Union dissolution and remarriage

Two dominant features of Nigerian nuptiality are early and universal marriage. However, changes that are altering this traditional nuptiality pattern have been taking place. The process of modernization has brought about changes in norms and values and increased women’s economic independence. A growing number of persons dissolve their marriages through divorce. Yet, as in many other developing countries, the study of nuptiality patterns in Nigeria is not as well advanced as in developed countries. This study, therefore examined the patterns of divorce in Nigeria. Rate of divorce in Nigeria was 7.2 per 1000 persons age 10 to 85. The highest rates were in the Muslim-dominated Northeast and Northwest, and South-South regions of the country whereas the lowest rate was in the Southeast. Polygyny, wife’s economic dependence, illiteracy, early age at marriage and large spousal gap are likely factors that explain the high rates of divorce in those zones. The least prevalence in the Southeast is likely a result of the influence of the Catholic Church. More women (67.4 percent) than men are divorced, indicating a higher rate of remarriage after divorce by men. This study contributes to the study of nuptilaity patterns and its implications in Nigeria.

This paper highlights the insights from focus group research on childbearing within cohabitation in Russia, conducted as a part of comparative international research on the topic. The goal of the study is to provide deeper understanding of underlying patterns for people choice of the type of union. Russia is an interesting case study because legislation here is unfavourable to cohabitation, prioritizing marriage, yet raising number of people do cohabit, especially in the last decades. Free discussions on 8 focus groups in Moscow revealed deep issue of trust between man and woman (understood differently), lying in the basis of preferences for marriage or cohabitation. Lack of trust to the State makes legal restrictions virtually irrelevant. Religious beliefs of participants provide with foundation for ‘three stages of commitment’ theory, where cohabitation marks the lowest commitment, marriage the average, and wedding in a church the highest. Accordingly, marriage ought to take place several years before wedding. Children serve as a pretext, but not a reason, to marry. In-depth values of responsibility, freedom, ‘property’ and gender (in)equality form men and women behaviour in studied area. More detailed analysis of how the revealed underlying factors interplay will be developed in the full paper.

Divorce is still a taboo in Pakistan with the socio-cultural norms and existing laws encouraging a couple to remain in unhappy union than to end it. Despite these factors, however, the trend for divorce is showing an increasing trend, albeit a very slow one. Similarly, a woman remarrying exposes her to public scrutiny and is looked down upon keeping the rates very low. Using data from the Pakistan DHS 2006-2007, the paper will looks into: the trends of divorce and remarriage over time; and the factors associated with these trends, including, age at marriage, duration of marriage; number of marriages, educational levels, nature of spouse selection, parity, income and rural-urban divide, along with looking at the relevant religious and legal connotations to the phenomenon. The divorce rates are surprisingly higher in rural areas than in urban areas. Factors, like better education, higher labour force participation, and nuclear family, generally associated with a higher divorce rate do not seem to be working in the conventional direction in the country. Trends for remarriage do not show any systematic pattern but the figures give an impression that once a woman goes through a divorce and remarries, the likelihood of getting divorced again increases.

Using selected demographic, social and cultural predictors, this paper analyses the risk of divorce in first marriages in four countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE): Bulgaria, Russia, Lithuania, and Poland. Due to lack of data, the phenomenon of divorce has been understudied in this region and therefore very little is known about its determinants. Formerly having been part of the socialist bloc, these countries share a lot of similarities in their political history and in their economic and societal development. With respect to their cultural and religious background, certain commonalities and differences can be distinguished that place Bulgaria, Russia, Lithuania, and Poland in various clusters. Drawing on these observations, we aim to investigate effects of various divorce predictors and to examine whether the seemingly easy identifiable similarities and diversities are reflected in behaviour related to first marital dissolution. Effects of non-marital cohabitation and motherhood status at first marriage that have been found to be of high but different significance in each country receive a special attention in this paper. The study is based on data from the Generations and Gender Surveys carried out in the 2000s and applies techniques of event-history analysis.

