential to understanding more recent marriage and divorce patterns in the United States.

Although some modest efforts to counter the myth of the 50 percent divorce rate do occur (see Hurley 2005), this misconception continues because it is reinforced by the news media, clerics, government officials, and even portions of the academic community. The data simply do not support this public misperception. A doubling of the divorce rate was a trend that occurred between 1940 and 1972. The divorce rate increased to 5.3 per 1,000 by 1981, and the decline in the annual rate has occurred since that time, representing an important trend that suggests a return to what may be identified as the normalcy divorce rate. Still, resistance to this fact and the perpetuation of the myth that a 50 percent divorce rate is undermining the family institution will probably continue because of other unrelated salient social issues. As Carter’s law of the conservation of ignorance suggests, a false idea, once implanted, is difficult to dislodge from the human psyche.

Changing social mores throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and changes in the divorce laws removed the legal constrictions and social taboos pertaining to divorce, in turn providing important new perspectives on divorce (Cherlin 1992). Thus, any explanation of marriage and divorce that is inclusive of an historical perspective is to be valued. Within this context, the historical data and a sociohistorical assessment of these data serve to address two sociological issues: (1) Was historical family life as good as some analysts would have us believe? and (2) Is the present family bond as bad as the common wisdom suggests? In focusing on the marriage and divorce topic in this manner, insights that are essential to challenging a longstanding myth pertaining to the solidarity of the traditional family and the most misleading social myth pertaining to the 50 percent divorce rate can be explored.

The importance of economic factors and marital stability was not recognized until the 1940s (Goode 1951), when employment status, occupation, deviant behavior, and public assistance variables were first taken into consideration. Given the important changes in the role of women during the past one-half century, and the call among some reformers to again relegate women to the domestic role, findings such as those reported by Schoen et al. (2002) serve to enhance our current views of marriage and divorce. Past perceptions that dual careers pose a threat to the family and that a persistently high divorce rate will eventually undermine the very foundations of the family institution do not hold up to long-term scrutiny, and it is this kind of analysis of marriage and divorce that must be undertaken within the context of historical change (Scott 2001). Note, for example, that the wife’s employment status, according to Schoen et al. (2002), may be influenced by their labor force participation to end an unhappy marriage, but the wife’s employment status does not appear to affect happy couples. As these analysts note, “There is an interaction involving wife’s employment and marital happiness with marital disruption . . . [but] wife’s employment is not associated with increased risk of disruption when both partners are happy in their marriage” (p. 569).

Thus, it can be suggested that if the cyclical prediction offered by William Strauss and Neil Howe in The Fourth Turning (1997) has merit, then we can anticipate a continued movement toward an American bonding experience throughout the early decades of the twenty-first century, including interpersonal relationships that emphasize the importance of the family. Thus, the marriage rate should remain stable or increase while the divorce rate will also remain stable or decline. If the past does indeed provide a lesson, this fourth turning crisis may thus reunite society by providing the requisite common purpose to reenergize and regenerate society. One possible result is that families are again strengthened, major public order questions are resolved, and a new order is established (Strauss and Howe 1997:256).

The assessment of the contemporary family system in general and of divorce in particular can emerge from a minority point of view to become a part of the new perspective of what the family represents and how this emerging definition fits into the social structure. As noted by O’Neill (1967), and consistent with the historical context emphasis advocated by Cherlin (1992), the period from 1880 to about 1919 was and continues to be important for understanding why the American rate of divorce increased and for identifying the change in the public attitude toward divorce. Thus, it would be erroneous to argue that divorce was, currently is, and will in the future serve as a sign of decadence that is corrupting the family institution.

Thus, as the American society strives to enter into a new cycle or era in which everything seems to be as it should be, Furstenberg’s (1990:381) view that the rate of divorce during the 1980s reflects the state of role conflict and ambiguity within the marriage system can be used to explain the marriage system of the past 25 years. Referring to what he identifies as a voluntaristic form of marriage in the United States, Furstenberg argues that divorce has become an intrinsic part of the family system. Although it may take up to several decades of the twenty-first century to resolve most if not all of the issues that constitute the current “cultural wars,” the outcome of these wars will determine the overall status of the cohesiveness and social bonding elements of the American society, of which the family system remains the most important. In the past, the most important social issues were related to fairness and justice for women; at the end of the twentieth century (Galston 1996) and as we move well into the twenty-first century, the public and moral issues seem to be related to our commitment toward children, which, as noted by Calhoun (1919), also was the case at the end of the nineteenth century. Perhaps the themes Stephanie Coontz has established are most appropriate for the twenty-first century when exploring family issues involving “the way we never where” and “the way we really are” in books with these titles. Certainly, the move toward legal sanctions for civil marriages among gay and lesbian couples and the questions and problems attendant on such unions or pairings really do not differ significantly from those that we are accustomed to.

Although sociologists have long employed divorce data (see, e.g., Ogburn and Nimkoff 1955) and permanent separation data (Beale 1950) as indicators of instability, the limitations of such census data are severe, as Ruggles (1997) noted. Despite the call by then Chief Statistician of the Marriage and Divorce Analysis Branch of the National Office of Vital Statistics Samuel C. Newman (1950) for better vital statistics, and the declaration by White (1990) that bigger and better data sets were available during the 1980s, currently less information is available on marriage and divorce. In turn, we have less rather than more insights into the complex issues surrounding marriage and divorce (Ruggles 1997). But data-gathering problems and methodological issues certainly are not new, and such problems continue. During the 1800s, formal divorce was difficult to obtain, and, for this reason, dissolution of some marriages resulting from desertion were undercounted (Furstenberg 1990:382). Even so, the published historical data were more comprehensive than those available during the final decades of the twentieth century.

Changes in recording practices occurred during the last two-thirds of the twentieth century, and in 1996, the collection of detailed marriage and divorce data was suspended by the federal government because of limitations in the information collected by and from certain states as well as budgetary considerations. Although the total numbers and rates of marriages and divorces at the national and state levels are available in the National Vital Statistics Reports, the paucity of data available for public and scholarly consumption will undoubtedly continue well into the twentyfirst century. Moreover, the total picture will remain less well defined than in the past because of an increasing number and rate of informal marriages formed by cohabitation that will go unrecorded.

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What Is a Lifestyle Analysis in Divorce?

Divorcing high-net-worth couples, especially those in a gray divorce, often require a lifestyle analysis to determine how much spousal support is appropriate.

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Editor’s note: This is part four of an ongoing series throughout this year focused on helping older adults navigate the financial difficulties of gray divorce. See below for links to the other articles in the series.

In a recent article in this series on gray divorce, I discussed the importance of preparing a budget as a key component of financial planning in divorce. This month, I'd like to kick it up a notch and focus on what’s known as a lifestyle analysis, or what some in the divorce community call “a budget on steroids.

What is a lifestyle analysis?

A lifestyle analysis is typically used in high-net-worth divorce cases where one party is arguing for spousal support based on the marital lifestyle enjoyed up to the point of divorce or separation.

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Lifestyle analysis looks at the living expenses incurred during the marriage and the spending habits of both parties. An analysis of marital spending can be used to determine the dollar amount one spouse may need to maintain a similar lifestyle post-divorce.

Importantly, a lifestyle analysis may help confirm or refute income claims made by a spouse. Sometimes a spouse may declare income that is well below the cost of the lifestyle he or she is leading. The analysis may point to the need to investigate undisclosed sources of income and require a deeper forensic analysis.

With gray divorcees , the issue can get complicated as the primary income earner approaches retirement, anticipating a reduction in income, making spousal support awards more complicated with the possibility of future modification.

You'll need professional help

Producing a lifestyle analysis is beyond the scope of the divorcing client. Likewise, most family law attorneys would rather focus on the legal aspects of the case than get into the minutia of credit card and bank statements. Attorneys and their clients will often hire a financial professional such as a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst ( CDFA ) to produce a lifestyle analysis. These cases typically involve tens of thousands of transactions, requiring attention to detail and time to sift through numbers. In my lifestyle analysis work and in my conversations with other divorce financial professionals, it is also clear that specialized software and a good database to organize and analyze data are essential.

A clear and concise final report is a necessary component of the lifestyle analysis. This final report requires an analytical approach and a willingness to ask questions before it is written and delivered to the client and their attorney.

What a lifestyle analysis covers

A few years ago, an attorney asked me to do a lifestyle analysis for his client. Let's call her Mary. The attorney told me that the purpose of the lifestyle analysis was to answer the question, “What will Mary cost?” We established that the scope of my engagement would be to perform a lifestyle analysis for Mary and to budget how much money she would need to maintain the lifestyle to which she had grown accustomed. A post-divorce budget would assist in projecting an appropriate amount of spousal support from her husband.

It was understood that I would produce a report summarizing my findings (including detailed footnotes) and testify at trial if necessary. We also discussed how the numbers would be presented and the time period to be covered in the report. We agreed to review the last two and a half years of marital expenses, sufficient to provide enough historical data to reliably predict future income and expenses.

