Marital Dissolution and Child Educational Outcomes in San Borja, Bolivia

Serial monogamy is likely an adaptive mating strategy for women when the expected future fitness gains with a different partner are greater than expected future fitness with one's current partner. Using interview data from more than 400 women in San Borja, Bolivia, discrete-time event history analyses and random effects regression analyses were conducted to examine predictors of marital dissolution, separated by remarriage status, and child educational outcomes. Male income was found to be inversely associated with women's risk of "divorce and remarriage," whereas female income is positively associated with women's risk of "divorce, but not remarriage." Children of women who divorce and remarry tend to have significantly lower educational outcomes than children of married parents, but women with higher incomes are able to buffer their children from the negative educational outcomes of divorce and remarriage. Counter to predictions, there is no evidence that women with kin in the community have a significant difference in likelihood of divorce or a buffering effect of child outcomes. In conclusion, predictors of divorce differ depending on whether the woman goes on to remarry, suggesting that male income may be a better predictor of a serial monogamy strategy whereas female income predicts marital dissolution only. Thus, women who are relatively autonomous because of greater income may not benefit from remarriage.

Midpregnancy Marriage and Divorce: Why the Death of Shotgun Marriage Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Conventional wisdom holds that births following the colloquially termed "shotgun marriage"-that is, births to parents who married between conception and the birth-are nearing obsolescence. To investigate trends in shotgun marriage, we matched North Carolina administrative data on nearly 800,000 first births among white and black mothers to marriage and divorce records. We found that among married births, midpregnancy-married births (our preferred term for shotgun-married births) have been relatively stable at about 10 % over the past quarter-century while increasing substantially for vulnerable population subgroups. In 2012, among black and white less-educated and younger women, midpregnancy-married births accounted for approximately 20 % to 25 % of married first births. The increasing representation of midpregnancy-married births among married births raises concerns about well-being among at-risk families because midpregnancy marriages may be quite fragile. Our analysis revealed, however, that midpregnancy marriages were more likely to dissolve only among more advantaged groups. Of those groups considered to be most at risk of divorce-namely, black women with lower levels of education and who were younger-midpregnancy marriages had the same or lower likelihood of divorce as preconception marriages. Our results suggest an overlooked resiliency in a type of marriage that has only increased in salience.

Attrition Biases in a Study of Euro-American and African-American Marriages

Based on survey data from 174 Euro-American and 199 African-American newlywed couples, this study analyzed attrition biases by comparing first-year responses of couples who stayed in the study into its third year (133 Euro-American and 115 African-American couples) with responses from the initial sample. Stayers—who were more likely than leavers to be better educated, wealthier, and Euro-American—tended to report happier, more affirming, more communicative marriages. For stayers, compared to a random subsample of the original sample, first-year marital happiness also correlated significantly less strongly with first-year reports of receiving affirmation from a spouse, having an unsupportive spouse, and engaging in marital conflict. Further, race differences in predictors of happiness for the initial sample were not evident among stayers, perhaps due to smaller variances in reported marital happiness and frequency of conflict for African-American stayers compared to African Americans in the original sample. Methodological implications for cross-cultural longitudinal studies are discussed.

Healthy marriage initiatives: on the need for empiricism in policy implementation

The association between marriage and well-being has led to policies that promote marital interventions and discourage divorce. These include federal initiatives specifically targeting poor couples and couples of color. While there are many prospective studies on marriage that have informed some couple interventions, the studies that are included in this literature sampled predominantly White and middle-class couples. By comparison, far less is known about the longitudinal predictors of relationship satisfaction and status for poor couples and couples of color. Therefore, it is unsurprising that preliminary data on applying current interventions to the couples targeted by these federal initiatives have been disappointing. In this article, I detail three concerns with these initiatives, propose a course of psychological research to address deficits in what is known about poor couples and couples of color, and make specific recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of these initiatives.

Racial and ethnic differences in the retirement prospects of divorced women in the Baby Boom and Generation X cohorts

Blacks, Hispanics, and divorced women have historically experienced double-digit poverty rates in retirement, and divorce and other demographic trends will increase their representation in future retiree populations. For these reasons, we might expect an increase in the proportion of economically vulnerable divorced women in the future. This article uses the Social Security Administration's Modeling Income in the Near Term (version 6) to describe the likely characteristics, work experience, Social Security benefit status, and economic well-being of future divorced women at age 70 by race and ethnicity. Factors associated with higher retirement incomes include having a college degree; having a strong history of labor force attachment; receiving Social Security benefits; and having pensions, retirement accounts, or assets, regardless of race and ethnicity. However, because divorced black and Hispanic women are less likely than divorced white women to have these attributes, income sources, or assets, their projected average retirement incomes are lower than those of divorced white women.

