The influence of offspring's sex and age at parents’ divorce on the intergenerational transmission of divorce, Norwegian first marriages 1980–2003

Abstract

Whether a couple remain married or divorce has repeatedly been shown to be of importance for the marital stability of their children. This paper addresses the related question of whether the intergenerational transmission of divorce is contingent on the age at which parents divorced and the sex of the spouse who experienced the parents’ divorce. Using a population-wide data-set on Norwegian first marriages followed from 1980 to 2003, we find that the intergenerational transmission hypothesis holds also for Norway, that this relationship is stronger for women than for men, and that there is a negative age gradient in the transmission effect for women. The experience of multiple family transitions, such as a parent's remarriage or a second divorce, does not affect couples’ divorce risk.

Keywords:

• intergenerational transmission
• divorce
• parents' divorse
• child–parent
• Norway
• hazard models
• register data

Notes

1. Torkild Hovde Lyngstad is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, PO Box 1095 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: [email protected]. Henriette Engelhardt is Professor of Demography in the Department of Population Studies, University of Bamberg, Kapuzinerstraße 16, D-96047 Bamberg, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]

2. For comments on an earlier version, the authors are grateful to two anonymous reviewers, Maria Stanfors, and audiences at seminars in Budapest, Klækken, and London. They also wish to thank the Vienna Institute for Demography and the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Letters and Science for office space, and the Research Council of Norway for financial support.