Typically, at least two years of expenses are needed to provide a reliable gauge of marital lifestyle, although it is common to analyze three to five years of data. To limit the cost and scope of the work, financial experts will sometimes reduce the time period to limit costs to the client. Less than two years is typically not enough time to establish a solid history and pattern of spending.

I have found in my lifestyle analysis work that it is crucially important to get bank and credit card statements up front from my clients. Attorneys work to deadlines. The last thing a financial professional wants to do is track down missing statements a few days before a court deadline.

As the transactions are compiled, the financial expert can potentially add value by uncovering previously unidentified accounts or detecting expenses that may be paid by somebody else or are run through a business. A case for waste of assets might also be bolstered if wasteful expenses such as gambling, extramarital affairs or fraudulent conveyance to a third party are identified.

Expenses which might be excluded from the analysis may include expenses for the extended family, excessive or unreasonable spending, nonmarital expenditures and extraordinary, non-recurring expenditures.

Not every state will use a lifestyle analysis

Whether you or your attorney deems a lifestyle analysis to be a useful tool in your case may ultimately depend on where you live. Not all jurisdictions care about marital standard of living.

Your attorney should know how your state's statutes treat marital standard of living. In some states, such as Texas, a lifestyle analysis isn’t relevant because marital standard of living is not afforded under the state statute. California, on the other hand, does consider marital standard of living. Some consider California one of the worst places to get divorced for the principal breadwinner if there is a large imbalance in income between the two parties.

Divorcing couples and their attorneys need to be mindful that state statutes on divorce change all the time, so they need to keep up to date.

Advice on how to prepare for a lifestyle analysis

Provide your divorce financial professional all the information he/she needs, such as statements from bank and credit card accounts. And do it in a timely manner. As mentioned above, attorneys work on a deadline, and financial professionals need time to analyze all the data.

Don’t overstate your budget. Your divorce team is best served when you provide them with accurate records. False information will likely be seized upon by opposing counsel, and if the case goes to trial, the judge will not be impressed. Honesty is the best policy.

Expect sacrifices. The income that supported one household unit will now support two. A good lifestyle analysis can help your attorney negotiate a decent spousal support number, but don’t expect life to be exactly the same as before.

Another thing: A lifestyle analysis isn’t cheap. My experience is that a lifestyle analysis might start at about $10,000 but could run into six figures in higher-net-worth divorces.

That’s a budget on steroids.

Other Articles in This Series

• Introduction: Happy New Year: Let’s Get a Divorce
• Part one: How Does a Gray Divorce Affect Social Security Benefits?
• Part two: In Gray Divorce, Two Financial Planning Yardsticks Are Key
• Part three: Don’t Forget to Update Beneficiaries After a Gray Divorce

Related Content

• What Older Adults Should Know about Getting Divorced and (Maybe) Remarried
• 'Gray Divorces' Can Upend Your Retirement Plans
• Four Steps to Prepare Your Finances for Divorce
• Beware of These Three Hidden Costs of Divorce
• You’re Divorcing or Lost Your Spouse: What Do You Do Financially?

This article was written by and presents the views of our contributing adviser, not the Kiplinger editorial staff. You can check adviser records with the SEC or with FINRA .

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Andrew Hatherley is the founder of  Transcend Retirement, LLC  and  Wiser Divorce Solutions, LLC  and the host of  The Gray Divorce Podcast . After going through his own mid-life divorce, Andrew decided to help other people avoid the financial and emotional stress so common to the process. He earned the designation Certified Divorce Financial Analyst® and is trained in mediation and Collaborative Divorce. He is also a member of the Amicable Divorce Network.

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Ben Carson calls for making divorce harder

Ben Carson, who is often named as a potential running mate for Donald Trump , is out with a new book in which he calls for an end to no-fault divorce laws in the U.S.

“For the sake of families, we should enact legislation to remove or radically reduce incidences of no-fault divorce,” Carson writes in “The Perilous Fight,” released Tuesday. 

“The reason this matters is that no-fault divorce legally allows marriages to end much more quickly than in previous decades. When there are relatively few legal or financial consequences connected with divorce, it’s natural for people to gravitate toward that option when their marriage hits a rough patch,” he adds. “What those people often don’t consider, however, is the harm — both present and future — inflicted on their children once a divorce is finalized.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Trump has been divorced twice.

Beginning in 1969, when then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan signed the first no-fault divorce law in the U.S., no-fault divorce has enabled millions of people to file to end their marriages for “irreconcilable differences” or without having to prove misconduct by their spouses — such as adultery or domestic violence. 

Before those laws, which now exist in every state, divorces were rarely granted and then only under strict criteria. The laws are credited with furthering women’s financial independence and safety. 

Since then, research has shown that no-fault divorce correlates with reductions in domestic violence and suicide rates among women. A 2015 study found that women are more likely than men to initiate divorces. 

Carson joins a growing list of conservative politicians and commentators who argue that no-fault divorce degrades the American family unit. 

In a 2016 sermon, now-House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., listed no-fault divorce laws as one of the causes turning the U.S. into a “ completely amoral society .” Sen. JD Vance, of Ohio, another Republican who is often talked about as a potential running mate for Trump, also has said he believes that divorce is now too easy.

“This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that, like, ‘Well, OK. These marriages were fundamentally, they were maybe even violent, but, certainly, they were unhappy, and so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that’s going to make people happier in the long term,'” said Vance in 2021 in a video obtained by Vice News . “Maybe it worked out for the moms and dads, though I’m skeptical. But it really didn’t work out for the kids of those marriages.”

While neither Johnson nor Vance has introduced legislation on the national level to roll back no-fault divorce, action has been taken on the state level. The official GOP platforms in Texas and Nebraska call for their legislatures to rescind no-fault divorce laws. And in Oklahoma, a Republican state senator introduced legislation in January to abolish no-fault divorce laws, which has not passed.  

Carson’s book broadly advocates for a return to traditional, conservative family values. In addition to his push to end no-fault divorce, he calls for a national ban on abortion , for men to “assume the responsibility of leadership” in families and for cuts to welfare for single mothers to encourage marriage.

Abigail Brooks is a producer for NBC News.

Shaquille Brewster is a political reporter for NBC News and MSNBC.

Alec Hernández is a 2024 NBC News campaign embed.

Dasha Burns is a correspondent for NBC News.

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Broad Public Support for Legal Abortion Persists 2 Years After Dobbs

By more than 2 to 1, americans say medication abortion should be legal, table of contents.

• Other abortion attitudes
• Overall attitudes about abortion
• Americans’ views on medication abortion in their states
• How statements about abortion resonate with Americans
• Acknowledgments
• The American Trends Panel survey methodology

Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand Americans’ views on the legality of abortion, as well as their perceptions of abortion access. For this analysis, we surveyed 8,709 adults from April 8 to 14, 2024. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used for the report and its methodology .

Nearly two years after the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing a national right to abortion, a majority of Americans continue to express support for abortion access.

About six-in-ten (63%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. This share has grown 4 percentage points since 2021 – the year prior to the 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe.

The new Pew Research Center survey, conducted April 8-14, 2024, among 8,709 adults, surfaces ongoing – and often partisan – divides over abortion attitudes:

• Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (85%) overwhelmingly say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, with near unanimous support among liberal Democrats.
• By comparison, Republicans and Republican leaners (41%) are far less likely to say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. However, two-thirds of moderate and liberal Republicans still say it should be.

Since before Roe was overturned, both parties have seen a modest uptick in the share who say abortion should be legal.

As in the past, relatively few Americans (25%) say abortion should be legal in all cases, while even fewer (8%) say it should be illegal in all cases. About two-thirds of Americans do not take an absolutist view: 38% say it should be legal in most cases, and 28% say it should be illegal in most cases.

Related: Americans overwhelmingly say access to IVF is a good thing

Women’s abortion decisions

A narrow majority of Americans (54%) say the statement “the decision about whether to have an abortion should belong solely to the pregnant woman” describes their views extremely or very well. Another 19% say it describes their views somewhat well, and 26% say it does not describe their views well.

Views on an embryo’s rights

About a third of Americans (35%) say the statement “human life begins at conception, so an embryo is a person with rights” describes their views extremely or very well, while 45% say it does not describe their views well.

But many Americans are cross-pressured in their views: 32% of Americans say both statements about women’s decisions and embryos’ rights describe their views at least somewhat well.

Abortion access

About six-in-ten Americans in both parties say getting an abortion in the area where they live would be at least somewhat easy, compared with four-in-ten or fewer who say it would be difficult.

However, U.S. adults are divided over whether getting an abortion should be easier or harder:

• 31% say it should be easier for someone to get an abortion in their area, while 25% say it should be harder. Four-in-ten say the ease of access should be about what it is now.
• 48% of Democrats say that obtaining an abortion should be easier than it is now, while just 15% of Republicans say this. Instead, 40% of Republicans say it should be harder (just 11% of Democrats say this).