Family structure, family disruption, and profiles of adolescent religiosity

Youth in the United States are experiencing increasing numbers of family transitions as parents move in and out of marriages and cohabiting relationships. Using three waves of survey data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, I examine the relationship between family structure, parental breakup, and adolescent religiosity. A person-centered measure of the religiosity of adolescents is used to identify youth as Abiders, Adapters, Assenters, Avoiders, or Atheists and to assess movement of youth between the religious profiles between 2003 and 2008. Wave 1 family structure is not significantly related to religious change among adolescents at Wave 3. In contrast, the experience of a parental breakup is related to a change in religious profiles over time. Parental breakup is associated with religious decline among Abiders and Adapters, youth characterized by high levels of religious salience. However, among Assenters who are marginally tied to religion, a parental breakup or divorce is associated with increased religious engagement.

Broken boundaries or broken marriages? Racial intermarriage and divorce in the United States

OBJECTIVE

Several recent studies have investigated the consequences of racial intermarriage for marital stability. None of these studies properly control for first-order racial differences in divorce risk, therefore failing to appropriately identify the effect of intermarriage. Our article builds on an earlier generation of studies to develop a model that appropriately identifies the consequences of crossing racial boundaries in matrimony.

METHODS

We analyze the 1995 and 2002 National Survey of Family Growth using a parametric event-history model called a sickle model. To appropriately identify the effect of interracial marriage we use the interaction of wife's race and husband's race.

RESULTS

We find elevated divorce rates for Latino/white intermarriages but not for black/white intermarriages. Seventy-two percent of endogamous Latino marriages remain intact at 15 years, but only 58 percent of Latino husband/white wife and 64 percent of white husband/Latina wife marriages are still intact.

CONCLUSIONS

We have identified an important deficiency in previous studies and provide a straightforward resolution. Although higher rates of Latino/white intermarriage may indicate more porous group boundaries, the greater instability of these marriages suggests that these boundaries remain resilient.

Ready, willing, and able to divorce: an economic and cultural history of divorce in twentieth-century Sweden

This study outlines a long history of divorce in Sweden, recognizing the importance of considering both economic and cultural factors in the analysis of marital dissolution. Following Ansley Coale, the authors examine how a framework of multiple theoretical constructs, in interaction, can be applied to the development toward mass divorce. Applying a long historical perspective, the authors argue that an analysis of gendered aspects of the interaction between culture and economics is crucial for the understanding of the rise of mass divorce. The empirical analysis finds support for a marked decrease in legal and cultural obstacles to divorce already during the first decades of the twentieth century. However, economic structures remained a severe obstacle that prohibited significant increases in divorce rate prior to World War II. It was only during the 1940s and 1960s, when cultural change was complemented by marked decreases in economic interdependence between spouses, that the divorce rate exhibited significant increases. The authors find that there are advantages to looking at the development of divorce as a history in which multiple empirical factors are examined in conjunction, recognizing that these factors played different roles during different time periods.

Marriage and the family in a Maltese parish: St. Mary's (Qrendi) in the eighteenth century

This article addresses the Maltese traditional family, taking St. Mary's (Qrendi) as a test case. It results that couples married in their early twenties, while a high proportion of men and women never married at all. Marriage was not popular so that one-fifth of all marriages were remarriages. Very few widows remarried and it was only for some economic reason that they sought another man. There is no evidence though that a high rate of celibacy resulted in flagrant promiscuity even if there is evidence that the Qrendin were not so particular about their sex life. No birth control was practiced within marriage and children followed one another regularly. This brings into relief the parents' unconcern for their offspring's future as well as the inferior status of women because husbands made their wives several offspring. Relations between the spouses were poor so that dissatisfied couples went their own ways.

