The intergenerational transmission of divorce risks in France

Since the early 1970's, research has been done on the negative effects of divorce on children’s well-being and the intergenerational transmission of divorce risks in the USA. Especially the public opinion in the United States has been one of enormous concern for the effects on children, since divorce rates have developed strongly, and are still significantly higher than in any other country in the world. It has been shown that there exists a clear intergenerational transmission of divorce risks in the USA: children of divorced parents divorce significantly more often than comparable children of non-divorced parents. These results were also found for the GDR, the FRG and the Netherlands. The research on the intergenerational transmission of divorce risks has not yet been done for the Latin part of Europe. Therefore it is impossible to generalise the divorce risks as a result of parental divorce for the whole of the European Union. It might be possible that divorces and their risks are different for the Latin part of Europe due to the distinct cultural and religious context. The aim of this article is to add France to the list of analysed societies. What makes France especially interesting lies in its historical background: it was the first nation to introduce legal divorce in the early 1800's. We use the INSEE Jeunes et Carrieres 1997 survey, which contains data of both parents and children’s family history, relationships, education, environment and background information. Our analysis of these French data has shown a difference of 23,8% divorced children by divorced parents in comparison with only 12,6% of divorced children by non-divorced parents. We also found a clear intergenerational transmission of divorce risks in France: children of divorced parents have a higher chance of 1,74 to get divorced themselves compared to children of non-divorced parents with the same characteristics. In addition we found a clear positive influence by the age when people get their first child on the divorce risk. Having children in itself also has a positive influence on the chances that marriage doesn’t result in divorce. Altogether, the intergenerational transmission of divorce risks in France doesn’t differ from that in other European societies.