Even with the limits, the newest Essential Statistics provides the ideal available data with which to help you guess the fresh new federal split up rate inside 1990. S. Census Bureau staff reveals that marital occurrences studies regarding ACS and you can You.S. Vital Statistics (for instance the DRA take to) is comparable ( Elliott mais aussi al., 2010). Rates for more modern times are not you are able to just like the government authorities left behind the fresh type of vital analytics to the marriages and you can divorces on condition level when you look at the 1996.
In order that the answers are robust, we did an extra investigation by limiting brand new 2010 ACS research to simply the DRA decide to try says wherein years at the lifetime of splitting up try advertised when you look at the 1990. The outcomes from this supplemental data are almost just like men and women in line with the whole country, suggesting that the rise in the fresh breakup speed is not a keen artifact away from in addition to ACS study from all of the says.
Analytical Method
Our approach is primarily descriptive as we aim to provide trend data on divorce and to identify the factors associated with divorce among today’s middle-aged and older adults. All results are presented for the total sample and separately for middle-aged (aged 50–64) and older (aged 65 and older) adults to assess whether there is cohort variation. To begin, we calculate the 1990 and 2010 divorce rates (and numbers of divorces) to determine whether the risk of divorce has increased over the past two divorce rates for various subgroups to show how the likelihood of divorce varies by sociodemographic factors (demographic characteristics, economic resources, and the marital biography). Next, we present bivariate comparisons of those who divorced versus remained e sets of factors. Finally, we estimate logistic regression models to examine how demographic characteristics, economic resources, and the marital biography are related to divorcing in the past 12 months (coded 1) versus remaining married (coded 0). Individuals who experienced widowhood in the past 12 months are included in the remained married category because they were at risk of divorce in the past 12 months. Excluding them from the analysis produced substantively similar findings (results not shown). These models provide correlational evidence only; divorces took place during the past 12 months, whereas the sociodemographic characteristics are measured at interview. Factors associated with the likelihood of divorce, such as employment or income, may have changed in response to divorce. Thus, interpretation of the findings requires caution. All analyses were conducted using replicate weighting techniques as recommended by the U.S. Census Bureau to generate robust standard errors because the ACS involves a complex sampling design ( U.S. Census Bureau, 2009). Given the large sample size of the ACS, we imposed a stringent threshold for statistical significance: a two-tailed p
R esults
Given that revealed in Shape step one, the divorce case price has actually twofold as the 1990, rising from cuatro.nine so you’re able to ten.step one separated individuals for every 1,000 married persons. So it trend belies the entire pattern from the U.S. divorce price during this time period, which was basically flat during the 19.0 within the 1990 and you may 17.9 this current year (effects perhaps not found). Brand new doubling of your rate out-of split up certainly center-old and you may older adults results in a hefty rise in the fresh new number of individuals old fifty and you will elderly who experience divorce. In the 1990, as much as 206,007 people aged fifty and old had separated, whereas this season from the 643,152 had divorced. So you can contextualize which trend, imagine you to definitely fewer than 1 in 10 persons which divorced in 1990 is actually old 50 and you can earlier weighed against more than step 1 in the 4 now (result maybe not found). Additionally, whenever the latest divorce proceedings speed stays lingering across the 2nd two decades-a traditional expectation in accordance with the previous development-how many individuals old fifty and you may more mature who experience breakup during the 2030 manage increase of the one-third to over 828,380 (authors’ computation centered on decades-certain estimated people sizes from inside the 2030 [ U.S. Census Bureau, 2004]), showing the fresh new speeding up development in brand new older human population that may exists along the next twenty years.