Twentieth-century cohort marriage and divorce in England and Wales

Summary

Marital status life tables, which follow a real or synthetic birth cohort through life and the marital statuses of ‘never married’, ‘presently married’, ‘widowed’, and ‘divorced’, reflect observed marriage, divorce and mortality behaviour and provide a detailed record of a cohort's experience. The present paper analyses such tables for cohorts of men and women born in England and Wales between 1900 and 1945. The results show that the later cohorts deviate substantially from the ‘European pattern’ of late marriage and high proportions never marrying, and that a dramatic rise in divorce has taken place, so that among the later cohorts one marriage out of four ends in divorce.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

R. Schoen

R. Schoen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A. J. Baj is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A. The assistance of Gary Kleck and William L. Urton in the collection and assembly of the data is acknowledged with thanks, as is support from the National Science Foundation under Grant SES-7825472 and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under Grant 1 RO1 HD11756.