perspectives on the recent upturn in divorce and remarriage

DEMOGRAPHY© Volume 10, Number 3 August 1973

PERSPECTIVES ON THE RECENT UPTURN IN DIVORCEAND REMARRIAGE

Paul C. Glick andArthur J. NortonBureau of the Census, Social and Economic Statistics Administration, U. S.Department of Commerce, Washington, D. C. 20233

Abstract-The divorce rate per thousand married women under 45 years ofage in the United States increased by two-thirds between the mid-1950'sand 1970. During the same period, the remarriage rate per thousand divorced or widowed women under 55 years of age rose about one-third. Bycontrast, first marriages per thousand single women under 45 years ofage declined by one-tenth since the mid-1950's. These changes reinforce thegeneral impression that a fundamental modification of life styles andvalues relating to marriage has been taking place. An analysis of nationwide data on birth cohorts from 1900 to 1954 demonstrates that earlymarriage has declined since the mid-1950's but leaves open the questionas to whether lifelong singleness is becoming more prevalent. The cohortstudy shows that the upward trend in divorce is not "phasing out" yet, asit did after World War II. An estimated 25 to 29 percent of all women near30 years old now have ended or will end their first marriage in divorce.About four-fifths of these divorced women have remarried or probably willdo so. Of all women around 30 years old now, some five to ten percent maybe expected to experience divorce at least twice during their lifetime.

The rising level of divorce and remarriage is documented in publications ofthe National Center for Health Statistics(1968; Platens, 1969; Hetzel and Cappetta, 1971) and in publications of theU, S. Bureau of the Census (l971a,1971b, and 1972). These sources includeanalyses of the trends in terms of annualchanges in the number of vital events orin terms of retrospective lifetime experience. The present paper treats both theannual and lifetime changes in divorceand remarriage over the last several decades. Changes in first marriage are alsopresented to provide additional perspective. Similarities and differences betweenthe annual and lifetime marriage patterns are discussed, and projections ofthe eventual level of divorce are developed for adults currently ranging in age

from their late twenties or early thirtiesto their sixties. Attention is also drawnto several demographic and nondemographic factors that may help to explainthe recent marital changes.

These "recent" changes occurred afterthe mid-1950's (Figure 1 and Table 1).This period began with an annual divorce rate far below the post World WarII peak; with the median age at marriageat an all-time low level; and with thehighest annual birth rate in several decades (T. S. Bureau of the Census, 1971b).All of these annual vital events seemedto reflect relatively stable marriage anda generally high regard for family lifc.Yet these conditions apparently gaveway to very different developments during the 1960's and early 1970's. As willbe pointed out in the following sections,

301

302 DEMOGRAPHY, volume 10, number3, August 1973

TABLE I.-Number and Rate of First Marriages, Divorces, and Remarriages: United States,Three-Year Averages, 1921 to 1971

First Marriages Divorces RemarriagesPeriod Thousands Ratea Thousands RateD Thousands Rate C

1921-23 990 99 158 10 186 981924-26 992 95 177 11 200 991927-29 1,025 94 201 12 181 841930-32 919 81 183 10 138 611933-35 1,081 92 196 11 162 691936-38 1,183 98 243 13 201 831939-41 1,312 106 269 14 254 1031942-44 1,247 108 360 17 354 1391945-47 1,540 143 526 24 425 1631948-50 1,326 134 397 17 360 1351951-53 1,190 122 388 16 370 1361954-56 1,182 120 379 15 353 1291957-59 1,128 112 381 15 359 1291960-62 1,177 116 407 16 372 1331963-65 1,323 110 452 17 404 1391966-68 1,488 110 535 20 463 1501969-71 1,604 107 702 26 569 168

a-First marriages per 1,000 single women 14 to 44 years old.b-Divorces per 1,000 married women 14 to 44 years old.c-Remarriages per 1,000 widowed and divorced women 14 to 54

years old.Sources: Computed from National Center for Health Statistics,

1968, Tables 1-1 and 2-1, and 1971a, 1971b, and 1972; U.S.Bureau of the Census, 1966, Table 3, and 1971a, 1971b, and1972. See Appendix.

however, the current phase may likewisebe viewed as only a part of a continuallyfluctuating series of marital patterns,which display less extreme variationswhen viewed in the perspective of lifetime experience.

