{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,3]],"date-time":"2026-05-03T23:22:25Z","timestamp":1777850545181,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":47,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2011,3,9]],"date-time":"2011-03-09T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1299628800000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Journal of Family History"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2011,4]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>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 marriages 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.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/0363199011398758","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2011,3,9]],"date-time":"2011-03-09T11:23:15Z","timestamp":1299669795000},"page":"142-158","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["U.S. Marital Disruptions and their Economic and Social Correlates, 1860-1948"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"36","author":[{"given":"Tomas","family":"Cvrcek","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"John E. Walker Department of Economics, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA,"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2011,3,9]]},"reference":[{"key":"atypb1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Michael R. Haines, \u2018\u2018Long-Term Marriage Patterns in the United States from Colonial Times to the Present,\u2019\u2019 The History of the Family 1 (1996): 15-39; Joseph P. Ferrie and Karen Rolfe, \u2018\u2018The May-December Relationship since 1850: Age Homogamy in the United States\u2019\u2019 (working paper, 2008); Warren C. Sanderson, \u2018\u2018Qualitative Aspects of Marriage, Fertility and Family Limitation in Nineteenth Century America: Another Application of the Coale Specification,\u2019\u2019 Demography 16 (1979): 339-58; Tomas Cvrcek, \u2018\u2018Mothers, Wives and Workers: The Dynamics of White Fertility, Marriage and Women\u2019s Labor Supply in the United States, 1870-1930\u2019\u2019 (working paper, 2008).","DOI":"10.2307\/2061217"},{"key":"atypb2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Carolyn Moehling. \u2018\u2018State Child Labor Laws and The Decline in Child Labor,\u2019\u2019 Explorations in Economic History 36 (1), 1999: 72-106; Claudia Goldin, Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women, (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); Elyce Rotella, From Home to Office: U.S. Women at Work, 1870-1930 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981); Tomas Cvrcek, \u2018\u2018Mothers, Wives and Workers: The Dynamics of White Fertility, Marriage and Women\u2019s Labor Supply in the United States, 1870-1930.\u2019\u2019","DOI":"10.1006\/exeh.1998.0712"},{"issue":"2009","key":"atypb3","first-page":"719","volume":"21","author":"Tomas Cvrcek","journal-title":"Demographic Research"},{"key":"atypb4","unstructured":"In order to avoid confusion, I will consistently use \u2018\u2018rate\u2019\u2019 to describe period measures, while \u2018\u2018proportion\u2019\u2019 will refer to cohort measures. Consequently, \u2018\u2018marriage rate,\u2019\u2019 divorce rate,\u2019\u2019 or \u2018\u2018disruption rate\u2019\u2019 all refer to the relevant number of events per 1,000 eligible units in a given year, while \u2018\u2018proportion disrupted\u2019\u2019 or \u2018\u2018proportion divorced\u2019\u2019 denote a number between 0 and 1 (or between 0 and 100 percent). For example, \u2018\u2018proportion of marital disruption\u2019\u2019 refers to the proportion of all marriages concluded in a given year (i.e., of the same marriage cohort) that disrupted over the marriage cohort\u2019s lifetime."},{"key":"atypb5","unstructured":"Paul R. Amato and Shelley Irving, \u2018\u2018Historical Trends in Divorce in the United States,\u2019\u2019 in Handbook of Divorce and Relationship Dissolution, ed. Mark A. Fine and John H. Harvey (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, 2006), 41-58; Amato and Irving argue, for example, that the downturn in divorce rates during the Great Depression occurred (among other things) because \u2018\u2018many unhappy spouses literally could not afford to divorce\u2019\u2019 (p. 47). By logical extension, one can see that a desertion would be relatively more likely resorted to by the poorer spouses-a fact that gave rise to the popular description of desertion as a \u2018\u2018poor man\u2019s divorce;\u2019\u2019 Earle Edward Eubank, A Study of Family Desertion (Chicago, IL: Department of Public Welfare, 1916)."