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The social inheritance of divorce is one factor contributing to the upward trend in marriage dissolution rates during the last few decades. Several studies confirm the transmission hypothesis for U.S. marriages. We investigate the intergenerational transmission of divorce risk among German first marriages using multivariate event-history techniques. Our data are from the 7,200 respondents of the German Family Survey. The historical circumstances of postwar Germany allow a comparison between families dissolved by war and families dissolved by divorce. Respondents whose parental families dissolved by the death of a parent have only slightly higher divorce risks than respondents who grew up in two-parent families. There is, however, a large gap in marital instability for respondents from divorced-parent families compared with respondents from two-parent families and families with a widowed parent. Hence, the inheritance of divorce cannot be explained simply by the absence of a parent. The data suggest that differences in personal investments in the marriage partnership may partially explain the transmission effect.

In this article I argue that public discussions of demographic issues are often conducted in a troubling pattern in which one extreme position is debated in relation to the opposite extreme. This pattern impedes our understanding of social problems and is a poor guide to sound public policies. To illustrate this thesis I use the case of social scientific research examining how children are affected by not living with two biological parents while they are growing up. Over the last decade, I maintain, most of the public, and even many social scientists, have been puzzled and poorly informed by this debate. In particular I consider Judith Wallerstein's clinically based claims of the pervasive, profound harm caused by divorce and, at the other extreme, Judith Rich Harris's reading of behavioral genetics and evolutionary psychology, which leads her to dismiss the direct effects of divorce. Neither extreme gives a clear picture of the consequences of growing up in a single-parent family or a stepfamily.

The theme of relationships and the family continues in our face-to-face debate on divorce. Polly Toynbee, distinguished journalist, and Sheila Lawlor, Director of Politeia, a think-tank for social and economic […]

The present investigation examined the impact of custody arrangements on levels of parent-child involvement following divorce drawing upon data from the National Survey of Families and Households. Analyses using 186 custodial mothers and 31 custodial fathers indicated that differences in the number of days of custody that parents were awarded were not related to levels of parent-child involvement. In addition, both mothers and fathers were found to be equally involved with their sons and daughters following divorce. Possible explanations for these findings as well as policy, and clinical implications are discussed.

The study examined the effect of divorce on working class African American working women, 40% of whom were battered wives. Face-to-face interviews were used to explore in-depth and describe the predivorce, divorce, and post-divorce phases from the women's perspectives. The semi-structured interviews focused on the women's ability to adapt to divorce on six areas of functioning: emotional, interpersonal, financial, parental, occupational, and educational. The findings demonstrate a marked improvement from the predivorce to post-divorce phase of divorce adjustment on all areas of functioning, except financial. The post-divorce financial problems faced by African American working women were the result of low salaries, lack of child support payments, and lack of alimony. The women had a wide range of supportive cultural networks, such as their strong faith in God, close family relationships, strong achievement orientation (50% returned to college), and their improved occupational functioning, which enabled them to adjust better to divorce. Sixty percent of the women found the social work services as the most helpful support network.

The rise in divorce rate among the Japanese can be taken as a sign of growing personal independence and self-reliance as a result of increased emphasis on love and fulfillment as a yardstick of a successful marriage. The more conventional Japanese, however, opt to follow social conventions and the will of the majority since doing so is deemed more acceptable and more convenient and does not necessitate stressful criticism from outsiders. Further rise in divorce cases is directly proportional to opportunities in the job market.

Divorce necessitates a complex re-allocation of persons and resources, and is inevitably accompanied by a transformation of the meanings of relationships between previously co-resident and intimate kin. This article considers ethnographic data collected among divorcing men and women in Britain and adopts a Maussian view of exchange in order to understand the cultural dimensions of divorce in more depth. I argue that divorcing men and women express discontinuities and continuities in their relationships by means of particular kinds of exchanges. What is of particular interest is the way that former husbands and wives place discrepant and conflicting constructions on the transfer of money and material goods between them and between themselves and their children. The article illustrates these points by examining the conflicts between fathers, mothers and their children over the emotional and economic significance of particular transactions., The idea of the nuclear family household has provided a central theme in academic as well as popular thinking about society and personal relationships in Western industrialized societies. The nuclear [...]