ANNUAL EXPERIENCE RELATING TO

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE

Figure 1 shows estimated average annual first marriage, divorce, and remarriage rates for the half century between1921 and 1971. The presentation is madein terms of averages for three-year pe-

riods in order to feature the basic trends.Also, in order to improve on the analysisof crude rates (with total population asthe base), the first marriage rates werecalculated with single women under 45years old as the base, the divorce rateswith married women under 45 as thebase, and remarriage rates with widowedand divorced women under 55 as thebase. In this study, data for women arefeatured because the readily availablesource materials were subject to less fluctuation in coverage during war periodsfor women than men. The methodological

Recent Upturn in Divorce and Remarriage

appendix provides further informationon the methods and source materialsused in developing the rates.

All of the trend lines in Figure 1 showlow points during the depression years ofthe 1930's, peaks around the end ofWorld War II, and declines during thenext decade. However, a critical new development then appears. Since the mid1950's, the first marriage rates have continued to decline while the divorce andremarriage rates have risen sharply.More specifically, the first marriage ratewent down one-tenth while the divorce

303

rate went up nearly three-fourths andthe remarriage rate went up about onethird (Table 1). The continued declinein the first marriage rate reflects the increase of about one-third since 1960 inthe percent single for women at the primeages for marriage (U. S. Bureau of theCensus, 1971c, Table B). The rise in theremarriage rate per thousand widowed ordivorced women under 55 years old is alogical consequence of the sharp increasein divorce and the continuing decline inmortality through middle age. Remarriage is more than twice as likely to oc-

MarriageRate

DivorceRate

400 40

300 30

Divorce Rate

200 20

100

..'.. '....Remarriage Rate

............. .. . -»..,..'

First Marriage Rate 10

519701960195019401930

50 .....----,------,r-----..,...-----,----_-....I1920

Source: Table 1FIGURE I.-First Marriage Rates per 1,000 Single Women, Divorce Rates per 1,000 MarriedWomen, and Remarriage Rates per 1,000 Widowed or Divorced Women: United States,

Three-Year Averages, 1921 to 1971

LIFETIME EXPERIENCE RELATING TO

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE

Many of the features of the annualchanges discussed above are apparent inthe cohort data that are discussed in thissection. However, the cohort approachhas the advantage of showing cumulativeexperience, so that current fluctuationsare seen in the context of all of the experience that has occurred to the personsinvolved up to the time of the study.Some of the previous studies of divorcefrom this approach have made use ofmarriage cohorts, wherein the divorceexperience of a group is carried forwardfrom period to period after the group'sdate of marriage. For example, a studyby Ferriss (1970) shows estimated divorce rates by marriage cohorts for theperiod 1949 to 1967. Evidence of the upward movement of the divorce rates by1967 was clearly apparent. An earlierstudy covering a much longer period forEngland and Wales, 1858-1957, is reported by Rowntree and Carrier (1958).

The present study covers the first marriage, first divorce, and first remarriageexperience from 1930 to 1971 for birthcohorts of women born in 1900 to 1954.The basic data were obtained by retrospective reporting through interviewsconducted in June 1971 by the T. S. Bureau of the Census. They include information for both men and women on ageand year when their first and last marriages began; for persons whose marriages had ended, the report also presentsdata on age and year when their first and

304 DEMOGRAPHY, volume 10, number 3, August 1973

cur, age for age, among divorced women the 1960's. Developments such as theseas among widowed women (Hetzel and must have more than offset the influenceCappetta, 1971, p. 28). of several other changes that one could

The decline in the first marriage rate reasonably have expected to be associin recent years has resulted from the ated with a lowering of the divorce rate,postponement of many otherwise early such as the rising age at marriage, themarriages. Since early marriages are increasing proportion of young adultsmore often unstable than later marriages with a college education, the decline in(U. S. Bureau of the Census, 1972, Table poverty, and improvements in health inD), the postponed marriages may have dicators (Sheldon and Moore, 1968).greater stability than they would other-wise have had. But some of the marriagesmay be permanently postponed andthereby may contribute to lifetime singleness. The delay of marriage duringrecent years was occurring at a time of arelative scarcity of men of the most preferred ages for marriage, a phenomenoncalled the "marriage squeeze" (Parkeand Glick, 1967; Akers, 1967). Meanwhile, more of the young adults werecontinuing their education to the collegelevel, and millions of additional youngmen were called into military duty during the 1960's to participate in the Warin Vietnam.

