14.3 Challenges Families Face - Introduction to Sociology 3e | OpenStax

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• This is vastly different than IPV abuse patterns for men,

• About 15 percent of all married couples involve one partner who is in their second marriage while the other partner is in their first marriage.

• divorce was generally uncommon, affecting only 9.1 out of every 1,000 married persons.

• divorce rates have dropped steadily and are now similar to those in 1970

• The dramatic increase in divorce rates after the 1960s has been associated with the liberalization of divorce laws, as well as the shift in societal makeup due to women increasingly entering the workforce

• decrease in divorce rates can be attributed to three probable factors:

• First, an increase in the age at which people get married, and second, an increased level of education among those who marry—both of which have been found to promote greater marital stability. The third factor is that the marriage rate itself is going down,

• Divorce does not occur equally among all people in the United States; some segments of the U.S. population are more likely to divorce than others.

• men and women in the Northeast and Midwest have the lowest rates of divorce.

• A great deal of marital problems can be related to stress, especially financial stress.

• couples who enter marriage without a strong asset base (like a home, savings, and a retirement plan) are 70 percent more likely to be divorced after three years than are couples with at least $10,000 in assets.

• The addition of children to a marriage creates added financial and emotional stress.

• Research has established that marriages enter their most stressful phase upon the birth of the first child

• Married couples with twins or triplets are 17 percent more likely to divorce than those with children from single births

• Another contributor to the likelihood of divorce is a general decline in marital satisfaction over time.

• they may find that their values and life goals no longer match up with those of their spouse

• Children of divorced parents are 40 percent more likely to divorce than children of married parents.

• And when we consider children whose parents divorced and then remarried, the likelihood of their own divorce rises to 91 percent

• Most men and women remarry within five years of a divorce, with the median length for men (three years) being lower than for women (4.4 years).

• Divorce is often justified by the notion that children are better off in a divorced family than in a family with parents who do not get along.