Parental Divorce and Offspring Marriage: Early or Late?

At least 25 separate studies have examined the impact of family structure on offspring marriage timing. Some find that parental divorce makes marriage more likely, while others show that it delays or deters marriage. This research analyzes data from the 1973-94 NORC General Social Survey with the intention of shedding light on the debate. The extraordinarily varying results of prior studies can probably be attributed to change across two dimensions of time, individual life course and historical period. In 1973 parental divorce greatly increased the chances of marriage but by 1994 people from divorced families were slightly less likely to marry than were people from intact families. Furthermore, parental divorce raises the likelihood of teenage marriage, but if the children of divorce remain single past age 20 they are disproportionately likely to avoid wedlock.