The recent increase in divorce has occurred at a time when divorce laws werebeing liberalized in several states andwhen hundreds of thousands of marriedmen had been living apart from theirwives while on military duty during theWar in Vietnam. At the same time thefertility rate among women of reproductive age fell until it approached the lowlevel of the mid-1930's (T. S. Bureau ofthe Census, 1971b). The practice of obtaining a divorce where more than onechild was involved became more common(National Center for Health Statistics,1968 and 1971b). The rising proportionof the labor force who were women meantthat divorced women were generally ableto find employment to provide for theirmaintenance. All of these developmentsand others-including the imbalance between men and women of the principalages for marriage, mentioned aboveprobably have contributed directly or indirectly to the increase in divorce during


last marriages ended and on how thesemarriages ended.

Some of the questions on which thisstudy throws light are the following:What is the evidence from the information for cohorts about the changing ageat first marriage and about the proportion of adults who marry at least once intheir lifetime? Is there evidence that theproportion of adults who obtain a divorce has passed the crest and is now"phasing out"? How closely has the upturn in remarriage resembled that of divorce?

Is a decline in eventual marriagedeveloping?

The proportion of women who haveentered first marriage by a given age hasmoved generally upward during most ofthe last half century but has fluctuatedaround this general trend and is currently developing symptoms of a downturn. For the period since 1930, this maybe seen from the rather complex detailshown in Figure 2, which was plottedfrom Table C, T. S. Bureau of the Census (1972). The figure presents data forbirth cohorts of women in terms of thecumulative percent ever married throughsuccessive five-year periods that endedat the midpoint of the year shown at thebottom of the graph. Each of the upwardly sloping lines describes the firstmarriage experience from 1930 up to1970 for a cohort of women born in afive-year period between 1900 and 1954.The broken lines that cut across the vertical cohort lines are guides to facilitatethe comparison of the percent ever married by a given period in life for successive birth cohorts.

Figure 2 shows that a trough occurredin the percent ever married during thedepression years around 1935 for eachcohort of women who were under 30years old at that time. The timing ofmarriages appears to have been delayedsomewhat for all cohorts that were at or

305

near the height of first marriage in the1930's. However, the effect of the depression on the ultimate proportion who evermarried was evidently not very great, inasmuch as the lowest proportion for anyof the affected cohorts was 93 percent forthe women who were in their late twenties in 1935, and the highest was 95 percent for those under 25 in 1935. At thesame time, a permanent difference of twopercent ever married amounts to affecting by one-third to one-fourth the proportion of women who remain singlethroughout life.

The daughters born during the late depression years, by contrast, had the highest proportions ever married on record inthe rnited States. By 1970, fully 94.5percent of these women had already married even though, at only 30 to 34 yearsold, those among them who had nevermarried still had several years in whichto marry. The cohort ten years older hadraised its proportion ever married by 2.9percentage points during the 1960's. Ifthe same increment is added during the1970's for those 30 to 34 in 1970, thewomen in this cohort will set a record ofmore than 97 percent ever married beforethey reach their mid-forties.

However, among women under 30years old in 1970, declining proportionshave been marrying. Thus, the curvedline across the lower part of Figure 2demonstrates that the percent of womenin their upper teens who had alreadymarried roached a peak of 24.6 percent in1955 among those born in the late 1930'sand dropped to 16.6 percent in 1970among those born in the early 1950's-alevel almost as low as the 15.7 percentrecorded in 1935 for those born aroundthe time of World War 1.

This downturn in the proportion ofearly first marriages could eventuate ina substantial increase in Iifctime singleness, hut whether it will or not remainsto he seen. In support of this possibilityis the faet that the women in the youngest cohort to roach their early twenties

DEMOGRAPHY, volume 10, number 3, August 1973306

Percent100-r-----------------------,

--

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

-- ,/

//

//-- //---

/II/I//

"'1"/1/~I;'}/E/

c2//I<, ~--Q)

O-+---t---+----t---+---t---t----1----t----

1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970

Source: u.S. Bureau of the Census, 1972, Table C.

FIGURE 2.-Cumulative Percent Ever Married After Successive Five-Year Periods, by Yearof Birth: All Women Born in 1900 to 1954

by 1970 (those born in 1945 to 1949) hadcompensated very little by 1970 for themarriages they had postponed by 1965.Of this cohort, 69.7 percent had enteredfirst marriage by 1970 as contrasted with75.1 percent for the comparable cohortten years earlier. But the women in thecohort between the two that have just

been compared had already-by 1970regained the ground they had lost earlierin regard to early marriage. The effect ofthese developments is to make it appearto be too early to assert with confidencethat there is an impending upsurge inlifetime singleness. A fuller treatment ofthis subject is given on the basis of ear-


lier data in Chapter 10 of Carter andGlick (1970).