As was the case last year, views about abortion access vary widely between those who live in states where abortion is legal and those who live in states where it is not allowed.

For instance, 20% of adults in states where abortion is legal say it would be difficult to get an abortion where they live, but this share rises to 71% among adults in states where abortion is prohibited.

Medication abortion

Americans say medication abortion should be legal rather than illegal by a margin of more than two-to-one (54% vs. 20%). A quarter say they are not sure.

Like opinions on the legality of abortion overall, partisans differ greatly in their views of medication abortion:

• Republicans are closely split but are slightly more likely to say it should be legal (37%) than illegal (32%). Another 30% aren’t sure.
• Democrats (73%) overwhelmingly say medication abortion should be legal. Just 8% say it should be illegal, while 19% are not sure.

Across most other demographic groups, Americans are generally more supportive than not of medication abortion.

Across demographic groups, support for abortion access has changed little since this time last year.

Today, roughly six-in-ten (63%) say abortion should be legal in all (25%) or most (38%) cases. And 36% say it should be illegal in all (8%) or most (28%) cases.

While differences are only modest by gender, other groups vary more widely in their views.

Race and ethnicity

Support for legal abortion is higher among Black (73%) and Asian (76%) adults compared with White (60%) and Hispanic (59%) adults.

Compared with older Americans, adults under 30 are particularly likely to say abortion should be legal: 76% say this, versus about six-in-ten among other age groups.

Those with higher levels of formal education express greater support for legal abortion than those with lower levels of educational attainment.

About two-thirds of Americans with a bachelor’s degree or more education (68%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with six-in-ten among those without a degree.

White evangelical Protestants are about three times as likely to say abortion should be illegal (73%) as they are to say it should be legal (25%).

By contrast, majorities of White nonevangelical Protestants (64%), Black Protestants (71%) and Catholics (59%) say abortion should be legal. And religiously unaffiliated Americans are especially likely to say abortion should be legal (86% say this).

Partisanship and ideology

Democrats (85%) are about twice as likely as Republicans (41%) to say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

But while more conservative Republicans say abortion should be illegal (76%) than legal (27%), the reverse is true for moderate and liberal Republicans (67% say legal, 31% say illegal).

By comparison, a clear majority of conservative and moderate Democrats (76%) say abortion should be legal, with liberal Democrats (96%) overwhelmingly saying this.

Views of abortion access by state

About six-in-ten Americans (58%) say it would be easy for someone to get an abortion in the area where they live, while 39% say it would be difficult.

This marks a slight shift since last year, when 54% said obtaining an abortion would be easy. But Americans are still less likely than before the Dobbs decision to say obtaining an abortion would be easy.

Still, Americans’ views vary widely depending on whether they live in a state that has banned or restricted abortion.

In states that prohibit abortion, Americans are about three times as likely to say it would be difficult to obtain an abortion where they live as they are to say it would be easy (71% vs. 25%). The share saying it would be difficult has risen 19 points since 2019.

In states where abortion is restricted or subject to legal challenges, 51% say it would be difficult to get an abortion where they live. This is similar to the share who said so last year (55%), but higher than the share who said this before the Dobbs decision (38%).

By comparison, just 20% of adults in states where abortion is legal say it would be difficult to get one. This is little changed over the past five years.

Americans’ attitudes about whether it should be easier or harder to get an abortion in the area where they live also varies by geography.

Overall, a decreasing share of Americans say it should be harder to obtain an abortion: 33% said this in 2019, compared with 25% today.

This is particularly true of those in states where abortion is now prohibited or restricted.

In both types of states, the shares of Americans saying it should be easier to obtain an abortion have risen 12 points since before Roe was overturned, as the shares saying it should be harder have gradually declined.

By comparison, changes in views among those living in states where abortion is legal have been more modest.

While Americans overall are more supportive than not of medication abortion (54% say it should be legal, 20% say illegal), there are modest differences in support across groups:

• Younger Americans are somewhat more likely to say medication abortion should be legal than older Americans. While 59% of adults ages 18 to 49 say it should be legal, 48% of those 50 and older say the same.
• Asian adults (66%) are particularly likely to say medication abortion should be legal compared with White (55%), Black (51%) and Hispanic (47%) adults.
• White evangelical Protestants oppose medication abortion by about two-to-one (45% vs. 23%), with White nonevangelicals, Black Protestants, Catholics and religiously unaffiliated adults all being more likely than not to say medication abortion should be legal.
• Republicans are closely divided over medication abortion: 37% say it should be legal while 32% say it should be illegal. But similar to views on abortion access overall, conservative Republicans are more opposed (43% illegal, 27% legal), while moderate and liberals are more supportive (55% legal, 14% illegal).

Just over half of Americans (54%) say “the decision about whether to have an abortion should belong solely to the pregnant woman” describes their views extremely or very well, compared with 19% who say somewhat well and 26% who say not too or not at all well.

Democrats (76%) overwhelmingly say this statement describes their views extremely or very well, with just 8% saying it does not describe their views well.

Republicans are more divided: 44% say it does not describe their views well while 33% say it describes them extremely or very well. Another 22% say it describes them somewhat well.

Fewer Americans (35%) say the statement “human life begins at conception, so an embryo is a person with rights” describes their views extremely or very well. Another 19% say it describes their views somewhat well while 45% say it describes them not too or not at all well.

(The survey asks separately whether “a fetus is a person with rights.” The results are roughly similar: 37% say that statement describes their views extremely or very well.)

Republicans are about three times as likely as Democrats to say “an embryo is a person with rights” describes their views extremely or very well (53% vs. 18%). In turn, Democrats (66%) are far more likely than Republicans (25%) to say it describes their views not too or not at all well.

Some Americans are cross-pressured about abortion

When results on the two statements are combined, 41% of Americans say the statement about a pregnant woman’s right to choose describes their views at least somewhat well , but not the statement about an embryo being a person with rights. About two-in-ten (21%) say the reverse.

But for nearly a third of U.S. adults (32%), both statements describe their views at least somewhat well.

Just 4% of Americans say neither statement describes their views well.

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Household Debt Rose by $184 Billion in Q1 2024; Delinquency Transition Rates Increased Across All Debt Types

NEW YORK — The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data today issued its Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit . The report shows total household debt increased by $184 billion (1.1%) in the first quarter of 2024, to $17.69 trillion. The report is based on data from the New York Fed’s nationally representative Consumer Credit Panel .

The New York Fed also issued an accompanying Liberty Street Economics blog post examining credit card utilization and its relationship with delinquency. The Quarterly Report also includes a one-page summary of key takeaways and their supporting data points.

“In the first quarter of 2024, credit card and auto loan transition rates into serious delinquency continued to rise across all age groups,” said Joelle Scally, Regional Economic Principal within the Household and Public Policy Research Division at the New York Fed. “An increasing number of borrowers missed credit card payments, revealing worsening financial distress among some households.”

Mortgage balances rose by $190 billion from the previous quarter and was $12.44 trillion at the end of March. Balances on home equity lines of credit (HELOC) increased by $16 billion, representing the eighth consecutive quarterly increase since Q1 2022, and now stand at $376 billion. Credit card balances decreased by $14 billion to $1.12 trillion. Other balances, which include retail cards and consumer loans, also decreased by $11 billion. Auto loan balances increased by $9 billion, continuing the upward trajectory seen since 2020, and now stand at $1.62 trillion.

Mortgage originations continued increasing at the same pace seen in the previous three quarters, and now stand at $403 billion. Aggregate limits on credit card accounts increased modestly by $63 billion, representing a 1.3% increase from the previous quarter. Limits on HELOC grew by $30 billion and have grown by 14% over the past two years, after 10 years of observed declines.

Aggregate delinquency rates increased in Q1 2024, with 3.2% of outstanding debt in some stage of delinquency at the end of March. Delinquency transition rates increased for all debt types. Annualized, approximately 8.9% of credit card balances and 7.9% of auto loans transitioned into delinquency. Delinquency transition rates for mortgages increased by 0.3 percentage points yet remain low by historic standards.

Household Debt and Credit Developments as of Q1 2024

*Change from Q4 2023 to Q1 2024 ** Change from Q1 2023 to Q1 2024

Flow into Serious Delinquency (90 days or more delinquent)

About the Report

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Household Debt and Credit Report provides unique data and insight into the credit conditions and activity of U.S. consumers. Based on data from the New York Fed’s Consumer Credit Panel , a nationally representative sample drawn from anonymized Equifax credit data, the report provides a quarterly snapshot of household trends in borrowing and indebtedness, including data about mortgages, student loans, credit cards, auto loans and delinquencies. The report aims to help community groups, small businesses, state and local governments and the public to better understand, monitor, and respond to trends in borrowing and indebtedness at the household level. Sections of the report are presented as interactive graphs on the New York Fed’s  Household Debt and Credit Report web page  and the full report is available for download.

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70 years after brown v. board of education, new research shows rise in school segregation.

