Steven Ruggles - University of Minnesota
The Deterioration of Divorce Statistics, the Rise of Divorce, and the Impact of Cohabitation on Union Dissolution, 1980-2011
Date: 01/10/2013 (Thu)
Time: 3:30pm- 5:00pm
Location: Seminar will be held on-site: Social Sciences 111
Organizer: Matt Bradshaw
Meeting Schedule: Login or email the organizer to schedule a meeting.
All meetings will be held in the same location as the seminar unless otherwise noted.
*** - All meetings (unless otherwise noted) will be in 213 Soc-Sci - ***
9:45am - Pick-Up at Washington Duke (Seth Sanders)
10:00am - Seth Sanders
10:45am - Jacob Morad
11:15am - Melanie Sereny and Heather Rackin
11:45am - Walk to Faculty Commons: Heather Rackin
12:00pm - Lunch (Faculty Commons) Jake Vigdor...
1:00pm - Meet w/ DuPRI Students Marina Mileo Gorsuch
1:45pm - Christina Gibson-Davis
2:15pm - Matt Bradshaw
2:45pm - l
3:15pm - Seminar Prep (111 Soc-Sci)
3:30pm - Seminar Presentation (3:30pm to 5:00pm)
5:00pm - Ride to Washington Duke (Matt Bradshaw)
6:00pm - Dinner: Seth Sanders, Thavolia Glymph (Pick-up at 6PM at Wash Duke)
Additional Comments: ABSTRACT: This paper critically evaluates available data on divorce and the dissolution of cohabiting unions. We find that both vital statistics and retrospective survey data on divorce after 1990 are deeply flawed, and have greatly underestimated recent marital instability. These flawed data led many analysts to conclude that divorce risk has been stable or declining for the past three decades. Using new data from the American Community Survey and controlling for changes in the composition of the married population, we conclude that there was actually a substantial increase in divorce risk between 1990 and 2008. Divorce rates have declined over the past two decades among persons under 30, but have increased among those over age 35. The post-war baby boom generation has had consistently high divorce rates from the outset, and as this generation ages we expect that overall divorce rates will begin to decline in coming decades. Lower divorce among persons born since 1980 may reflect increasing selectivity of marriage. Even among the youngest cohorts, however, the decline in divorce risk is more than offset by the increasing number of dissolutions of cohabiting unions. Thus, divorce risk has risen sharply in recent years, but if current trends continue it will level off and begin to decline over the next few decades. Nevertheless, we expect that overall union instability will continue to increase because of the rise of cohabitation.