},{"key":"atypb6","volume-title":"\u2018\u2018When Harry Left Sally: A New Estimate of Marital Disruption in the U.S., 1860-1948.\u2019\u2019","author":"Tomas Cvrcek"},{"key":"atypb7","unstructured":"Paul H. Jacobson, American Marriage and Divorce (New York: Rinehart & Co., 1959): Table 2."},{"key":"atypb8","volume-title":"Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 3.0 (Machine-readable database)","author":"Steven Ruggles","year":"2008"},{"key":"atypb9","volume-title":"Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition","author":"Susan B. Carter","year":"2006"},{"key":"atypb10","unstructured":"One exception is the decade from 1931 to 1940, during which the proportion divorced is higher than proportion disrupted. This, of course, is logically impossible, given that divorces are a subset of disruptions. The reasons for this apparent contradiction are discussed in Tomas Cvrcek, \u2018\u2018When Harry Left Sally: A New Estimate of Marital Disruption in the U.S., 1860-1948,\u2019\u2019 749-51."},{"key":"atypb11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/2061492"},{"key":"atypb12","volume-title":"Igra, Wives without Husbands: Marriage, Desertion & Welfare in New York, 1900-1935","author":"Anna R.","year":"2007"},{"key":"atypb13","unstructured":"See Robert L. Griswold, \u2018\u2018Law, Sex, Cruelty and Divorce in Victorian America, 1840-1900\u2019\u2019 in Family and Society in American History, ed. Joseph M. Hawes and Elizabeth I. Nybakken (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 145-72. For example, when \u2018\u2018cruelty\u2019\u2019 was stated as a potential ground for divorce in some states\u2019 legislation, it was left to the judges to define what constituted cruelty and the interpretation of this concept changed considerably during the late nineteenth century."},{"key":"atypb14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Frans van Poppel and Jan Nelissen, \u2018\u2018Economic Opportunities and Age at Marriage: An Analysis of 19th Century Micro Data for the Netherlands,\u2019\u2019 in Marriage and Rural Economy: Western Europe Since 1400, ed. I. Devos, and L. Kennedy (Turnhout: Brepols , 1999), 152-179. Poppel and Nelissen discuss the effects of both the long-term trend of economic growth and the short-term fluctuations.","DOI":"10.1484\/M.CORN-EB.4.00127"},{"key":"atypb15","first-page":"997","volume":"117","author":"Paul H. Jacobson","year":"1959","journal-title":"Quarterly Journal of Economics"},{"key":"atypb16","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/3005968"},{"key":"atypb17","unstructured":"Amy E. Rodrigues , Julie H. Hall, and Frank D. Fincham, \u2018\u2018What predicts Divorce and Relationship Dissolution?\u2019\u2019 in Handbook of Divorce and Relationship Dissolution, ed. Mark A. Fine and John H. Harvey ( Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers , 2006), 85-112."},{"key":"atypb18","unstructured":"Catherine A. Fitch and Steven Ruggles, \u2018\u2018Historical Trends in Marriage Formation: The United States, 1850-1990,\u2019\u2019 in The Ties That Bind: Perspective on Marriage and Cohabitation, ed. Linda J. Waite, Christine Bachrach, Michelle Hindin, Elizabeth Thomson, and Arland Thornton (Hawthorne, NY: Aldin de Gruyter, 2000), 59-90."},{"key":"#cr-split#-atypb19.1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kimberly A. Faust and Jerome N. McKibben, ''Marital Dissolution: Divorce, Separation, Annulment, and Widowhood,'' in Handbook of Marriage and the Family, ed. Marvin B. Sussmann, Suzanne K. Steinmetz, and Gary W. Peterson ( New York: Plenum Press, 1999), 475-502","DOI":"10.1007\/978-1-4757-5367-7_18"},{"key":"#cr-split#-atypb19.2","unstructured":"Amy E. Rodrigues, Julie H. Hall, and Frank D. Fincham, ''What predicts Divorce and Relationship Dissolution?'' in Handbook of Divorce and Relationship Dissolution, ed. Mark A. Fine and John H. Harvey ( Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers , 2006), 85-112."