Volume 40 - Article 52 | Pages 1529–1536  

Incidence of first-marriage divorce among women in the 1979 panel of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth

By Lowell Hargens

Abstract

Objective: This study seeks to determine whether the likelihood of first-marriage divorce among a cohort of women who have been adults during the years of the US 'divorce plateau' matches the level implied by period rates of first-marriage divorce during those years.

Methods: I use marital histories for women in the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) to examine the current status of their first marriages and also carry out a survival analysis that takes into account right censoring and the competing risks of death and widowhood.

Results: It is likely that at least half of the first marriages of the women in the NLSY79 sample have already ended in divorce, a level notably higher than those implied by analyses based on period rates.

Contribution: This is the first study to examine the marital histories of a cohort US women who are now in their late 50s and the first to show a level of first-marriage divorce exceeding 50%. It also suggests that the pattern of change in US age-specific divorce rates over that past four decades accounts for the higher than expected level of first-marriage divorce shown by the NLSY79 women.

Author’s Affiliation

• Lowell Hargens - University of Washington, United States of America EMAIL

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Decomposing delayed first marriage and birth across cohorts: The role of increased employment instability among men in Japan
Volume 52 - Article 21    | Keywords: cohort analysis, delayed effects, delayed marriage, delayed parenthood, Japan, precarious employment

Decriminalization of adultery likely changed women’s views on divorce following spousal infidelity in South Korea
Volume 52 - Article 4    | Keywords: adultery law, divorce, Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women’s Families, marriage law, South Korea

Educational trends in cohort fertility by birth order: A comparison of England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland
Volume 51 - Article 36    | Keywords: birth order, cohort analysis, cross-national study, England, family size, fertility, Northern Ireland, parity, Scotland, Wales

Between money and intimacy: Brideprice, marriage, and women’s position in contemporary China
Volume 50 - Article 46    | Keywords: brideprice, China, divorce, family, family law, gender inequalities, marriage

Cohort fertility of immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union
Volume 50 - Article 13    | Keywords: age at first birth, assimilation, cohort analysis, fertility, immigration, parity, religiosity