Descriptive Finding Trends in marital dissolution by women’s education in the United States

I use the Survey of Income and Program Participation (N = 16,756) to measure trends in marital dissolution rates for U.S. women by education level. In marriage cohorts from the mid-1970s to the 1990s, marital dissolution rates fell among women with a 4year college degree or more, but remained high among women with less than a 4-year college degree. This diverging trend began in the mid-1970s and is not explained by recent increases in women’s overall educational attainment, nor by recent increases in age at marriage timing and premarital childbearing. These results suggest a growing association between socioeconomic disadvantage and family instability. 1 Department of Sociology, University of Maryland College Park. E-mail:[email protected] Martin: Trends in marital dissolution by women’s education in the United States 538 http://www.demographic-research.org