Marriage and Divorce: Changes and their Driving Forces

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PSC Working Paper Series
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Abortion
Age
AIDS
American Community Survey
Bargaining power
Bargaining within marriage
Birth control
Census
Children
Cohabitation
Cohabiting couples
Contraception
Demography
Divorce
Divorce rates
Divorce trends
Economics of the family
Educational attainment
Employment
Family change
Family dissolution
Family formation
Family forms
Family life
Female employment
Female labor force participation
Fertility
First marriage
Gender
HIV
HIV/AIDS
Household production
Household structure
Internet dating
Labor force
Labor market
Labor supply
Laws
Life expectancy
Longevity
Marital aspirations
Marital behavior
Marital dissolution
Marital expectations
Marital formation
Marital history
Marital life cycle
Marriage
Marriage markets
Marriage trends
Modern family life
Mortality
Out-of-wedlock childbirth
Poverty
Premarital household formation
Premarital households
Race
Remarriage
Sexual activity
Sexual behaviors
Sexual exclusivity
Sexual initiation
Sexual partners
Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Sexually Transmitted Infections
Shotgun marriages
Statistics
STD
STI
Survey Data
Technological innovation
Timing of marriage
Unemployment
Unilateral divorce laws
United States
Unmarried partners
Wage gap
Wage inequality
Wage structure
Wages
Demography, Population, and Ecology
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Sociology
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Abstract

We document key facts about marriage and divorce, comparing trends through the past 150 years and outcomes across demographic groups and countries. While divorce rates have risen over the past 150 years, they have been falling for the past quarter century. Marriage rates have also been falling, but more strikingly, the importance of marriage at different points in the life cycle has changed, reflecting rising age at first marriage, rising divorce followed by high remarriage rates, and a combination of increased longevity with a declining age gap between husbands and wives. Cohabitation has also become increasingly important, emerging as a widely used step on the path to marriage. Out-of-wedlock fertility has also risen, consistent with declining “shotgun marriages”. Compared with other countries, marriage maintains a central role in American life. We present evidence on some of the driving forces causing these changes in the marriage market: the rise of the birth control pill and women’s control over their own fertility; sharp changes in wage structure, including a rise in inequality and partial closing of the gender wage gap; dramatic changes in home production technologies; and the emergence of the internet as a new matching technology. We note that recent changes in family forms demand a reassessment of theories of the family and argue that consumption complementarities may be an increasingly important component of marriage. Finally, we discuss the welfare implications of these changes.

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2007-05-10
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Stevenson, Betsey, and Justin Wolfers. 2007. “Marriage and Divorce: Changes and their Driving Forces.” PSC Working Paper Series PSC 07-04.
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