Divorce has a negative effect on children and taxpayers. The prevention of this problem is dependent on governmental laws and private efforts to enhance family relations. In addition, the prevalence of divorce increased the demand for divorce lawyers and therapists., Beyond its high frequency and probability, a wide range of evidence supports the proposition that divorce has become normative in American society. A cursory sampling of this evidence includes the [...]

Mothers who accuse their ex-husbands of child sexual abuse are often disbelieved by representatives of the law and social services. In some cases they are seen as making false accusations to punish their former partners. Social workers should be careful to treat each case on its own merits and not to rely on literature on the subject, which has not always been fully researched. In some articles the mother is seen as a collusive partner in the abuse therefore as guilty as the perpetrator whilst others suggest that mothers who report abuse are mentally unstable.

A study of nations of the world in 1980 found that national divorce rates were predicted primarily by a cluster of variables measuring development. In contrast, national marriage rates were predicted by development, militarism, rapid economic growth and size.

This study examined the relationship between social support and the everyday stress experienced by 139 individuals whose marriages had recently ended. Social support was measured by the Interview Schedule for Social Interactions (ISSI) which provides indices of community integration and attachment to close friends and family. Everyday stress was measured by a scale designed to be sensitive to the everyday stressors experienced by this category of people. Stress was inversely related to both indices of social support although more strongly to close attachment than community integration. The possible stress prevention role of social support in the post-separation period is discussed.

This paper investigates the current nature of the institution of marriage and the practice of divorce in Japan with reference to historical trends and shows a special concern for legal and ethical issues affecting the status of the custodial parent and the serious matter of support, Attention is drawn to the generalized outcome of the divorce process in Japan and the need for reform.

The purpose of this analysis is to examine the determinants of postdivorce contact between nonresidential fathers and their children after marital disruption and to evaluate the relative merit of three sociological perspectives on postdivorce contact: (a) social parenting, (b) marital-involvement parenting, and (c) socioeconomic-advantaged parenting. The results suggest that fathers have limited contact with their children postdivorce that decreases over time. The fathers' socioeconomic characteristics appear to temper this reduction in fathers' involvement with their children after marital disruption. As fathers develop new relationships postdivorce, their level of involvement with their children is reduced, whereas mothers' remarriage only affects the probability of fathers' having weekly contact with their children. For the most part, characteristics of the children, their mothers, and the former marriages, which ordinarily are positively associated with paternal involvement during marriage, did not affect the level of postdivorce visitation. Noncustodial fathers, however, were more likely to see young children every week than were fathers of school-age children.

This article suggests that in a society experiencing economic and political upheaval, marriage, and especially the language used to talk about marital breakdown, was placed at the forefront of an attempt to bolster the idea of the sexual balance of power and proper gender role division. An analysis of the depositions presented at divorce cases in one court in the Prussian Rhine Province between 1814 and 1871 demonstrates that social organization was dependent on sexual and productive categories, which in turn held the key to marital stability. Those couples who appeared in the divorce court illustrate how gender relations within marriage were being negotiated and contested around these two poles and how abusive language and violence were used to reassert or undermine power and authority within the marriage relationship., In November 1833 Anna Bletschen, wife of the blacksmith Matthias, filed for a divorce in the Cleve lower court under Article 231 of the French civil code, which permitted divorce [...]

Cherlin (1978) argued that remarriages are less successful than first marriages because remarriage is an incomplete institution. Cherlin's views have been very influential in the 1990s. These views have been incorporated into over 20 recent works on marriage and the family, they have been incorporated into three therapeutic programs for remarriages, and they are frequently cited in marriage and the family textbooks. This paper demonstrates that there is no sound empirical basis for the acceptance of Cherlin's influential views. Specifically, it demonstrates that there is no convincing empirical evidence that: (a) remarriages are less successful than first marriages, (b) remarriage is an incomplete institution, or (e) incompletely institutionalized family roles are a source of problems in remarriages. This paper also discusses the most important implications of the lack of empirical support for Cherlin's views and offers suggestions for future research.