Is the upward trend in divorce "phasing(}lJ,t"?

This question is answered strongly inthe negative by most of the data plottedfor selected birth cohorts of women in

307

Figure 3. This graph omits some of theearlier cohorts in order to minimize thepresentation of crossing lines whichwould obscure the pattern of the data.Moreover, the vertical scale of Figure 3is inflated, as compared with Figure 2, inorder to improve the clarity of the lines.Figure 3 was plotted from Table E, U. S.

Percent20~----------------------,

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4 ~I

!if0).....

2

o-+----t---~--+-.......,r__-+_-__t_--+_-_t_-~

1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1972, Table E.

FIGURE 3.-Cumulative Percent Divorced After First Marriage, by Year of Birth: All WomenBorn in 1905 to 1954


Bureau of the Census (1972). The base divorced can be reasonably made byfor each plotted value is the total num- ascribing to these women the incrementsber of surviving women in the birth co- in divorce experience that older womenhort, regardless of their marital status at have had while they were going from 30the survey date. to 70 years of age.

For the last 30 years, the proportion of This kind of approximation, or pro-women whose first marriage ended in di- jection, was made by drawing upon thevorce by a given period of life has gone divorce experience of successively olderup consistently and, for some cohorts of cohorts of women while they were goingwomen, very sharply. To illustrate, the through the period 1960 to 1965 and thepercent divorced by their early twenties period 1965 to 1970. Since divorce inhas moved upward from only 2.1 percent creased substantially during the 1960's,for the cohort reaching this age in 1940 using data for these two periods in makto 6.3 percent for those reaching it in ing the projections gave a low and a high1970. Although these percentages are level of the expected percent divorcedsmall, the difference between them is sta- during the lifetimes of those around 30tistically significant beyond the three years old today. An illustration of thesigma level. Meantime, the percent di- steps required to make the projections isvorced by their early thirties has ad- given in the appendix. The results arevanced from 6.3 percent in 1940 to 15.8 shown in Table 2 for all cohorts coveredpercent in 1970. These figures represent in the study.a doubling or tripling of the proportions These figures show that only 12 perdivorced within a little over a generation cent of the women now in their late sixamong women in their early twenties and ties or early seventies (born in 1900early thirties. The increase in the propor- 1904) have ended their first marriage intions has been such that women in their divorce. By contrast, 18 to 21 percent ofearly twenties in 1970 were as likely to those in their forties or early fiftieshave been divorced after their first mar- today, and 25 to 29 percent of those inriage as women in their early thirties their late twenties or early thirties areback in 1940. And, in 1970, women in likely to do so-sometime during theirtheir early thirties were already as likely lives.to have been divorced after their first Another finding from the June 1971marriage as women in their early fifties. study and related research is that ap-

The increases in the percent divorced proximately five to ten percent of theafter first marriage have been especially young women (27 to 31 in 1971) may endlarge among women who were born in more than one marriage in divorce. Thus,1935 to 1944, that is, women who were if, as a conservative projection, 25 perabout 25 to 34 years old in 1970. AI- cent of the women born in 1940 to 1944though survivors among these women end their first marriage in divorce; andwill still be exposed to divorce for the if four-fifths of the divorced womennext forty years or so, they had already eventually remarry (as had occurredtallied up a larger percent divorced than among women in their sixties in 1971, acwomen who were much older. The prob- cording to Table 1, U. S. Bureau of thelem, therefore, is how to approximate the Census [1972]); and if one-fourth toeventual proportion of the 30-year-old one-half of these remarried women endwomen today who will end their first their latest marriage in divorce (themarriage in divorce so that a realistic lower figure being derived from researchcomparison can be made between them by Monahan [1958] and Glick and Norand those now 40 to 70 years old. Ap- ton [1971] and the higher figure fromproximations of this eventual proportion Glick [1973]); then, about five to ten

Recent Upturn in Divorce and Remarriage 309

TABLE 2.-Percent of Women Born Between 1900 and 1944 Whose First Marriage Had Endedin Divorce by 1971 or May Eventually End in Divorce, by Year of Birth: June 1971

