Changing Marriage Patterns Reflect Economics and Class

New researchshows that women are getting married at later ages – and that the divorce rate is going down. The results reflect some good news — later marriages are more likely to last. Most importantly, however, these figures correlate with widespread changes in the American family.

First, the decrease in the divorce rate does at least in part reflect later marriages. Teen marriages have always been risky and most studies suggest that the increase in maturity from the teen years to the early twenties bodes well for the stability of relationships. Delay from the early twenties to the late twenties and thirties, however, is more controversial. While these later marriages are also more likely to last, economist Stephane Mechoulan found that the increase in the age of marriage in itself accounts for only a small part of the falling divorce rates. Instead, they reflect the increasing tendency of the well-off to marry similarly well-off partners and those marriages are more likely to last at any age.

Second, the overall statistics hide the class-based dynamics at the core of the shift. Historically, college educated women were less likely to marry than high school graduates. Today, male and female college graduates have become substantially more likely to marry (and stay married). At the same time, marriage has effectively disappeared from the poorest communities. In the middle, pregnant teens like Bristol Palin have become much less likely to marry the fathers of their children. It is hardly surprising therefore that overall divorce rates have fallen as the highest divorce risks (pregnant teens among them) have become much less likely to marry.

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