They would if they could: class, gender, and popular representation of English divorce litigation, 1858-1908

A systematic sample of the petitions presented to the English Divorce Court from 1858 through 1908 makes it possible to assess the differential contribution of discrete social and economic subgroups to the litigation the Court oversaw. An examination of four of these -- the titled aristocracy, those employed in the theater, those in receipt of financial aid, and laborers -- shows that English divorce litigants exhibited a broader social profile than commonly attributed to it by the newspaper coverage of divorce litigation, which gave a skewed impression of its social profile. Analysis of these cases underscores the gendered, class, and geographically inflected demand for divorce in a judicial setting that imposed severe restrictions on access to divorce as a remedy for marital breakdown.

Time-space trends in Swedish divorce behaviour, 1911-1974

This study examines how the divorce rates in Sweden have varied over time and across different geographical areas during the period 1911-1974, and how these variations can be connected to the political, socio-economic and cultural development in Sweden. The analysis provides empirical support for the hypothesis that increased divorce rates have been the result of changes in the structural conditions that determine the degree of economic interdependence between spouses. There is a strong connection between the degree of urbanization and the divorce rate on a regional level for the entire research period. The statistical analysis of the regional data indicates that these patterns are connected to the more diversified economy that has developed in urban settings, in the form of a more qualified labour market and higher wages for females. These characteristics resulted in a faster and more pronounced reduction of economic interdependence between spouses, which made divorce more attainable in these areas as compared with rural settings.

Freedom to divorce or protection of marriage? The divorce laws in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden in the early twentieth century

In the period 1909-1927, new laws concerning divorce and marriage were enacted by the Scandinavian countries. Both at the time and more recently, these laws were considered as "liberal" as they promoted greater freedom to divorce based on individuality and gender equality. In this article, the authors first analyze the changes in these Family laws in the early twentieth century. Then, the authors study the effect of these laws on divorce and marriage patterns. As these laws did not modify the trend in divorce rates, the authors ask why this was the case. The authors' conclusions are that the laws were more concerned with preserving the sanctity of marriage and maintaining social order than with promoting individual freedom and gender equality.

U.S. marital disruptions and their economic and social correlates, 1860-1948

A new estimate of U.S. marital disruptions shows an increase in desertions relative to divorces after 1900. Desertions were the more volatile component of marital disruptions because of their greater responsiveness to general economic conditions. Large marriage cohorts, formed in the years of economic expansion, disrupted in greater numbers: an increase in the marriage rate by 10 per 1,000 unmarried women raised the proportion of disrupted marriage by 7.3 percentage points. Conversely, during years of recession, many poorer couples were discouraged from marriage; smaller marriage cohorts with more resilient marriages were formed and their lifetime marriage disruption rate was lower.

Divorce in early modern rural Japan: household and individual life course in northeastern villages, 1716-1870

Drawing data from the local population registers in two northeastern agricultural villages, this study examines the patterns and factors associated with divorce in preindustrial Japan. Divorce was easy and common during this period. More than two thirds of first marriages dissolved in divorce before individuals reached age fifty. Discrete-time event history analysis is applied to demonstrate how economic condition and household context influenced the likelihood of divorce for females. Risk of divorce was extremely high in the first three years and among uxorilocal marriages. Propensity of divorce increased upon economic stress in the community and among households of lower social status. Presence of parents, siblings, and children had strong bearings on marriage to continue.

Divorce and social class during the early stages of the divorce revolution: evidence from Flanders and the Netherlands

In times of low divorce rates (such as the nineteenth century and early twentieth century), the authors expect higher social strata to have the highest divorce chances as they are better equipped to break existing barriers to divorce. In this article, the authors analyze data from marriage certificates to assess whether there was a positive effect of occupational class on divorce in Belgium (Flanders) and the Netherlands. Their results for the Netherlands show a positive association between social class and divorce, particularly among the higher cultural groups. In Flanders, the authors do not find this, but they observe a negative association between illiteracy and divorce, an observation pointing in the same direction.

The impact of conditional cash transfers on marriage and divorce

A growing number of less-developed countries have introduced conditional cash transfer programs in which funds are targeted to women. Economic models of the family suggest that these transfer programs may lead to marital turnover among program beneficiaries. Data from the experimental evaluation of the PROGRESA program in Mexico is used to provide new evidence on the short-run impacts of targeted transfers on couples' union dissolution and individuals' new union formation decisions. We find that, although the overall share of women in union does not change as a result of the program, marital turnover increases. Intact families eligible for the transfers experienced a modest (0.32 percentage points) increase in separation rates, with most of the effect concentrated among young and relatively educated women households. In contrast, young single women with low educational attainment levels experienced a substantial increase in new union formation rates. The marital transition patterns are consistent with the workhorse economic model of the marriage market-individuals with the greatest prospects to start new unions and those who may become more attractive in the marriage market are more likely to transition out of existing relationships and form new ones.