Percent of Women ~Those First Marriage--

May Eventually End in Divorce, if Their

Year of Had Ended Future Divorce Experience is Similar toThat of Older Cohorts during--Birth of in Divorce

Woman by 1971 1960-65 1965-70

1940-44 13.6 25 291935-39 16.8 24 271930-34 16.0 21 231925-29 16.5 19 211920-24 16.7 18 191915-19 15.2 16 171910-14 13.8 14 151905-09 12.1 13 131900-04 11. 7 12 12

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1972, Tables E and 7. SeeAppendix.

percent of the full birth cohort of womenwill remarry after divorce and eventually end that marriage in divorce. Combining the divorces after first marriageand divorces after remarriage yields aconservative projection of 30 to 35 divorces in a lifetime per 100 women bornin 1940 to 1944 (27 to 31 years old inJune 1971). The 30 to 35 eventual divorces would have occurred to the 25women with a divorce after their firstmarriage.

H as the upturn in remarriage resembledthat of divorce?

The cohort data in Figure 4 bear testimony of a consistent 40-year upwardmovement of the proportion of womenwho have remarried by a given age, afterthe first marriage ended in divorce orwidowhood. The graph is presented forwomen who had married two times; itexcludes the small minority of womenwho had married three or more times.Figure 4 was plotted from Table H, U. S.Bureau of the Census (1972). The base

for each plotted value is the total numberof surviving women in the birth cohort,regardless of their marital status at thesurvey date.

Figure 4 shows that the proportion remarried at an early age has obviouslyadvanced both sharply and consistentlyover the last three decades, with no diminution during the last fifteen years. Atages under 25, nearly all of the remarriages follow divorces and are secondmarriages. In 1940, less than one percent(0.7 percent) of the women in their earlytwenties had remarried, but by 1970 thecorresponding proportion had reached3.5 percent. (The difference is significantbeyond the three sigma lcvel.) Likewise,nearly all of the women in their earlythirties who are in second marriages hadtheir first marriage terminated by divorce; the proportion remarried amongwomen of this age range went up from3.8 percent in 1940 to 11.1 percent in1970. In fact, among women in the June1971 survey who had married twice, evenin the oldest birth cohort (women born in

DEMOGRAPHY, volume 10, number3, August 1973310

Percent20 r-----------------------,

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

O-+-----,,....:;--""T'""---f---~-_t--_t_-_t_--t---...

1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970

Source: u.S. Bureau of the Census, 1972, Table HFIGURE 4.-Cumulative Percent Remarried After Divorce or Widowhood, by Year of Birth:

All Women Born in 1905 to 1954

1900-1904) the number who had endedthe first marriage in divorce was aboutequal to the number who had ended it inwidowhood (D. S. Bureau of the Census,1972,Table 1).

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

This paper calls attention, throughboth annual and lifetime data, to a down-

ward trend in the first marriage ratesince the mid-1950's and a simultaneousacceleration of the long-time upwardtrend in the divorce and remarriagerates. However, the annual divorce rateshave been subject to substantial cyclicalfluctuations since the mid-1930's, whereasthe lifetime proportion of marriages ending in divorce has moved consistently up-


ward among those born since 1900. Thus,the annual divorce rate per 1,000 marriedwomen 14 to 44 years old reached a verylow level during the depression (10), ahigh level after the end of World War II(24), another low level in the mid-1950's(15), and now recently another highlevel (26).

By contrast, the cumulative divorceexperience during the lifetime of successive cohorts of women born since 1900has gone up steadily: only 12 percent ofthe first marriages of women born in1900 to 1904 are expected to end eventually in divorce, as compared with 18 or19 percent of those for women born in1920 to 1924 and 25 to 29 percent forwomen born in 1940 to 1944. The singlemost important conclusion from the June1971 study, in the opinion of the authors,is that between one in four and one inthree women around 30 years old todayare likely to experience divorce duringtheir lifetime. Moreover, five to ten percent of the thirty-year-old women arelikely to obtain a second divorce.