},{"key":"atypb20","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1086\/260631"},{"key":"atypb21","unstructured":"Such a task would have been impossible given that for many deserters (and even \u2018\u2018desertees\u2019\u2019), one of the main attractions of ending a marriage without going through the courts was precisely that it was quiet and left no paper trail."},{"key":"atypb22","volume-title":"Putting Asunder: A History of Divorce in Western Society","author":"Roderick Phillips","year":"1988"},{"key":"atypb23","unstructured":"By eligible women, I mean those who can legally marry: single women of age, widows, and divorcees in states that allowed remarriage."},{"key":"atypb24","unstructured":"Such readiness may have emotional as well as other aspects, such as financial. Poppel and Nelissen, \u2018\u2018Economic opportunities and age at marriage,\u2019\u2019 point out that couples may wish to accumulate a given amount of savings before tying the knot. An auspicious times, couples may conclude that a much smaller savings cushion is necessary than would be the case in times of recession and so consider themselves ready for marriage earlier into the relationship."},{"key":"atypb25","unstructured":"R. Kelly Raley, \u2018\u2018Recent Trends and Differentials in Marriage and Cohabitation: The United States\u2019\u2019 in The Ties That Bind: Perspective on Marriage and Cohabitation, ed. Linda J. Waite, Christine Bachrach, Michelle Hindin, Elizabeth Thomson, and Arland Thornton (Hawthorne, NY: Aldin de Gruyter, 2000), 19-40."},{"key":"atypb26","volume-title":"Becker, A Treatise on the Family: Enlarged","author":"Gary S.","year":"1993"},{"key":"atypb27","volume-title":"\u2018\u2018Mothers, Wives and Workers: The Dynamics of White Fertility, Marriage and Women\u2019s Labor Supply in the United States, 1870-1930\u2019\u2019","author":"Tomas Cvrcek","year":"2008"},{"key":"atypb28","unstructured":"Amy E. Rodrigues , Julie H. Hall, and Frank D. Fincham, \u2018\u2018What Predicts Divorce and Relationship Dissolution?\u2019\u2019 in Handbook of Divorce and Relationship Dissolution, ed. Mark A. Fine and John H. Harvey ( Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers , 2006), 85-112."},{"key":"atypb29","unstructured":"Susan B. Carter , Scott Sigmund Gartner, Michael R. Haines, Alan L. Olmstead, Richard Sutch, and Gavin Wright, Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 699-712."},{"key":"atypb30","unstructured":"For years between censuses, the values were linearly interpolated from two neighboring census values. Such interpolation obviously omits all the year-to-year variation that would appear in annual data but it is likely that such aggregate variables as urbanization only change gradually and that the long-term trend dominates short-term fluctuations."},{"key":"atypb31","unstructured":"Between 1900 and 1920, the percentage of Americans living in cities with 10,000 inhabitants or more rose from 31.7 percent to 42.5 percent; in cities with over 25,000 people from 26 percent to 35.8 percent; in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants from 18.7 percent to 25.9 percent. Clearly, the growth was particularly strong in the largest cities. See Carter et al. Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition."},{"key":"atypb32","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1086\/260631"},{"key":"atypb33","unstructured":"Given that the age gap is calculated as the difference between the SMAM of men and women, it is theoretically possible that such difference of two aggregate statistics could in fact hide very large age disparity on an individual level. To give an extreme, yet instructive example, if a marriage cohort consisted of thirty-year-old men marrying twenty-year-old women and thirty-year-old women marrying twenty-year-old men, then the median age at marriage of both women and men would be twenty five, giving the impression that the age gap is zero while in fact it is ten years in all these marriages. While this is a theoretical possibility, Ferrie and Rolf, \u2018\u2018The May-December Relationship,\u2019\u2019 show that the age gap was actually declining after 1890 with the use of individual-level data from the 1 percent census sample. Thus, it is reasonable to claim that the difference in men\u2019s and women\u2019s SMAM is correlated with the actual decline in age gap in American marriages."},{"key":"atypb34","unstructured":"As with the urbanization rate, the relevant values had to be interpolated between census years and the census values were taken from Carter et al. Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition, Ae489-490. Unfortunately, marital status of individuals (which is crucial for calculating the SMAM) was not recorded until the 1880 census. For the earlier years, I therefore take the values provided by Haines, \u2018\u2018Long-term Marriage Pattern,\u2019\u2019 for six New York counties in 1865 and I linearly interpolate the years between 1865 and 1880."},{"key":"atypb35","unstructured":"For example, a simple statistical analysis of the 1 percent sample of the 1900 U.S. census indicates that only 0.15 percent of all marriages were interracial (Steven Ruggles et al., Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 3.0 (Machine-readable database)."},{"key":"atypb36","volume-title":"O\u2019Neill, Divorce in the Progressive Era","author":"William L.","year":"1967"},{"key":"atypb37","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/000271626938300104"},{"key":"atypb38","unstructured":"I thank Bart Van de Putte for this suggestion."},{"key":"atypb39","volume-title":"Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage","author":"Stephanie Coontz","year":"2005"},{"key":"atypb40","unstructured":"The regression was also estimated using Prais-Winsten errors and the results are very similar to those presented here."},{"key":"atypb41","unstructured":"Endogeneity arises when there is a reasonable possibility that the causation between the dependent variable and any of the explanatory variables runs in both directions (i.e., not just from explanatory to dependent variable). When such is the case, a regressions not correcting for endogeneity produces biased and misleading coefficients."},{"key":"atypb42","unstructured":"Given that the dependent variable is by definition restricted between 0 and 100, I also ran a truncated regression but the results it yields are virtually identical to those presented in Table 2. The mean of the dependent variable, \u03c0, is 21.1 and standard deviation 9.4, meaning that only a small portion of the dependent variable\u2019s distribution is truncated."},{"key":"atypb43","unstructured":"Note that I have used the larger standard errors from the Newey-West regression in column (iii) instead of the standard error of 0.08 in column (i), which reports a simple OLS. This is because the OLS regression does not account for autocorrelation that is present in this data and which affects the precision of the estimates. The OLS standard errors would produce a misleadingly narrow confidence interval of (0.57; 0.89)."},{"key":"atypb44","unstructured":"If one relies on the three-year centered moving average, the peak would be 26.7 percent in 1928 and the trough 13.3 percent in 1932."},{"key":"atypb45","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Proportion ever divorced is taken from Samuel H. Preston and John McDonald \u2018\u2018The Incidence of Divorce Within Cohorts of American Marriages Contracted Since the Civil War,\u2019\u2019 Demography 16 (1979): 1-25.","DOI":"10.2307\/2061075"},{"key":"atypb46","unstructured":"This may be, for example, because they do not have much property that they could lose through the court but at the same time run a high risk of being ordered to pay alimony. They may consider the cost of an adversarial legal battle-recall that this was a period of fault-based divorce law-too much to bear with little prospect of it improving their postdivorce situation."}],"container-title":["Journal of Family History"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/0363199011398758","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/0363199011398758","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,29]],"date-time":"2026-04-29T22:07:05Z","timestamp":1777500425000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/10.1177\/0363199011398758"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2011,3,9]]},"references-count":47,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2011,4]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1177\/0363199011398758"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/0363199011398758","relation":{},"ISSN":["0363-1990","1552-5473"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0363-1990","type":"print"},{"value":"1552-5473","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2011,3,9]]}}}