Despite the restrictions, this new Essential Statistics supplies the ideal available analysis with which so you’re able to estimate the brand new federal breakup rates for the 1990. S. Census Agency teams shows that relationship incidents analysis about ACS and you will You.S. Important Statistics (including the DRA attempt) is actually equivalent ( Elliott et al., 2010). Quotes for more modern times aren’t you can because federal government abandoned this new line of essential analytics with the marriage ceremonies and divorces on state peak during the 1996.
To ensure all of our email address details are powerful, we did a supplemental studies of the restricting the fresh 2010 ACS data to only the fresh DRA try says which ages from the lifetime of breakup are stated during the 1990. The outcomes out of this supplemental research are almost identical to people according to the whole country, indicating that boost in brand new separation speed isn’t an enthusiastic artifact of plus ACS study out of the says.
Analytic Approach
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
Roentgen esults
Because the found in the Shape step one, the brand new separation and divorce rate enjoys twofold as the 1990, rising out of 4.9 so you’re able to 10.step one divorced individuals each 1,000 hitched individuals. This trend belies all round trend from the You.S. divorce rates during this time, which had been essentially flat at the 19.0 inside 1990 and you will 17.9 this season (results not revealed). The fresh increasing of the price from split up among center-aged and you will older adults translates into a hefty increase in the brand new number of individuals aged fifty and more mature whom experience divorce case. Inside the 1990, as much as 206,007 individuals old 50 and you can older got divorced, while this year regarding 643,152 had separated. So you can contextualize this trend, think one to less than one in 10 people just who separated within the 1990 was aged fifty and you can elderly in contrast to more step 1 within the 4 morsian Romanian today (impact not revealed). In addition, of course brand new divorce or separation speed remains lingering along side second twenty years-a conventional presumption according to research by the recent development-the amount of people aged fifty and you will older who would experience splitting up in the 2030 carry out increase of the 1 / 3 to help you over 828,380 (authors’ formula based on age-particular estimated society systems during the 2030 [ U.S. Census Bureau, 2004]), reflecting brand new quickening growth in brand new elderly population that may occur along side second twenty years.