The survey results presented in thisstudy are considered statistically sound.However, where they have been used toextend the perspective into the future,assumptions were made about the applicability of recent divorce experience ofolder women to project the future divorceexperience for younger women with several more years of exposure to the risk ofdivorce. Thus, the projections of eventualdivorce may be too high if the upturn indivorce during the 1960's turns out tohave been largely the consequence of therecent liberalization of divorce laws; thisdevelopment may have eased the divorceprocess and thereby had the effect ofmerely advancing the time when someof the divorces occurred. Or, the projections may be too low if the divorceexperience of the older cohorts, used inmaking the projections, proves to havebeen too conservative; the older cohortshave had a history of lower divorce thanthe women around 30 years of age who

311

are featured here. In the meantime, thenumber of divorces has been going upclose to ten percent per year for fiveyears through 1972, while the number ofmarried persons under 45 (who havemost of the divorces) has risen onlyabout one percent per year. This wide adisparity between the two variables cannot continue indefinitely. A levelling offor decline in the divorce rate must comesometime, but such a change is stillawaited.

ApPENDIX

First marriage and remarriage rates

For the years 1920 to 1959, the published number of marriages for each yearwas obtained from Vital Statistics of theUnited States published by the NationalCenter for Health Statistics (1968).These data were used as the point ofdeparture in estimating the numbers offirst marriages and remarriages. Table 3of the 1960 Census report, Age at FirstMarriage (r.s. Bureau of the Census,1966), showed the number of survivorswho had entered first marriage at specified ages during individual calendaryears from 1920 to 1959. The numbers ofsurvivors in 1960 from marriages in the1920's and 1930's were augmented by theuse of survival values from life tablesfor 1940 to estimate the original numbers of first marriages in those 20 years.Similarly, survival values from life tablesfor 1950 were used to estimate originalfirst marriages in the 1940's and 1950's.The estimated numbers of first marriagesthat were derived were subtracted fromthe corresponding total numbers of marriages to obtain estimated numbers ofremarriages for each year from 1920 to1959.

For the years 1960 to 1971, the CensusBureau's Current Population Surveyprovided the basic source material usedto divide total marriages into first marriages and remarriages. The March 1969,1970, and 1971 Current Population Re-


ports on marital status (U. S. Bureau ofthe Census, 1970, 1971a, and 1971c) contained tables on year of first marriagethat were used to estimate the numbersof first marriages for each year from1964 to 1969 (but those for 1968 and1969 were revised as explained below).These numbers were subtracted fromNCHS figures on total marriages to estimate the numbers of remarriages forthose years. At this stage, the percentageof all marriages that were first marriageswas available for 1920 to 1959 and for1964 to 1969 to provide a basis forbridging the gap for 1960 to 1963. Thisbridging was done by interpolating thepercentage of marriages that were firstmarriages for these four years; the interpolated percentages were used to derive estimates of first marriages forthese years, and estimates of remarriageswere then obtained by subtraction offirst marriages from total marriages.

Special adj ustments were made in thefirst marriage percentages for 1968 and1969 because the CPS data for the twoyears showed five to six percentagepoints lower proportions of marriagesthat were first marriages than the vitalstatistics data showed (whereas for 1964to 1967 the two sources showed consistently much closer proportions). Theadjustments amounted to averaging theCPS and vital statistics proportions for1968 and for 1969. For the years 1970and 1971, no means of estimating thepercentage of marriages that were firstmarriages was available; therefore, theaverage value for 1969 was used forthese two years. The estimates of firstmarriages thus obtained were subtractedfrom total marriages as published by theNCHS to round out the series of estimates of the number of remarriages foreach year up through 1971.

Bases for the first marriage rates werethe estimated numbers of single (nevermarried) women 14 to 44 years old.These numbers were obtained for datesfrom 1920 to 1959 by interpolation be-

tween numbers shown in the decennialcensuses, and those for dates from 1960to 1971 were obtained from the CurrentPopulation Survey. Bases for the divorcerates were the estimated numbers ofmarried women 14 to 44 years old, andbases for the remarriage rates were theestimated numbers of widowed and divorced women 14 to 54 years old; thesebase numbers were obtained from thesame sources with the use of the samemethods as those used in obtaining basesfor the first marriage rates.

Women of the specified age rangeswere used as the bases for the rates because these ranges included most of thewomen to whom the relevant events hadoccurred. According to vital statisticsfor 1967, 99 percent of first marriagesand 85 percent of divorces occurred towomen under 45 years of age, and 81 percent of remarriages occurred to womenunder 55 years old. Omitting olderwomen from the bases has the effect ofmaking the rates more responsive tochanges.