The discernible effects of parental divorce on young adults were investigated by contrasting two large samples of university undergraduates, children of parents who were either in intact marriages or divorced after the student was five years old. Men and women reacted to parental divorce quite differently, but overall, relatively few significant differences were found between the children of divorced and intact parents. Those differences that were found suggest that women may be more adversely affected by their parents' divorces than men. In addition to examining traditionally assessed variables in divorce research, a number of variables were examined that had rarely been previously assessed, including risk-taking behavior, social support, attachment style, locus of control, and ego-identity status. Among these measures, attachment style and ego-identity status seem unusually promising and deserving of further study.

Poor relationship between parents and children can be the outcome of strained relations in marriage, prior to divorce. Several problems, considered to be the outcome of divorce, exist prior to marital separation. While relations between children and noncustodial parents decrease with time, relations between children and their custodial parents also cause tensions. The significance of divorce is greater for fathers than for mothers, which explains the unique nature of fathers' affection to children.

Visitation problems after divorce are extremely common for both residential and nonresidential parents. Both the parents find little relation between the visitation problems and the amount of visitation. The perception of the residential parents is related to emotional stress about the divorce in its early stages and concern over the parenting ability of the ex-spouses. Their perception of the problem also relates to the children being spoiled and the visiting parent being a bad influence during visitation. Nonresident parents relate problems to the little cooperation of the residential parents regarding visitation.

A study shows that young adults whose parents are divorced could lead a normal married life. Early homeleaving and sexual activity are common effects of parental divorce in childhood. The young adults also get involved in sexual relationships outside marriage. The effects of parental marital discord are more pronounced when divorce occurs in middle childhood than in early adolescence. Details of the study and an analysis of the results are given.

This study examined the impact of perceived parental deception regarding impending divorce on subsequent communication satisfaction with parents and self esteem. Responses from 131 students from divorced and 200 from intact families were compared. Respondents who reported feeling deceived reported lower levels of communication satisfaction with their mothers than those who had not felt deceived. Self-esteem was negatively related to perceptions of parental deception at the time of divorce. Communication satisfaction with mothers vs. fathers differed for intact versus divorced families.

The effects of parental marital quality, divorce and remarriage on interdependence between children and parents were analyzed. Low marital quality decreased children's reliance on parents. Divorce, on the other hand, lowered interdependence between fathers and children but not between mothers and children. Remarried mothers were as helpful as first-married mothers but received less assistance from their children.

Social and economic pressures are the major factors leading to marital discord and subsequent separation in African-American couples. This conclusion was drawn after probing interviews of working and middle class men of black origin. Bickerings in the family were perceived as a result of the financial crunch due to temporary unemployment, squandering of money by either couple, inability to cope with social isolation, and disagreement over religious commitments.

Older parents continue to function as family resources to their adult children, especially when these children are coping with major life problems. Fifty-two parents (54 to 87 years of age), were asked to reflect upon ways in which they were helpful to their children during the dissolution of their children's marriages. Taxonomical analyses of the qualitative data revealed that virtually all of the parents aided their children in one way or another. Although parents provided advice sparingly and with some trepidation, most freely offered emotional support. Frequently cited modes of instrumental assistance included provision of financial support for basic needs, attorney fees, or mortgage payments; housing; and childcare.

Divorce within a family is a well researched practice phenomenon that has tended to primarily focus on the nuclear family. However, in the family counselling literature there is a lack of a detailed examination of the effect of the adult child's divorce on the grandparent-grandchild relationship and other family system levels. In particular, paternal grandparents are viewed as being at high risk for losing contact with grandchildren when the child-in-law is the custodial mother. It is suggested that the disengaged grandparent phenomenon is more widespread than previously believed, and this has serious implications for counsellors and mediators in the field of family divorce.