As the nation prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education , a new report from researchers at Stanford and USC shows that racial and economic segregation among schools has grown steadily in large school districts over the past three decades — an increase that appears to be driven in part by policies favoring school choice over integration.

Analyzing data from U.S. public schools going back to 1967, the researchers found that segregation between white and Black students has increased by 64 percent since 1988 in the 100 largest districts, and segregation by economic status has increased by about 50 percent since 1991.

The report also provides new evidence about the forces driving recent trends in school segregation, showing that the expansion of charter schools has played a major role.  

The findings were released on May 6 with the launch of the Segregation Explorer , a new interactive website from the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University. The website provides searchable data on racial and economic school segregation in U.S. states, counties, metropolitan areas, and school districts from 1991 to 2022. 

“School segregation levels are not at pre- Brown levels, but they are high and have been rising steadily since the late 1980s,” said Sean Reardon , the Professor of Poverty and Inequality in Education at Stanford Graduate School of Education and faculty director of the Educational Opportunity Project. “In most large districts, school segregation has increased while residential segregation and racial economic inequality have declined, and our findings indicate that policy choices – not demographic changes – are driving the increase.” 

“There’s a tendency to attribute segregation in schools to segregation in neighborhoods,” said Ann Owens , a professor of sociology and public policy at USC. “But we’re finding that the story is more complicated than that.”

Assessing the rise

In the Brown v. Board decision issued on May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racially segregated public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and established that “separate but equal” schools were not only inherently unequal but unconstitutional. The ruling paved the way for future decisions that led to rapid school desegregation in many school districts in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Though segregation in most school districts is much lower than it was 60 years ago, the researchers found that over the past three decades, both racial and economic segregation in large districts increased. Much of the increase in economic segregation since 1991, measured by segregation between students eligible and ineligible for free lunch, occurred in the last 15 years.

White-Hispanic and white-Asian segregation, while lower on average than white-Black segregation, have both more than doubled in large school districts since the 1980s. 

Racial-economic segregation – specifically the difference in the proportion of free-lunch-eligible students between the average white and Black or Hispanic student’s schools – has increased by 70 percent since 1991. 

School segregation is strongly associated with achievement gaps between racial and ethnic groups, especially the rate at which achievement gaps widen during school, the researchers said.  

“Segregation appears to shape educational outcomes because it concentrates Black and Hispanic students in higher-poverty schools, which results in unequal learning opportunities,” said Reardon, who is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and a faculty affiliate of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . 

Policies shaping recent trends 

The recent rise in school segregation appears to be the direct result of educational policy and legal decisions, the researchers said. 

Both residential segregation and racial disparities in income declined between 1990 and 2020 in most large school districts. “Had nothing else changed, that trend would have led to lower school segregation,” said Owens. 

But since 1991, roughly two-thirds of districts that were under court-ordered desegregation have been released from court oversight. Meanwhile, since 1998, the charter sector – a form of expanded school choice – has grown.

Expanding school choice could influence segregation levels in different ways: If families sought schools that were more diverse than the ones available in their neighborhood, it could reduce segregation. But the researchers found that in districts where the charter sector expanded most rapidly in the 2000s and 2010s, segregation grew the most. 

The researchers’ analysis also quantified the extent to which the release from court orders accounted for the rise in school segregation. They found that, together, the release from court oversight and the expansion of choice accounted entirely for the rise in school segregation from 2000 to 2019.

The researchers noted enrollment policies that school districts can implement to mitigate segregation, such as voluntary integration programs, socioeconomic-based student assignment policies, and school choice policies that affirmatively promote integration. 

“School segregation levels are high, troubling, and rising in large districts,” said Reardon. “These findings should sound an alarm for educators and policymakers.”

Additional collaborators on the project include Demetra Kalogrides, Thalia Tom, and Heewon Jang. This research, including the development of the Segregation Explorer data and website, was supported by the Russell Sage Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.   

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Benedictine College nuns denounce Harrison Butker's speech at their school

John Helton

Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker speaks to the media during NFL football Super Bowl 58 opening night on Feb. 5, 2024, in Las Vegas. Butker railed against Pride month along with President Biden's leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and his stance on abortion during a commencement address at Benedictine College last weekend. Charlie Riedel/AP hide caption

Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker speaks to the media during NFL football Super Bowl 58 opening night on Feb. 5, 2024, in Las Vegas. Butker railed against Pride month along with President Biden's leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and his stance on abortion during a commencement address at Benedictine College last weekend.

An order of nuns affiliated with Benedictine College rejected Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison's Butker's comments in a commencement speech there last weekend that stirred up a culture war skirmish.

"The sisters of Mount St. Scholastica do not believe that Harrison Butker's comments in his 2024 Benedictine College commencement address represent the Catholic, Benedictine, liberal arts college that our founders envisioned and in which we have been so invested," the nuns wrote in a statement posted on Facebook .

In his 20-minute address , Butker denounced abortion rights, Pride Month, COVID-19 lockdowns and "the tyranny of diversity, equity and inclusion" at the Catholic liberal arts college in Atchison, Kan.

He also told women in the audience to embrace the "vocation" of homemaker.

"I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now about to cross the stage, and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you're going to get in your career?" he asked. "Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world. But I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world."

For many Missouri Catholics, abortion rights means choosing between faith, politics

That was one of the themes that the sisters of Mount St. Scholastica took issue with.

"Instead of promoting unity in our church, our nation, and the world, his comments seem to have fostered division," they wrote. "One of our concerns was the assertion that being a homemaker is the highest calling for a woman. We sisters have dedicated our lives to God and God's people, including the many women whom we have taught and influenced during the past 160 years. These women have made a tremendous difference in the world in their roles as wives and mothers and through their God-given gifts in leadership, scholarship, and their careers."

The Benedictine sisters of Mount St. Scholastica founded a school for girls in Atchinson in the 1860s. It merged with St. Benedict's College in 1971 to form Benedictine College.

Neither Butker nor the Chiefs have commented on the controversy. An online petition calling for the Chiefs to release the kicker had nearly 215,000 signatures as of Sunday morning.

6 in 10 U.S. Catholics are in favor of abortion rights, Pew Research report finds

The NFL, for its part, has distanced itself from Butker's remarks.

"Harrison Butker gave a speech in his personal capacity," Jonathan Beane, the NFL's senior VP and chief diversity and inclusion officer told NPR on Thursday. "His views are not those of the NFL as an organization."

Meanwhile, Butker's No. 7 jersey is one of the league's top-sellers , rivaling those of better-known teammates Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce.

Butker has open about his faith. The 28-year-old father of two told the Eternal Word Television Network in 2019 that he grew up Catholic but practiced less in high school and college before rediscovering his belief later in life.

His comments have gotten some support from football fan social media accounts and Christian and conservative media personalities .

A video of his speech posted on Benedictine College's YouTube channel has 1.5 million views.

Rachel Treisman contributed to this story.

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Reasons for Divorce and Recollections of Premarital Intervention: Implications for Improving Relationship Education

Shelby b. scott.

Department of Psychology, University of Denver

Galena K. Rhoades

Scott m. stanley, elizabeth s. allen.

Department of Psychology, University of Colorado – Denver

Howard J. Markman

The study presents findings from interviews of 52 divorced individuals who received the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP) while engaged to be married. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, the study sought to understand participant reasons for divorce (including identification of the “final straw”) in order to understand if the program covered these topics effectively. Participants also provided suggestions based on their premarital education experiences so as to improve future relationship education efforts. The most commonly reported major contributors to divorce were lack of commitment, infidelity, and conflict/arguing. The most common “final straw” reasons were infidelity, domestic violence, and substance use. More participants blamed their partners than blamed themselves for the divorce. Recommendations from participants for the improvement of premarital education included receiving relationship education before making a commitment to marry (when it would be easier to break-up), having support for implementing skills outside of the educational setting, and increasing content about the stages of typical marital development. These results provide new insights into the timing and content of premarital and relationship education.

Divorced individuals, compared to their married counterparts, have higher levels of psychological distress, substance abuse, and depression, as well as lower levels of overall health ( Amato, 2000 ; Hughes & Waite, 2009 ). Marital conflict and divorce have also shown to be associated with negative child outcomes including lower academic success ( Frisco, Muller, & Frank, 2007 ; Sun & Li, 2001 ), poorer psychological well-being (Sun & Li, 2002), and increased depression and anxiety ( Strohschein, 2005 ). Given these negative outcomes of marital conflict and divorce, the overarching goal of premarital relationship education has been to provide couples with skills to have healthy marriages.

The Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP; Markman, Stanley, & Blumberg, 2010 ) focuses on teaching appropriate communication and conflict skills, and provides information to help couples evaluate expectations, understand relationship commitment, and enhance positive connections through friendship and fun ( Ragan, Einhorn, Rhoades, Markman, & Stanley, 2009 ). Most research indicates that compared to control groups, PREP helps couples learn to communicate more positively and less negatively (e.g., Laurenceau, Stanley, Olmos-Gallo, Baucom, & Markman, 2004 ; Markman, Renick, Floyd, Stanley, & Clements, 1993 ), increases satisfaction, and reduces risk for divorce in the years following the program (e.g., Hahlweg, Markman, Thurmaier, Engl, & Eckert, 1998 ; Hahlweg & Richter, 2010 ; Markman & Hahlweg, 1993 ; Stanley, Allen, Markman, Rhoades, & Prentice, 2010 ). A few studies have shown more mixed or moderated results (e.g., Baucom, Hahlweg, Atkins, Engl, & Thurmaier, 2006 ; van Widenfelt, Hosman, Schaap, & van der Staak, 1996 ; Markman, Rhoades, Stanley, & Peterson, in press ). In an evidence-based tradition, the growing knowledge base can and should be used to generate insights about how to refine future efforts ( Stanley & Markman, 1998 ). One methodology that could improve PREP is to interview divorced individuals who participated in the program about their reasons for divorce and premarital education experiences in order to understand if the program covered these topics effectively.

Few studies have directly examined retrospective reports of reasons for divorce, particularly within the past two decades (see Bloom, Niles, & Tatcher, 1985 ; Gigy & Kelly, 1992 ; Kitson & Holmes, 1992 ; Thurnher, Fenn, Melichar, & Chiriboga, 1983 ) and no study, to our knowledge, has examined reasons for divorce in a sample of individuals who participated in the same relationship education program. Within a sample of divorcing parents, Hawkins, Willoughby, and Doherty (2012) found that the most endorsed reasons for divorce from a list of possible choices were growing apart (55%), not being able to talk together (53%), and how one’s spouse handled money (40%). Amato and Previti (2003) found that when divorced individuals were asked open-endedly to provide their reasons for divorce, the most cited reasons were infidelity (21.6%), incompatibility (19.2%), and drinking or drug use (10.6%). A statewide survey in Oklahoma found that the most commonly checked reasons for divorce from a list of choices were lack of commitment (85%), too much conflict or arguing (61%), and/or infidelity or extramarital affairs (58%; C. A. Johnson et al., 2001 ). International studies have found highly endorsed reasons for divorce to be marrying too young, communication problems, incompatibility, spousal abuse, drug and alcohol use, religious differences, failures to get along, lack of love, lack of commitment, and childlessness, to name a few ( Al Gharaibeh & Bromfield, 2012 ; Savaya & Cohen, 2003a , 2003b ; Mbosowo, 1994 ).

In sum, across studies some consistency exists regarding the importance of issues such as communication, incompatibility, and commitment as reasons for divorce, while other issues seem to vary across samples. Thus, it would be helpful to understand the reasons for divorce in former PREP participants in order to highlight specific areas that the program could have addressed better and in order to improve that program’s effectiveness. In addition, no study, to our knowledge, has asked divorced participants who all participated in the same premarital program to provide suggestions for improving relationship education programs based on their own experiences in the program and considering that their marriages ended in divorce. These results could be valuable for practitioners to consider in order to improve the PREP model specifically and relationship education efforts more generally. The current study qualitatively interviewed individuals who had completed PREP and later divorced about their premarital education, including what they wished would have been covered, as well as their marital experiences, particularly regarding their reasons for divorce. Therefore, this study sought to understand both participants’ reasons for divorce as well as how they thought relationship education could have better addressed their needs. The ultimate goal of the current study was to provide new knowledge on potential ways to help relationship education best prevent marital distress and divorce.

Participants

Data were collected from 52 individuals who received PREP premaritally but subsequently divorced at some point in the following 14 years. These individuals were all initially participants of a larger study of the effectiveness of premarital education ( N = 306 couples; Markman et al., 2004 ; Stanley et al., 2001 ). All participants in the current study either received PREP through the religious organization ( n = 24) that performed their weddings or PREP through a university ( n = 28). The sample included 31 women and 21 men. Of these, 18 men and 18 women had been married to each other (we were unable to assess the former spouse of the other 16 individuals). At the first time point of the larger study (i.e., the premarital assessment), these participants were 25.4 years old on average ( SD = 6.67), with a median education of 14 years, and median income of $20,000–29,999. At the time of the post-divorce interview, the average age was 37.2 ( SD = 6.5), the median education level was 16 years, and 32 of the participants (61.5%) had a least one child. The average number of years since premarital intervention to the post-divorce interview was 12.2 years, and the average number of years from finalized divorce to participating in the interview was 5.2 years. The sample was 88.2% Caucasian, 5.9% Native American, 3.9% Black, and 2.0% Asian; 1 participant did not report race. In terms of ethnicity, 84.3% of the sample identified as Non-Hispanic and 15.7% as Hispanic.

Couples ( N = 306) were recruited for the larger study through the religious organizations that would later perform their wedding services. At the initial wave of the study in 1996, participants were required to be planning marriage with someone of the opposite sex and needed to participate as a couple. As mentioned earlier, they were assigned to either receive PREP through the religious organization, PREP at a university, or naturally-occurring services. Throughout the duration of the larger study, participants were asked to complete annual assessments that included questionnaires and videotaped discussions. If a participant expressed that he/she was divorced or currently divorcing throughout the larger study, this information was recorded. From 2010–2012, we attempted to contact all divorced participants ( n = 114 individuals) to ask if they would participate in the current study. Of these individuals, we were unable to contact 35 participants, 18 declined an invitation to participate, and 1 participant was deceased. Participants who divorced and had received naturally-occurring services ( n = 8) were excluded from these analyses because we could not know exactly what premarital services they had received. There were no significant differences between divorced individuals who participated in this study compared to divorced individuals who did not participate across age at marriage, ethnicity, personal income, or relationship adjustment at the premarital assessment ( p s > .05).

All participants completed an individual 30-minute audio-recorded interview over the phone about their divorce and their recollections of their premarital intervention. They received $50 for participating in this interview. All interviews were transcribed verbatim for analyses. All study procedures were approved by a university Institutional Review Board.

Reasons for divorce

Using items from a previous survey on reasons for divorce ( C. A. Johnson et al., 2001 ) participants were asked to indicate whether or not each item on a list of common problems in relationships was a “major contributor to their divorce” (“yes” or “no”). These items included lack of commitment, infidelity/extra-marital affairs, too much arguing or conflict, substance abuse, domestic violence, economic hardship, lack of support from family members, marrying too young, little or no premarital education, and religious differences.

Qualitative feedback on progression of divorce

If participants indicated any of the reasons for divorce, they were subsequently asked to elaborate on how this problem progressed to their eventual divorce by the questions “Considering the problems you were telling me such as [the major reasons for divorce the participant listed], how did they move from problems to actually getting a divorce?” and “You said that [cited reason] was major contributor to the divorce. Can you tell me more about that?” We will only present detailed results from this qualitative feedback on reasons for divorce that were endorsed by at least 20% of participants.

Final straw

Participants were also asked if there was a “final straw” to their relationship ending, and to expand on that reason if there was one.

Who should have worked harder?

Participants were asked two questions ( C. A. Johnson et al., 2001 ): “Again looking back at your divorce, do you ever wish that you, yourself, had worked harder to save your marriage?” (with response options of “Yes, I wish I had worked harder” or “No, I worked hard enough.”) and “Do you ever wish that your spouse had worked harder to save your marriage?” (with response options of “Yes, I wish my spouse had worked harder.” or “No, my spouse worked hard enough.”)

Qualitative feedback on PREP

Participants were asked to report and elaborate on what they remembered, found difficult, or wished was different about their premarital education experience in an open-ended format. Example questions from the interviews include “What do you remember about the premarital preparation or training you and your ex-spouse took part in?” and “Based on your experience in a marriage that didn’t work out as you planned, do you think there is any kind of information or education that would have made a difference in how things turned out?”

Analytic Approach

Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were utilized to address our research questions. For the first phase of analysis, answers were counted for close-ended questions, such as the list of major reasons for divorce (see Table 1 ) and if there was a “final straw” (yes or no). For open-ended questions, we followed a grounded-theory methodology ( Creswell, 2006 ; Strauss & Corbin, 1998 ). For the first phase of coding, after repeated readings of the transcripts, two coders, including the first author and a research assistant from the larger project, followed a grounded-theory methodology to generate common themes related to participants’ recollections of their premarital education and reasons for divorce (from open-ended items; Creswell, 2006 ; Strauss & Corbin, 1998 ). The two coders then met repeatedly to compare results and to establish consistency. If the coders disagreed across codes, they discussed their codes with the second author to come to a conclusion. Next, axial coding was used to analyze how different codes vary in order to create specific categories of the individual codes ( Creswell, 2006 ; Strauss & Corbin, 1998 ). For example, axial coding involved examining how respondent reports of general themes (e.g., communication problems) varied in their presentation (e.g., communication problems throughout the relationship vs. communication problems only at the end of marriage).