Joint physical custody and neighborhood friendships in middle childhood

Almost half of first marriages end in divorce, which in turn may produce joint physical custody arrangements. Seen by many states to be in the best interest of the child, joint physical custody is increasingly common. Yet much is unknown about its consequences for children. This article considers how joint physical custody arrangements affect children’s neighborhood friendships, an important component of child well-being because of their contributions to social and cognitive development. Thirteen parents and 17 children (aged 5–11) in 10 families, selected via convenience and snowball sampling, participated in semistructured interviews. The findings suggest that joint physical custody arrangements do not imperil children’s neighborhood friendships; indeed, most children and parents interviewed voiced contentment in this area.

Attitudes about honour killing among men and women--perspective from Islamabad

BACKGROUND

The concept of honour has cultural, social and moral underpinnings that determine its expression and perseveration. Women are viewed as the bearers of family honour with chastity equated with abstinence from premarital or extramarital relationships and obeying norms determined and dictated by traditions and societies. The objective of this study was to determine the opinions of men and women pertaining to killing in the name of and saving one's honour.

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey with convenience sampling was conducted among the 18 years and older (range 18-71) men and women. Respondents were approached in markets, bus-stops, hospitals, and various other public places in Islamabad from April 12th to June 27th 2006. A structured, interviewer-administered, and pretested questionnaire was used with both open and close-ended questions on demographics and attitudes about honour killing based on a vignette that was slowly read out in Urdu, in a neutral and judgment-free tone of voice to potential respondents. Responses to close-ended questions based on the vignette provided, and pattern among men and women were compared using Pearson Chi-square test to determine associations between the dichotomous variables and gender, while responses to one open-ended question were summarised based on the observed similarities and bivariate associations with gender were determined.

RESULTS

We approached 630 conveniently selected individuals at various public places in the city of Islamabad. Six hundred and one agreed to participate and completed the questionnaire, i.e., the response rate was 95.4%. Three hundred and seven respondents were male (51.1%), and 294 (48.9%) were females. Three hundred forty-three 343 (57.1%) respondents believed that the man in the vignette did the right thing by killing his wife upon finding her in bed with another man. Divorcing one's wife rather than resorting to killings, after having found her with another man was approved by 220 (36.6%) respondents, while the rest answered as 'don't know'.

CONCLUSION

Majority of men as well as women considered it justifiable and acceptable to kill one's wife as a mean to save one's honour. The most significant finding was the fact that overwhelming number of men and women did not believe in either forgiveness or divorcing one's wife who has engaged in extramarital sexual relationship.

Child support enforcement and fathers' contributions to their nonmarital children

This study examines the total package of child support that mothers receive from the nonresident fathers of their children, by focusing on three components of total support: formal cash, informal cash, and in-kind support. Using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, this article considers how contributions change over time and the effects of child support enforcement on these contributions. Findings suggest that total cash support received drops precipitously over the first 15 months of living apart (as informal support drops off) and then increases slightly after 45 months (as the increase in formal support overtakes the decrease in informal support). While the study finds no effect of enforcement on total support received in the first 5 years after a nonmarital birth, the substantial differences in total cash support received by the length of time that parents have not been cohabiting suggest that strong enforcement may be efficacious over time.

Domination, subordination and struggle: middle-class marriage in early twentieth-century Wolverhampton, England

The aim of the article is to modify our understanding of the history of middle-class marriage. It draws upon the detailed examination of one Wolverhampton couple's marriage to explore relationships between husbands and wives-and between ex-husbands and ex-wives-in early twentieth-century provincial England. It argues that patriarchal and companionate marriages co-existed alongside one another; that even in patriarchal marriages wives were prepared to seek legal redress for their grievances; and that even in insular and unfashionable regions of the country such as the Black Country the courts, both civil and criminal, policed masculinity and femininity in their assessment of where fault lay.

Suicidal ideation and suicidal attempts in a population-based study of Chinese people: risk attributable to hopelessness, depression, and social factors

BACKGROUND

The population attributable fraction of hopelessness, depression and other risk factors for suicidal ideation and suicidal attempts in Asian population is unknown. Social support is often said to be a buffer against the effect of hopelessness and depression.

