Census study paints grim picture of marriage in U.S.

David Westphal

Star Tribune

Feb 8 2002 12:00AM

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Census Bureau will issue a marriage outlook today that it hopes will prove altogether too pessimistic.

In their most comprehensive study of marriage trends in two decades, census demographers project that as many as 50 percent of first marriages will end in divorce.

The report's author, Rose Kreider, said the forecast might prove to be too high, especially if recent evidence of a small decline in divorce continues. "If anything, this could be wrong on the side of assuming too much divorce," she said.

At the same time, the study documents the rapid increase in the incidence of divorce in the last half of the 20th century, which has made the United States one of the world's leaders in failed marriages.

In 1975, the Census Bureau projected that one-third of married couples 25 to 35 would end their first marriage in divorce. But two decades later, at least 40 percent of those marriages already had ended, and indications are the number could rise to 50 percent.

The new report comes amid heightened efforts by political leaders to shore up the institution of marriage. Bush administration officials announced that strengthening marriage would be one of Bush's top priorities when the welfare law is rewritten later this year.

The Census Bureau study is based on 37,000 interviews conducted in 1996 and represents a rich trove of information about recent divorce trends. Census officials said their projections are not forecasts of the future but simply extensions of trends they spotted at that time.

Princeton University Prof. Joshua Goldstein said divorce rates started flattening out in the early 1980s and might have even declined a bit since. But he said it's too early to tell whether the more stable trend will continue.

While the report documents how Americans are spending more of their lives alone, both because of delayed marriage and then divorce, it also suggests that the institution of marriage is alive and well.

Nine of 10 people are likely to be married at some point in their lives, the study said. And of those who divorce, about three in four will remarry.

But sometimes it isn't for long. The median duration for a first marriage ending in divorce was about 8 years, the study found. While 90 percent of couples married in the late 1940s reached their 10th anniversary, only 73 percent of those married in the early '80s reached that milestone.

Those who ended first marriages stayed single an average of three years, according to the report. Second marriages ending in divorce lasted about seven years.

Other findings:

The average age of first marriage rose almost four years between the early '40s and the late '80s to 24.9 years for women and 27.1 for men.

Divorce is least likely to occur among Asians, and most likely to occur among blacks.

Contrary to some earlier theories, college-educated people are much more likely to marry than those who haven't attended college.

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