List of Major Reasons for Divorce by Individuals and Couples Who Participated in PREP

Note. The individuals column reflects the percentage of individuals in the total sample who said yes to each reason. The couples column reflects the percentage of couples who had at least one partner say yes to each reason. The couple agreement column represents how many couples had both partners cite each reason out of the couples that had a least one partner mention that reason.

The final stage of coding included selective coding in which categories were refined and relationships between concepts were noted, such as how reasons for divorce related to difficulties utilizing PREP skills. Once all codes were determined, the first author and a new coder, another research assistant on the project, coded all transcripts with the established coding system. Codes were counted for all individuals, as well as couples as a whole (partner agreement on the same code) and couples in which only one partner from the relationship reported a specific code (partner disagreement on the same code). The average Cohen’s Kappa (per code) was .71 ( SD = .28) and the median was .80.

Analyses are presented at the individual level by using data from all 52 participants, as well as at the couple level by using data from the 18 couples ( n = 36) in which both partners completed interviews.

Reasons for Divorce

Table 1 presents the “major contributors for divorce” list. Overall, the results indicate that the most often cited reasons for divorce at the individual level were lack of commitment (75.0%), infidelity (59.6%), and too much conflict and arguing (57.7%), followed by marrying too young (45.1%), financial problems (36.7%), substance abuse (34.6%), and domestic violence (23.5%). Other problems, such as religious differences, were endorsed less than 20% of the time. The order of these rankings was essentially identical at the couple level, although rates of endorsement increased because both partners were reporting. The following provides qualitative elaborations by participants on these specific reasons for divorce.

Results indicated that the most common major contributing factor to divorce reported by participants was lack of commitment , reported by 75% of individuals and by at least one person in 94.4% of couples. Of the couples in which at least one partner mentioned commitment as a problem, 70.6% represented couples in which both partners agreed that lack of commitment was a major reason for divorce. Some participants reported that commitment within their relationships gradually eroded until there was not enough commitment to sustain the relationship, while others reported more drastic drops in commitment in response to negative events, such as infidelity.

“I realized it was the lack of commitment on my part because I didn’t really feel romantic towards him. I always had felt more still like he was a friend to me.” “It became insurmountable. It got to a point where it seemed like he was no longer really willing to work [on the relationship]. All of the stresses together and then what seemed to me to be an unwillingness to work through it any longer was the last straw for me.”

The next most often cited major contributing factor to divorce was infidelity , endorsed by 59.6% of individuals and by at least one partner in 88.8% of couples. Of those couples who had a least one partner report infidelity as a reason for divorce, only 31.3% represented couples in which both partners agreed that infidelity was a major contributor to the dissolution of their marriage. Thus, the majority of couples with apparent infidelity in their relationships only had one partner mention it as a contributing factor to their divorce. Overall, infidelity was often cited as a critical turning point in a deteriorating relationship.

“It was the final straw when he actually admitted to cheating on me. I kind of had a feeling about it, but, you know, I guess we all deny [because] we never think that the person you are married to or care about would do that to us.” “He cheated on me […] Then I met somebody else and did the same thing. […] And when he found out about it we both essentially agreed that it wasn’t worth trying to make it work anymore because it just hurt too bad.”

Conflict and arguing

Too much conflict and arguing was endorsed by 57.7% of individuals and 72.2% of couples had at least one partner report that was a major contributor to divorce. Of these couples, 53.8% of couples agreed that too much conflict and arguing was a contributor to divorce. Overall, participants indicated that conflicts were not generally resolved calmly or effectively. Respondents also reported that such communication problems increased in frequency and intensity throughout their marriages, which at times, seemed to coincide with lost feelings of positive connections and mutual support. By the end of the marriage, these respondents indicated that there was a significant lack of effective communication.

“I got frustrated of arguing too much.” “We’d have an argument over something really simple and it would turn into just huge, huge fights […] and so our arguments never got better they only ever got worse.”

Marrying too young

Getting married too young was reported as a major contributing factor to divorce by 45.1% of individuals and by at least one partner from 61.1% of couples. Both partners mentioned this reason in 27.3% of these couples. Participants who endorsed this item were an average of 23.3 years old at the time of marriage ( SD = 5.5) and participants who did not endorse this item were 29.2 ( SD = 6.7). In commenting about this issue, some participants reported that they had only known their partners for short periods of time before their marriage and/or that they wished they had dated their partners longer in order to either gain a better perspective on the relationship or to make a more rational decision as to whom they should marry. Additional comments about this issue included reports that participants were too young to make mature objective decisions regarding their marriage decisions.

“The main reason [we divorced] was because of our age. I think that being 19 at the time we got married, it just didn’t take. I think that we didn’t take anything as seriously as we should have.” “I wish that we wouldn’t have […] gotten married so young. I wish we would have waited a little bit longer before we actually got married.”

Financial problems

Financial problems were cited as a major contributor to divorce by 36.7% of participants and by at least one partner from 55.6% of couples. Of couples who had at least one partner endorse financial problems as a contributor to divorce, 50% represented couples in which both partners agreed that financial problems were a major reason for divorce. In elaborating about this issue, some participants indicated that financial difficulties were not the most pertinent reason for their divorce, but instead contributed to increased stress and tension within the relationship. Other participants also expressed that some financial difficulties were linked to other problems (e.g., health problems, substance abuse).

“I had a severe illness for almost a year and I was the only employed person [before that] so obviously money ran very short.” “The stress of trying to figure out the finances became a wedge that was really insurmountable.”

Substance abuse

Substance abuse was reported as a major contributing factor to divorce by 34.6% of participants, and by at least one partner in 50% of couples. Of these couples, only 33.3% of partners agreed that substance abuse was a major contributing factor to divorce. Thus, similar to reports of infidelity, the majority of couples who listed substance abuse as a reason for divorce had only one partner cite this reason. Generally, participants expressed that the severity of the substance abuse problem in their relationship was either minimized over the duration of the relationship, or if attempts to address the problem were made, the partner with the substance abuse problem would not improve and/or seek help. After several attempts to address the problem, the relationship finally ended.

“I said ‘absolutely no more bars’ and as soon as I found out he was back in them, I asked for [a divorce].” “He never admitted that he even drank. It wasn’t me against him. It was me against him and the disease.”

Domestic violence

Domestic violence was cited as a contributing factor to divorce by 23.5% of participants and by at least one partner from 27.8% of couples. Of those couples in which one partner listed domestic abuse a major contributor to divorce, 40.0% of partners agreed that it was a major contributor to divorce. Elaborations of this item included descriptions of both physical and emotional abuse. Participants often expressed how the abuse in their relationship developed gradually, with intensified cycles of abuse and contrition, until the severity of the abuse intensified to insurmountable levels.

“[There was] continuous sexual abuse and emotional trauma which only got worse over time.” “There were times that I felt very physically threatened. There was a time that there was a bit of shoving. I got an elbow to my nose and I got a nose bleed. Then there was another time that he literally just slid me along the floor. […]We’d work on it. It would happen again.”

Final Straw

After assessing participant major reasons for divorce, we were interested to see if participants indicated a single event or reason that constituted a “final straw” in the process of their marriage dissolution. Overall, 68.6% of participants and at least one partner in 88.9% of couples reported that there was a final straw leading to the end of their marriage. General themes of final straw issues where generated through qualitative methods for participants who reported a final straw. Of the individuals who indicated that there was a final straw involved in ending their marriages, the most common cited reason was infidelity, which was reported by 24% of these participants, followed by domestic violence (21.2%) and substance abuse (12.1%). At the couple level, no couples (0%) had both partners report the same reason for the final straw. Participants expressed that although these final straw events may not have been the first incident of their kind (e.g., the first time they realized their partner had a substance abuse problem) an event involving these behaviors led to the final decision for their relationship to end. Also, there were some situations in which individuals expressed that these three issues may have interacted with one another or other relationship issues.

“[My ex-husband] and I both had substance abuse problems which led to infidelity […] which also led to domestic violence”. “Along with him having alcohol and drug issues as well as infidelity issues [and] the stress, came the physical and verbal abuse.”

Who is to Blame?

Considering that infidelity, domestic violence, and substance abuse were the most often endorsed “final straw” reasons for divorce, we were interested in deciphering which member of the relationship participants saw as responsible for these behaviors. In examining participants’ elaborations of infidelity, substance abuse, and domestic violence, we found that 76.9%, 72.2%, and 77.8%, respectively, described these events in terms of their partner engaging in these negative behaviors, and only 11.5%, 11.1%, and 0%, respectively, volunteered that they engaged in the behavior themselves.

