Divorce

Divorce—lecture outline

• Explaining rising divorce rate
• Factors that increase the likelihood that a person will get a divorce
• Remarriage
• Impact of divorce
• Impact of divorce on children
• Divorce quiz

Divorce—lecture outline

• Explaining rising divorce rate
• Factors that increase the likelihood that a person will get a divorce
• Remarriage
• Impact of divorce
• Impact of divorce on children
• Divorce quiz

Why did divorce rates increase so steeply in the 1960s and 1970s?

• As women became more economically independent, marriage was less of a necessary economic partnership.
• Marriage today has less to do with handing down property and status from generation to generation, except for the wealthy.
• The stigma of divorce declined.
• Adults began to place a great value on personal satisfaction in marriage; few were willing to remain in a relationship that provided few emotional rewards.
• High expectations
• No longer believe in staying together for the sake of children
• Valuing of freedom and individualism

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Why did divorce rates increase so steeply in the 1960s and 1970s?

• Families perform fewer functions
• Transition from extended to nuclear families
• Increasing geographic and occupational mobility
• Changes in the law made getting a divorce easier.

Divorce—lecture outline

• Explaining rising divorce rate
• Factors that increase the likelihood that a person will get a divorce
• Remarriage
• Impact of divorce
• Impact of divorce on children
• Divorce quiz

Factors that increase the likelihood that a person will get a divorce

• being married at a young age (under age 21)
• those living at 200 percent of the poverty level
• those with a high school degree or some college (see next slide)
• having a child prior to marrying
• knowing a partner for a short time prior to marrying
• differences in social class background, age, race, values and religion

• a childless marriage
• women in high status, better-paying occupations
• African Americans
• lower rates for Latinos when controlling for age and education
• drug or alcohol problems
• working full-time
• previously divorced
• children of divorced parents
• serial cohabitors

Divorce—lecture outline

• Explaining rising divorce rate
• Factors that increase the likelihood that a person will get a divorce
• Remarriage
• Impact of divorce
• Impact of divorce on children
• Divorce quiz

Patterns of remarriage among divorced people

• About a third of all marriages involve at least one person who has been divorced from an earlier marriage.
• Divorced men and women are more likely to marry than are people in the same age group who have never been married.
• Two-thirds of women and three-fourths of men who are divorced eventually remarry.
• The divorce rate among second marriages is higher than for first marriages.
• The remarriage figure for African Americans is lower than the national average.

Divorce—lecture outline

• Explaining rising divorce rate
• Factors that increase the likelihood that a person will get a divorce
• Remarriage
• Impact of divorce
• Impact of divorce on children
• Divorce quiz

Impact of divorce

• Adverse health
• Suicide
• Alcoholism
• Lower psychological well-being
• Low social attachment

• Low emotional support
• Increased dependence on social welfare
• Men’s incomes increase, and women’s incomes decrease after divorce.

Divorce—lecture outline

• Explaining rising divorce rate
• Factors that increase the likelihood that a person will get a divorce
• Remarriage
• Impact of divorce
• Impact of divorce on children
• Divorce quiz

Impact of divorce on children

• more emotional problems, worse emotional well-being
• unable to maintain a close relationship with both parents
• higher delinquency rates
• lower academic achievement
• lower labor force participation and lower earnings

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• more likely to become dependent on welfare
• more likely to marry at an early age (for daughters)
• higher teenage childbearing
• more likely to divorce

Impact of divorce on children (Judith Wallerstein)

• Almost all the children experienced intense emotional disturbance at the time of the divorce.
• At the end of the five-year period, two-thirds were coping reasonably well with their home lives and their commitments outside.
• In the ten to fifteen years following the study, nearly half of the then young adults reported difficulty in their romantic relationships.
• After fifteen years, nearly all felt they had suffered in some way from their parents’ mistakes.

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Impact of divorce on children (Andrew Cherlin)

• Almost all boys and girls experience an initial period of intense emotional upset after their parents separate.
• Most resume normal development without serious problems within about two years after the separation.
• A minority of children experiences some long-term problems as a result of the breakup that may persist into adulthood.

Divorce—lecture outline

• Explaining rising divorce rate
• Factors that increase the likelihood that a person will get a divorce
• Remarriage
• Impact of divorce
• Impact of divorce on children
• Divorce quiz

Divorce quiz

• Half of all marriages end in divorce.
• If you are very unhappy in your marriage, you will remain very unhappy
• When parents don’t get along, children are better off if their parents divorce than if they stay together.
• Following divorce, the children involved are better off in stepfamilies than in single-parent families.
• It is usually men who initiate divorce proceedings
• Having a child together will help a couple to improve their marital satisfaction and prevent a divorce.

Divorce—lecture outline

• Explaining rising divorce rate
• Factors that increase the likelihood that a person will get a divorce
• Remarriage
• Impact of divorce
• Impact of divorce on children
• Divorce quiz