Cross-sectional studies show that adults who grew up in conflict-ridden two-parent families or who experienced parental divorce report lower levels of psychological and marital well-being than do other adults. However, previous research has been unable to determine how parental marital conflict, divorce, and children's long-term outcomes are related. Using a 12-year longitudinal study, we find that the consequences of parental divorce depend on parental marital conflict prior to divorce. In high-conflict families, children have higher levels of well-being as young adults if their parents divorced than if they stayed together. But in low-conflict families, children have higher levels of well-being if their parents stayed together than if they divorced. In marriages that do not end in divorce, parental marital conflict is negatively associated with the well-being of offspring., Each year in the U.S., approximately one million children experience parental divorce (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1992). Social scientists have attempted to determine the consequences of marital dissolution for [...]

Introduction One of the most profound changes in the pattern of 'family life' in the western world in recent times has been the increasing number of marriages that end in [...]

A study of the relationship between divorce and alcohol consumption using Moscow Oblast Survey on a Russian sample showed that marital status has a mitigating effect on alcohol consumption. Divorcee and single persons showed a higher level of alcohol consumption irrespective of gender, religiosity and educational achievements. Although macrosociological aspects such as consumer goods scarcity were considered the only influences on alcohol consumption, the present study showed that the Russian model has many similarities to the Western model.

Combining Pargament's (1990) theoretical framework of religion and coping with Spilka, Shaver, and Kirkpatrick's (1985) attributional theory to explain the role of religious causal attributions in coping with stress, this study extends the existing understanding of religion's role in coping with stress. We surveyed 131 university students who had experienced their parents' divorce during their own adolescence. Retrospective religious causal attributions predicted coping activities - especially religious coping - beyond measures of religiosity. Religious casual attributions may uniquely influence how people cope with stress.

The effects of religion and divorce on suicide rates are examined for metropolitan areas in 1980. The role of Catholic church membership has both direct and indirect effects on suicide rates; the indirect effects are mediated through the divorce rate. In contrast, Protestant church membership is not related statistically to suicide. Although total church membership is negatively related to suicide, denominational effects remain important.

This article identifies predivorce individual and family characteristics that explain a portion of the effect of parental separation on the long-term well-being of children. Using longitudinal data from the National Survey of Children (NSC), the authors discuss how much of the relationship between a separation and measures of adult well-being (including educational and economic attainment, patterns of family formation, delinquency, and psychological well-being) is due to selectivity of parents into more fragile marriages and to family conflict that often precedes the physical departure of a parent from the household. The results of the study indicate that divorce is associated with some outcomes, although much of its putative effect diminishes when predivorce factors are accounted for. The authors suggest that researchers give more careful consideration to the processes leading up to a separation as part of the divorce experience of children.

This study integrates social exchange theory and the literature on stressful life events into a life-course approach to women's marital duration. We hypothesize that circumstances facilitating a successful transition into marriage have a cumulative effect, enhancing the likelihood of increased marital duration. By contrast, factors easing the transition to divorce have a negative impact on marital duration. We draw on a sample of 313 wives and mothers in an upstate New York community interviewed in 1956 and reinterviewed thirty years later. We find that structural factors (marital duration and previous marriage) and factors that increase women's options outside of marriage, such as self-esteem and returning to school, are more important than attitudinal factors in hastening the transition to divorce. Factors that ease the transition to marriage (similarity in religious beliefs and educational level) may not necessarily affect its duration.

An analysis of the influence of gender on the perception of divorce and marriage in West Germany, the US, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Italy and Australia reveals that gender influences attitudes toward divorce but not toward marriage. Women, more than men, favor divorce. Age influences attitudes toward marriage because older people support the institution of marriage more than the younger generation does.

A study of the relationship between wives' employment and marital problems using a 1983-1984 Canadian Fertility Survey of 5,315 women, after repressing religious and other sociodemographic factors, reveals that wives' employment positively affected their attitude to divorce. The less educated, employed and religious consider marriage permanent and contemplate divorce only under dire conditions. The permanency of marriage is reinforced among couples with different religious orientations and remains unaffected by factors such as age, children and occupation.