Projection of proportion of womendivorced

The projections of women whose firstmarriage ended in divorce were made byassuming that future increments to theproportions divorced for these youngwomen would be the same amount asthose for successively older cohorts ofwomen as they passed through the 1960's.The following exhibit shows the stepsthat were taken in making one of theseprojections for women who were born in1940 to 1944 and who were thereforeabout 27 to 31 years old at the surveydate in 1971. The basic data are fromTables 1 and 5, T. S. Bureau of theCensus (1972). This particular projection assumes that the future divorce experience of these women will producesubsequent incremental percentages divorced that are the same as those forolder cohorts of women during the highdivorce period of 1965 to 1970.


13.6 percent of all women 27 to 31 in1971 had ended a first marriagein divorce. This group is designated Cohort A.

5.3 percent more of the women whowere 25 to 29 in 1965 were divorced five years later whenthey were 30 to 34 years old in1970.

18.9 estimated percent divorced forCohort A by 1976 at age 32 to36.

3.7 percent more women 30 to 34 in1965 were divorced by 1970.












0.4 percent more women 60 to 64 in1965 Were divorced by 1970.


313

Since the divorce level between 1965and 1970 on which this projection isbased may have been higher, on theaverage, than the level in the near future, a lower projection was made by thesame procedure on the basis of incremental percentages divorced between1960 and 1965, when the level of divorceswas considerably lower than in 1965 to1970 and much more like that of thelate 1950's. This projection showed that24.5 percent of the women born in 1940to 1944 would eventually end their firstmarriage in divorce if their future divorce experience is parallel to that ofolder cohorts during the period 1960 to1965. Corresponding eventual percentages divorced are presented for otherbirth cohorts of women in connectionwith the discussion of Figure 3.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This is a revision of a paper presentedat the annual meeting of the PopulationAssociation of America in Toronto, April13-15, 1972. Funds in support of thatpart of the study which was based ondata from the Current Population Survey for June 1971 were provided by theNational Institute of Child Health andHuman Development, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health,Education, and Welfare. The authorswish to acknowledge the critical comments by Judith Blake Davis on an earlydraft of the paper, which were takeninto account in preparing the revision.Other helpful reactions were receivedfrom Hugh Carter and Carl E. Ortmeyer.Wilson H. Grabill assisted in designingthe tabulations.

REFERENCES

Akers, Donald S. 1967. On Measuring the Marriage Squeeze. Demography 4 :907-924.

Carter, Hugh, and Paul C Glick. 1970. Marriage and Divorer-: A Social and EconomicStudy. Carnbndgo : Harvard "University Press.

Ferriss, Abhot.t L. 1970. Indicators of Changein the American Family. New York: RussellSage Foundation.


Glick, Paul C. 1973. Dissolution of Marriageby Divorce and Its Demographic Consequences. A paper prepared for the GeneralConference of the International Society forthe Scientific Study of Population, Liege,Belgium, August 27-September 1, 1973.

--, and Arthur J. Norton. 1971. Frequency,Duration, and Probability of Marriage andDivorce. Journal of Marriage and the Family33:307-317.

Hetzel, Alice M., and Marlene Cappetta. 1971.Marriages: Trends and Characteristics. Vitaland Health Statistics, Series 21, No. 21.National Center for Health Statistics. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office.

Jacobson, Paul H. 1949. Total Marital Dissolutions in the United States: The RelativeImportance of Mortality and Divorce. InGeorge F. Mair (cd.) , Studies in Population.Princeton: Princeton 'University Press.

Monahan, Thomas P. 1958. The ChangingNature and Instability of Remarriage.Eugenics Quarterly 5 :73-85.

National Center for Health Statistics. 1968.Vital Statistics of the United States: 1965.Vol. III, Marriage and Divorce. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office.

1971a. Marriage Statistics: 1969.Monthly Vital Statistics Report, Vol. 20, No.4, Supplement 1.

--. 1971b.Divorce Statistics: 1969. MonthlyVital Statistics Report, Vol. 20, No.4,Supplement 2.

--. 1972. Annual Summary for the UnitedStates: 1971. Births, Deaths, Marriages, andDivorces. Monthly Vital Statistics Report,Vol. 20, No. 13.

--. 1973. Births, Marriages, Divorces, andDeaths for 1972. Monthly Vital StatisticsReport, Vol. 21, No. 12.

Parke, Robert, Jr., and Paul C. Glick. 1967.Prospective Changes in Marriage and theFamily. Journal of Marriage and the Family29:249-256.

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perspectives on the recent upturn in divorce and remarriage

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