In this paper is proposed an empirical development of a theoretical approach for the study of post-divorce that finds its conceptual basis in the context of vulnerability and its practical basis on the impact of divorce on the economics, health and general welfare of individuals. The understanding of post-divorce as a process that generates vulnerability should be considered as a new development and a necessary input to advance on its scientific knowledge from a socio-demographic perspective.
Data is drawn from the European Living Conditions Survey of 2009 (Italy and Spain databases). Binary Logistic Regression models will be applied separately for men and women to predict the odds of being divorced vs. married considering tree groups of vulnerability indicators that report the economic, health and social conditions of both populations. Such models will characterize divorced and married males and females, distinguishing how these diverse spheres of vulnerability operate in the post-divorce process in both countries.

This paper examines how resolution about uncertainty of spousal HIV risk – through couples voluntary counseling and testing – affects marital stability. In high HIV prevalent areas marriage may not necessarily protect against infection if there is also a high rate of concurrent partnerships; protecting oneself may be even more difficult within a committed relationship. One coping strategy to protect oneself against infection is divorce. We compare marital outcomes among individuals who learned their HIV results either individually, or together as a couple. Using random assignment of individuals to testing as an individual or as a couple we find that couples who learned their HIV results together were 3.5 percentage points less likely to divorce two years after testing, a decrease of 250 percent. Moreover, couples testing significantly reduced worry about HIV risk and beliefs of HIV infection in the future as well as increased overall satisfaction of life.

In the year 2011, 41 300 children in Sweden living with their biological parents experienced a separation between their parents, a rate of 2.9 percent. The number of children that experienced a separation decreased between the year 2000 and 2005, followed by a slight increase and then once again a decrease during the last years. This study aims to find explanations for how socioeconomic and demographic changes of parents can explain the variation of separations during the first 10 years of the 21st century. This register study includes all children in Sweden living with their biological parents 1999–2011. The method used is event-history analysis using a Cox proportional hazard regression model to calculate the different risks to parental separation. The risk of parental separation varies based on the situation of the children, the family and the parents. The results show that there is a significantly higher risk of separation for children with cohabiting parents as opposed to married parents, for children with a young mother, for households with a low educational levels or if the children have foreign born parents. The decline in separations between 1999 and 2006 can be explained when studying the relative risk for parental separation and controlling for different demographic and socioeconomic variables.

The aim of this study is to estimate the prevalence of childbearing outside of a relationship and to compare this group with couples having a child while living together. Using cross sectional data from the Swedish Total Population Register around 10 percent of all children are born to parents registered at different dwelling units and are assumed to be born to a single mother. Using a longitudinal approach we are able to study this group more in detail. In this study the couples having their first child in 2000 are followed from five years before the child is born to the end of 2010. We find that the share born outside of a relationship is probably smaller than previously assumed. In many cases the couple moves in together after the child is born and in some cases the couple separates before the child is born. Only 3 percent of all couples having their first child in 2000 are never found living together. Couples having a child without ever living together are on average younger than other couples and more often have a low level of education, but this group is far from homogenous.

Family instability has been linked to increasing proportions of dual-earner couples. These changes have not resulted in equal division of labor at home and create a gap between gender equality in the public and private spheres which is a possible source of family instability. In this paper we ask whether a more active father’s role in the family has a negative effect on divorce risk. We will do this focusing on a family policy reform, namely the father’s quota of the parental leave, which is a unique Nordic feature with a specific aim of challenging the gender roles in the family. Using unique data from population registers we use the reform to estimate the causal effect of more active father’s role on the risk of divorce. The reform was embraced by the fathers and we expect lower divorce risk after the introduction of the reform than before all other equal.

Since the beginning of the 1980s, cohabitation has risen to a high level in Quebec. Among other things, this rise is related to changes in the Civil Code that have made cohabitation not only a true legal alternative to marriage, but the only way for couples to retain the level of economic independence that the traditional matrimonial regime of separation as to property had offered before the introduction of family patrimony in the Civil Code in 1989. One consequence of these changes is that in Quebec, cohabitation is not associated with being a low prospect for marriage or having some delinquent behaviour. The authors use this setting to examine how the dynamics of breakdown of marriage and cohabitation vary according to personal time rather than to individual characteristics. Using data from the 2006 and 2011 Family Transitions Survey and the 2001 Family History, they show that the hazard of breakdown of marriage varies according to age at the onset of the union whereas the hazard of breakdown of cohabitation varies according to age during the union.