Furthermore, when participants were asked if their partner should have worked harder to save their marriages, 65.8% of men and 73.8% of women believe that their ex-spouse should have worked harder to save their marriages. Conversely, when participants were asked if they, personally, should have worked harder to save their marriages, only 31.6% of men and 33.3% of women expressed that they, personally, should have worked harder. Further, at the couple level, 70.6% of couples showed a pattern in which the women believed their ex-husbands should have worked harder to save their relationships while their ex-husbands did not believe they, themselves, should have worked harder. Only 11.7% agreed that the husband should have worked harder and 11.7% had the husband endorse that he should have worked harder with the wife disagreeing. Conversely, only 35.3% of couples displayed the pattern in which the men blamed their ex-wives for not working harder while their ex-wives, themselves, denied that they should have worked harder. Only 11.7% agreed that the wife should have worked harder and 17.7% had the wife endorsed that she should have worked harder with her husband disagreeing. Further, 35.3% of couples agreed that the wife had not needed to work harder to save the marriage, while only 5.9% of couples agreed that the husband had not needed to work harder. Thus, most participants believed their ex-partners should have worked harder, but at the couple level, there were more couples in which both partners agreed that the wife did not need to work harder than there were couples in which both partners agreed the husband did not need to work harder. When asked who filed for the divorce, 63.5% of participants indicated that the woman filed for divorce and only 25% participants indicated that the man filed for divorce.

Feedback on PREP

Next, we provide the findings on the most commonly cited qualitative feedback reported by participants regarding how to improve premarital education. The following results and percentages refer to counts of qualitative codes created by the research team based on common themes in the interviews.

Learning more about one’s partner

Results show that 42.3% of participants and 77.8% of couples expressed that they wished they had known more about their ex-spouse before they were married. Of these couples, 28.6% of partners agreed. These statements included desires to understand their partner better in order to improve their communication and better prepare for the marriage, or conversely, information that would have led them to never marry one’s partner in the first place. Indeed, 30.8% of participants specifically mentioned that they wished they had recognized “red flags” to leave the relationship before they entered their marriage.

“I think the only information that could have [helped] would’ve been information that might have led me to not marry him.” “I probably wish that we would have had more premarital counseling and had somebody tell us we should not be getting married.”

Participating in the program before constraints to marry

Twenty-five percent (25.0%) of participants specifically reported that they were influenced by constraints to stay in the relationship already in place during the program. Example constraints included having become engaged, set a wedding date, sent out invitations, or purchased a dress, which made it difficult for participants to objectively reconsider if they were marrying the right person through the educational experience. Thus, a large portion of participants expressed that receiving PREP just before marriage made it difficult for them to seriously considered delaying their wedding plans in order to make more objective decisions about the relationship.

“It was one of those things where you’re like, ‘Well, I already have the dress. We’re already getting married. We already have all the people. Everything is already set up and we bought the house.’ And you just kind of think, ‘Well you know I’m sure things will get better.’ You see the red flags but you kind of ignore them.” “I just didn’t have the guts to say, ‘You know what, I understand the dresses have been paid for. The churches have been booked. The invitations have gone out. But I don’t think I want to do this.’”

Improved support for ongoing implementation

Thirty-one percent (30.8%) of individuals and 38.9% of couples had at least one partner express that, although they found PREP skills helpful during the duration of the program, they had difficulty using these skills in their daily lives outside of their premarital education classes. Of these couples, 42.9% of partners agreed that they had difficulty implementing program skills in their marriage. In general, these participants expressed that, in the heat of the moment, it was hard to utilize their communication skills, such as staying calm, actively listening, working toward the problem as a team, or taking “time outs” as suggested in PREP. Other participants simply expressed that it was hard to remember and perfect their skills after the program ended because they did not practice them regularly.

“I think that the techniques […] were helpful. I just think it mattered if you were going to apply the principles or not. And I don’t think a lot of them were applied.” “It helped with discussion and listening tools. I think, it’s just the follow through, you know. We didn’t remember those things when it came down to it.” “He tried to use it at the beginning, but it was just the continual using of the techniques that were given to us.”

Education regarding the realities of marriage

In addition to not knowing enough about one’s partner, 48.1% of participants and 72.2% of couples expressed that they did not know enough about the realities or stages of marriage after participating in the program. Of these couples, 38.5% of partners agreed. These comments included surprise that their partners changed over the course of the marriage, as well as trouble facing new problems when they emerged (e.g., lack of attraction/connection, decreases in commitment and satisfaction, and new abuse problems).

“Premarital counseling teaches you how you get along, and that you should communicate, but it doesn’t really talk about the phases of a marriage over time.” “[I wish I had learned] that the biggest area in life in an ongoing relationship is knowing that things are going to come up that aren’t perfect. That after the wedding day, and the build up to the wedding day, real life is going to kick in and you have to really have some tools to deal with it.”

The goal of this study was to increase understanding of divorced individuals’ perspectives on whether their premarital education prepared them for marriage and how relationship education could be modified to better address couples’ needs. Thus, among individuals who received PREP premaritally and later divorced, this study addressed reasons for divorce as well as ideas for what else would have been helpful in relationship education. It is the first study to qualitatively assess divorced participants’ recommendations for relationship education services. Given the small sample and qualitative nature of the reports, the implications discussed below ought to be considered preliminary.

We asked about reasons for divorce to know whether PREP addressed the kinds of problems that couples who went on to divorce tended to experience. The most commonly cited reason for divorce was lack of commitment, followed by infidelity and too much conflict and arguing. These top rated major reasons for divorce noted here are similar to those found in large random surveys of divorced participants (cf. C. A. Johnson et al., 2001 ; Hawkins, Willoughby et al., 2012 ). Overall, these findings support the importance of covering communication and commitment in premarital education programs to help foster successful marriages; however, in light of participant feedback on PREP, the program may have been able to cover these and other topics more effectively.

Whereas issues like communication and commitment overlap with core content in PREP and other programs (see Markman & Rhoades, 2012 ), a substantial portion of responses suggested that, although the skills taught in PREP may been helpful, they did not implement them in real-life situations, particularly during heated discussions. Research indicates that commitment and conflict management are related in that commitment helps partners inhibit negative behaviors and engage in more positive behaviors at critical moments ( Slotter et al., 2012 ); thus, the issues of commitment and conflict management are likely intertwined in important ways. Further, consistent with other research on a German version of PREP ( Hahlweg & Richter, 2010 ), participants also reported that they forgot some of the communication skills over time.

These findings highlight a key question for the couple research field regarding how to enhance couples’ ability to use beneficial strategies when they are most needed. One solution could be to increase the time couples spend in premarital education in order for them to master essential skills and to help them become more likely to constructively derail negative processes as they emerge. At the same time, the version of PREP that these couples received was 12 hours long, which is both on the long end of what most couples receive in premarital education ( Mdn = 8 hours; Stanley, Amato, Johnson, & Markman, 2006 ) and in the range of what tends to be the most effective dose ( Hawkins, Stanley, Blanchard, & Albright, 2012 ). Longer curricula do not seem to lead to stronger effects ( Hawkins, Stanley et al., 2012 ), but future random-assignment studies could address this question better.

With most premarital education services, including PREP, couples are not provided opportunities to practice new skills or receive coaching while they are upset or experiencing a difficult disagreement. A group or workshop format likely inhibits such real-world discussions. It could be that couples would benefit from new program content that helps them practice their skills better when they are having trouble. Couples may also benefit from additional opportunities to perfect the use of program strategies after the intervention has ended, such as through booster classes or individual meetings with coaches. Research indicates that such boosters may be effective ( Braukhaus, Hahlweg, Kroeger, Groth, & Fehm-Wolfsdorf, 2003 ). New technologies now offer innovative ways to deliver such boosters, such as through online training or smart phone applications.

Content Considerations for Premarital Education

Introducing new content on the issues that participants identified as final straws in their marriages may also be beneficial. These issues were infidelity, aggression or emotional abuse, and substance use. Addressing these behaviors directly in relationship education raises some questions regarding which couples relationship education providers might seek to help stay together as opposed to help break-up. We believe premarital education should serve as a prevention effort to help healthy and happy couples stay that way and that keeping distressed, abusive, or otherwise unhealthy couples together would not be a positive outcome. Research on the development of these “final straw” behaviors seems particularly important in the future. A limitation of the current study is that the pre-intervention assessment did not include the kinds of measures necessary to determine the extent to which couples in this study presented with these problems before marriage. Thus, future research is needed to investigate whether premarital education can help prevent couples from developing some of these “final straw” behaviors and whether it may help some couples with problems such as aggression or substance abuse either get the additional help they will need to change these behaviors or break up. We discuss preliminary ideas about whether/how premarital education might cover each of these final straw issues below.

Over half of all participants cited infidelity as a major reason for divorce and infidelity was the most often endorsed “final straw” reason. Infidelity is not a major focus in PREP, though the curriculum does address the importance of commitment, including protecting one’s relationship from attraction to others. Based on participants’ reports from this study, it may be that premarital programs could be improved by more directly addressing how to reduce the potential for extramarital involvement.