METHODS

Suicidal ideation, suicidal attempts as well as demographic and psychometric data were delineated in a random and representative population sample of 2,219 Chinese people in Hong Kong. The population attributable fraction was used to determine the contribution of hopelessness, depression and other risk factors to suicidal ideation and attempts.

RESULTS

Multivariate modelling shows that about 40% of suicidal ideation and attempts was attributable to depression and about 20% was attributable to hopelessness. Drug abuse and marital dissolution were also significant contributors to suicidality. The impact of hopelessness and depression was not affected by social support.

LIMITATIONS

Suicidality was self-reported.

CONCLUSIONS

Suicidal ideation and suicidal attempts were to a large extent attributable to depression and hopelessness, and, to a lesser extent, drug abuse and marital dissolution. Social support appeared to play little role as a buffer.

A hypothesized model of Korean women's responses to abuse

Many abused married Korean women have a strong desire to leave their abusive husbands but remain in the abusive situations because of the strong influence of their sociocultural context. The article discusses Korean women's responses to spousal abuse in the context of patriarchal, cultural, and social exchange theory. Age, education, and income as component elements share common effects on the emergent variable, sociostructural power. Gender role attitudes, traditional family ideology, individualism/collectivism, marital satisfaction, and marital conflict predict psychological-relational power as a latent variable. Sociostructural, patriarchal, cultural, and social exchange theories are reconceptualized to generate the model of Korean women's responses to abuse.

Workaholism and divorce among Australian psychologists

A study of Australian psychologists compared scores on workaholism components among those who were divorced and those who were married. No differences were found.

Adjustment to divorce: a preliminary study among Muslim Arab citizens of Israel

Adjustment to divorce in a sample of 312 Muslim Arab citizens of Israel was associated both with variables that have been shown to affect adjustment to divorce in Western societies and with variables specific to the culture of the study. The former included male gender, education, current employment, fewer accompanying stressors, and greater satisfaction with the divorce process. The latter were the respondents' self-defined modernity (as opposed to traditionalism) and their disinclination to perceive divorced persons as bad parents and spouses and as socially deviant, in accord with the social stereotype of their community.

Consequences of divorce on the adjustment of children in China

Explored the consequences of divorce on children in China. In contrast to Western countries, divorce in China is relatively rare, occurring in approximately 10% to 15% of the population. Children from divorced families (n = 174) and matched intact families (n = 174) were selected from a larger sample of 1,294 children between 8 and 14 years of age. Divorce was relatively low in this sample (13.45%) of participants, consistent with rates observed in epidemiological studies in China. Mothers of divorced children reported higher levels of education but lower levels of income than mothers in intact families. Children in divorced families reported higher levels of anxiety and depression, and their mothers and teachers rated them as possessing more behavior problems on the Achenbach (1991) Child Behavior Checklist scales. Regression analyses revealed that rejecting and inattentive parenting styles, along with family status (divorce or intact), high maternal depression, and sex (boys) predicted significant amounts of variance associated with these negative outcomes. Results are discussed in terms of familial and cultural issues associated with these findings.

American Muslim women's experiences of leaving abusive relationships

American Muslim women are a growing population whose experiences of abuse remain largely unstudied. To begin to amend this gap in knowledge, this article examines American Muslim women's experiences of leaving abusive partners as reported in a larger narrative study. The process of leaving as described by participants includes four stages: reaching the point of saturation, getting khula (an Islamic divorce initiated by wives), facing fimily and/or community disapproval, and reclaiming the self. Each of these stages illustrates the significance of group-oriented cultural values in shaping participants' experiences of leaving their abusers. I compare study findings with existing literature and conclude by offering suggestions for research and practice in this area.

Educational attainment of the children of divorce: Australia, 1940-90

Much research suggests that the disruption of marriage through parental death or divorce imposes a small but significant educational disadvantage on American children, although the most recent and comprehensive analysis casts serious doubt on this claim. What is the situation in Australia? Using representative national samples (n= 29,443) and OLS and logistic regression with robust standard errors, we estimate models controlling many potentially confounding variables. We find that divorce in Australia costs seven-tenths of a year of education, mainly by reducing secondary school completion. Importantly, divorce has become more damaging in recent cohorts.

