Money and Marriage – Divorce Declines in Great Recession
Posted December 8th, 2009 at 2:37pm in Family and Religion 
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A new report -The 2009 “State of our Unions”- out of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and the Institute for American Values, reports that divorce fell during the first full year of the Great Recession, the first annual dip since 2005.
“Tough times foster real family solidarity and encourage many couples to stick together,” says UVA sociology professor W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project. “Many couples are rediscovering the longstanding sociological truth that marriage is one of society’s best social insurance plans.”
Despite this recent dip in the rate of divorce, the report predicts the recent recession will eventually undercut marriage in working-class communities since men-particularly working-class and uneducated men-have absorbed 75 percent of job losses since 2007. This will likely serve to further a “divorce divide” that has been growing since the 1980s between couples with college degrees and those with less education.
Find out more from this and other reports at the National Marriage Project and the Institute for American Values.
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2 Responses to “Money and Marriage – Divorce Declines in Great Recession”
Dr. Taffy Wagner, Money Talk Matters, LLC on December 8th, 2009 at 2:37pm said:
Money and marriage are a part of each other. Even though various reports have stated that divorce fell during the recession, other reports have also said some couples that wanted to get a divorce could no longer afford it. At the end of the day, couples should be talking about money and marriage throughout the lifetime of the marriage and not just when a financial crisis arise. I believe one positive thing that has happened due to the recession is it has forced couples to communicate about money that might not have otherwise had a discussion.
http://www.marriagemoneymatters.com
Philip Cohen, Chapel Hill on December 8th, 2009 at 2:37pm said:
Sorry to burst the silver lining on this, but the divorce rate has been falling since 1981. It blipped up for a single year, in 2006, and now is falling again – that’s the change Wilcox is referencing. The conclusion is overdrawn. There is no evidence that anyone’s appreciation for marriage has changed. I analyzed this here: http://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/recession-resilience-divorce/