If providers or programs choose to address infidelity explicitly, Markman (2005) provides useful guidelines for covering the topic. These recommendations include informing participants that there are specific situations and developmental time periods within relationships with increased risks for engaging in extramarital relationships (e.g., transition to parenthood, close relationships with attractive alternatives, significant drinking). Furthermore, participants could be informed that the risk for extramarital relationships may increase during stressful times—such as when partners are separated for long periods by work demands or experiencing low marital satisfaction—and this information could be shared with participants. Partners could also be given structure to talk with each other about expectations for fidelity, management of relationships with friends or co-workers who could be attractive alternatives, and boundaries for their relationship. However, one barrier to increasing a focus on the prevention of infidelity in premarital education is that relationship commitment and satisfaction is highest right before marriage ( Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2006 ), so engaged couples may not be receptive or eager to directly address the possibility of future extramarital affairs during this time ( Allen et al., 2005 ).

Substance abuse also appeared to be a prevalent problem at least for half of divorced couples in this sample. Overall, reports indicate that although substance abuse problems may have developed gradually throughout these relationships, this issue constituted the final straw to end the relationship for a number of individuals once the situation was perceived as insurmountable. Substance abuse is not currently addressed in PREP except that all couples attending PREP are provided with information on how to get more help for a range of problems, including substance abuse.

Premarital programs may benefit from educating participants on how substance abuse is not uncommon as a reason for divorce in an effort to encourage participants to address substance abuse problems as early as possible. Such program additions could also include how to recognize and get help for substance abuse and could encourage partners to discuss their expectations for substance use in the relationship. Partners may also benefit from discussing how to support each other in seeking help, should the need ever arise. Furthermore, couples could be taught that if a substance abuse develops in the relationship, there is often a discrepancy between partners regarding perspectives on the extent of the problem, which is evident by this study’s findings.

Domestic violence was cited by over a quarter of couples as a reason for divorce. When asked to elaborate, some described verbal abuse, while others described physical aggression. Often participants explained that they initially believed they could work through the problem, but later found it unbearable, as some participants considered an act of physical aggression as the final straw in their relationship. As others have suggested ( Halford, Markman, Kline, & Stanley, 2003 ), premarital education programs may benefit from teaching participants about recognizing, preventing, and getting help for aggression in relationships. In current models of PREP, all participants learn that aggression is unacceptable and they all receive basic information on ways to get help (e.g., through shelters), as to not put particular couples or individuals in awkward or unsafe circumstances in class. Still, more could be done.

The field continues to debate how to best address this issue, as different types of violence and couples of varying risk may warrant different approaches. M. P. Johnson (1995) distinguishes between situational couple violence and intimate terrorism. Specifically, situational couple violence tends to be much more common and represents aggression that comes out of conflict. It is typically initiated by either partner while intimate terrorism encompasses more controlling, threatening behavior, typically by the male partner.

With 36% of unmarried couples having experienced some form of physical aggression in the last year ( Rhoades, Stanley, Kelmer, & Markman, 2010 ), relationship education programs should take care not to scare couples who have experienced aggression away from seeking help. As is done routinely in PREP, it seems necessary in relationship education that providers and program content emphasize to all participants that any aggression is unacceptable and also suggest specific, local ways to seek help for problems with aggression. To develop further content, an understanding of the literature on aggression and violence, including men’s vs. women’s roles, and the different type of violence, is likely particularly important, as recommendations may be different for different kinds of problems. For example, recommendations for situational couple violence might include couple and/or individual therapy focused on intensive skills to help better manage negative affect and conflict effectively whereas intimate terrorism would most likely call for referrals to shelters or law enforcement. For further recommendations regarding domestic violence and relationship education, see suggestions by Derrington, Johnson, Menard, Ooms, and Stanley (2010) .

Financial hardship

Financial hardship was cited as a major reason for divorce that provided stress on their relationship by over half the sample. Although PREP helps couples learn communication skills to discuss stressful topics in general, it is worth considering whether specific content on money and economic stress is warranted. Participants could be asked to more directly share expectations about finances and learn coping skills for times of significant financial strain. They could also be provided with appropriate community resources to improve or stabilize their financial situations or these resources could be incorporated into relationship education efforts.

Marriage expectations

Almost half of interviewees commented that they did not know enough about the typical course of events in marriage. PREP typically addresses expectations by encouraging participants to recognize and discuss their own expectations for marriage ( Markman et al., 2010 ), but it does not provide explicit information about how marriages and families tend to develop over time. More content on normal marital development could be helpful. For example, information could be provided about how satisfaction typically drops and conflict tends to increase during the transition to parenthood (e.g., Doss, Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2009b ) and about the course of attraction and sexual desire in relationships.

Previous research has shown that couples who develop serious difficulties, and eventually seek help, usually do so long after the problems have become deeply entrenched ( Doss, Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2009a ). Thus, relationship education programs may benefit from providing guidelines regarding when to seek professional help and even have couples practice these difficult conversations to encourage them to seek help early and at times when changes are easiest to make. There is survey evidence that premarital education is associated with being more likely to use services later in the marriage ( Williamson, Karney, Trail, & Bradbury, 2012 ), but more direct content on how and when to seek help may be warranted.

This point about seeking help early is complicated by the fact that the majority of participants saw their partner as primarily responsible for participating in the “final straw” behaviors (infidelity, domestic violence, and substance use) and for not working hard enough to save the marriage. Most participants also believed that they, personally, should not have worked harder to save their marriages. Therefore, premarital education may need to focus on encouraging help seeking behaviors in couples with the understanding that most individuals may see their partners as primarily responsible for their difficulties, and therefore, may not feel personally responsible. In addition, the majority of couples displayed a pattern in which the women blamed their ex-husbands while their ex-husbands did not see themselves as responsible. Interestingly, as has been found elsewhere ( Amato & Previti, 2003 ; C. A. Johnson et al., 2001 ), women in this sample were also more likely to eventually file for divorce than men. Thus, it may be especially important that husbands and wives develop realistic expectations about seeking help together, so that they later do not disagree about what circumstances might constitute a need for help.

The Timing of Premarital Education

Our findings show that a considerable number of participants wished that they had known more about their partner before marriage, saying they would have either learned how to handle differences better or left the relationship. Many others believed they had married too young. Also, a portion of participants mentioned that they participated in PREP during a time when the constraints of wedding plans made it more likely for them to ignore factors that may have otherwise ended their relationship. These participant comments highlight the difference between when couples might ideally benefit from premarital education compared to when couples typically seek it. One of the potential benefits of relationship education is that is can help some couples on an ill-advised or premature path toward marriage to reconsider their plans (see Stanley, 2001 ); however, couples typically participate in these programs close to their wedding dates, a time when ending the relationship may be especially difficult.

A potentially stronger overall prevention strategy is to reach people earlier in their relationships, before constraints to marry are in place, or even before individuals enter relationships ( Rhoades & Stanley, 2009 ). Early, individual-oriented relationship education can help individuals develop and practice healthy relationship skills and also help them end unsafe or unhealthy relationships ( Rhoades & Stanley, 2011 ). One recently-developed relationship education curriculum designed for individuals, Within My Reach ( Pearson, Stanley, & Rhoades, 2008 ), has shown success in teaching these skills and helping individuals reach their personal relationship goals ( Antle, Karam, Christensen, Barbee, & Sar, 2011 ). Thus, future research may wish to consider how to encourage individuals and/or couples who have yet to make commitments to marry to participate in relationship education programs, as well as how and when these programs should advise individuals to leave damaging relationships.

Conclusions and Limitations

This study provides new information regarding the reasons for divorce and possible improvements to relationship education programs based on feedback from divorced individuals who participated in PREP premaritally. Although the study focuses on improving the PREP model specifically, relationship education programs working with premarital populations may also find value in our findings, particularly regarding how to cover specific topics deemed important by our participants. Other programs may also benefit from suggestions to provide relationship education earlier and to provide services to help couples master their skill development over time.

This study also has several limitations that warrant discussion. First, respondent reports of their progression toward divorce and premarital education experiences were retrospective and may therefore be biased by the passing of time. Future studies may wish to evaluate relationship problems and reasons for divorce closer to the couple’s decision to divorce. Second, the sample was mostly White and only included participants in heterosexual relationships who married within mostly Christian-based religious organizations. Therefore, future studies are needed to examine whether these findings would be replicated with other groups or cultures. A third limitation is the lack of a comparison group of couples who participated in PREP but did not divorce. As a result, it is not clear whether or not the problems and recommendations these participants identified are specific to this divorced sample, or would translate to couples who remain married. Finally, all participants in this study received PREP when they were engaged to be married so research is needed to evaluate reasons for relationship dissolution and how to improve programs that target individuals and couples in different relationship stages (e.g. dating or married). Nevertheless, this study provides new insight in potential improvements to the content and timing of relationship education.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by award number R01HD053314 from the Eunice Kennedy Shrivner National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Eunice Kennedy Shrivner National Institute of Child Health and Human Development or National Institutes of Health.

Contributor Information

Shelby B. Scott, Department of Psychology, University of Denver.

Galena K. Rhoades, Department of Psychology, University of Denver.

Scott M. Stanley, Department of Psychology, University of Denver.

Elizabeth S. Allen, Department of Psychology, University of Colorado – Denver.

Howard J. Markman, Department of Psychology, University of Denver.

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