Divorce and the elite household in late medieval Cairo

This article examines the rate and causes of divorce among the elite households of late fifteenth-century Cairo. By using a unique contemporary chronicle, it is possible to estimate that a third of all marriages ended in divorce. Wives initiated divorces at least as often as their husbands. They did so by reaching a divorce settlement with their husbands for a financial compensation, or, in the case of desertion, by using the courts to impose a judicial divorce. In the vast majority of the cases, the causes for the divorce were grounded in marital relations. In spite of the importance of marriage alliances for the elite household, these marriages did eventually hinge on the mutual consent of the two individuals concerned.

"Many divorces and many spinsters": marriage as an invented tradition in southern Malawi 1946-1999

In the author’s 1999 interviews, elders in a district of southern Malawi insisted that the marriages of their children and grandchildren are a weakened and degenerate form of the marriages of their own youth. However, data from the 1940s shows that identical beliefs about marriage were held even then. Marriage is thus constantly presented as an institution in crisis, deteriorating from an Arcadian form located in the ever-receding past. The author uses an expansion of the notion of invented tradition to describe this historically consistent rhetorical presentation of marriage and suggests questions that this invented tradition presents for family historians.

Divorce and remarriage in Austria-Hungary: the second marriage of Franz Conrad von Hotzendorf

In October 1915, in the middle of World War I, the chief of staff of the Royal and Imperial Army, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, consulted the authorities on a private matter. While “the fatherland was fighting a bloody battle for its very existence, and the army and people were turning to their generals full of alarm,” the general was contemplating marriage. However, Austrian marriage laws stood in the way of his plans. Virginia (Gina) Agujari, Conrad's “chosen one,” had since 1896 been in a Catholic marriage with the industrialist Hans von Reininghaus.

Law and love: the Jewish family in early modern Italy

In legal texts, women, acting on their own volition, are actually described as individuals in negative terms. This study examines clandestine betrothals and marriages; adultery, especially the treatment of adulterous women; the abused wife and her ability to initiate divorce proceedings against her husband; and testaments left with Christian notaries by Jewish women.

While they were limited by various laws and customs, individuals managed to use laws and social structures for their own advantage, negotiated space for themselves, and devised strategies to fulfil their wishes, which could be described as the pursuit of love, by circumventing obstacles placed in their way by communities, families, and the law. These practices raise questions about familial control, rabbinic authority, and communal power.

Adjustment to violent and natural deaths in later and earlier life for black and white widows

OBJECTIVES

This study explored the role of mode and unexpectedness of death, age, race, and marital status on psychological symptoms for widows approximately 6 months after their husbands' deaths.

METHODS

Midwestern samples were drawn from death/divorce records for 276 Black and White women aged 19-74 whose husbands had died from homicide, suicide, or accidental death; 276 matched natural death widows; 188 separated/divorced women.

RESULTS

Mode of death was not related to psychological symptoms. Contrary to expectation, widows of the men who had died from long-term natural illnesses exhibited more distress than widows of men who had died from violent and sudden, natural deaths combined. Indicative of their heightened overall symptoms, widows were more distressed than divorced women. Middle-aged and younger widows were more distressed than older ones. White widows reported more symptoms than Blacks in violent but not natural deaths. Black widows whose spouses had died from suicide had higher psychological distress on some indicators, supporting the greater stigma of suicide among Black persons.

DISCUSSION

Results of smaller studies on the minimal role of mode of death in bereavement are supported, but more research on age, race, and "off-time" deaths in short- and long-term adjustment is needed.

Divorce in Ethiopia: the impact of early marriage and childlessness

Forty-five per cent of first marriages in Ethiopia end in divorce within 30 years, and two-thirds of women who divorce do so within the first 5 years of marriage. This paper looks at two factors that may have an impact on the risk of divorce in Ethiopia: early age of first marriage, and childlessness within the first marriage. Data used were from the 1990 National Family and Fertility Survey conducted by the Government of Ethiopia. A total of 8757 women of reproductive age (15-49) were analysed. Life table analysis was used to determine the median age at first marriage, first birth and the median duration of marriage. Cox models were analysed to determine the differentials of divorce. The results of this analysis showed that both early age at marriage and childlessness have a significant impact on the risk of divorce. An inverse relationship was found between age at marriage and risk of divorce. Having a child within the first marriage also significantly reduced the risk of divorce. In addition, several cultural and socioeconomic variables were significant predictors of divorce.