TABLE 2 - uploaded by Gordon A Carmichael
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Estimated Cumulative Divorce Rates (per 1000 marriages not terminated by death) to Selected Exact Marriage Durations: Male Syn- thetic First Marriage and Remarriage Cohorts 1961-1994
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A recent administrative decision having seriously disrupted the database from which divorce trends and patterns in Australia can be monitored, the time is opportune to take stock of the country's divorce experience. This is done by examining marriage duration-specific proportions divorcing and cumulative rates of divorce calculated for annual synth...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... marriages, then remarriages following widowhood as the most through least divorce-prone is clearcut. As was observed for total real marriage cohorts, considerable stability, at levels similar to those recorded for recent synthetic cohorts (see Tables I and 2 between 1975 and 1976.~ However, the notches need not reflect these; they could mean that remarriages facilitated by the earliest Family Law Act divorces disproportionatcly involved very committed couples. ...
Citations
... The factors associated with modernization and economic development that are usually invoked to explain changes in divorce trends in both developed and developing countries are varied, but those that consistently emerge include increasing employment and educational opportunities for women, and increasing age at marriage (Guest 1992;Carmichael, Webster, and McDonald 1997;Jones 1997;Heaton, Cammack, and Young 2001;Hirschman and Teerawichitchainan 2003;Teerawichitchainan 2004). These factors have also been found to be significant correlates of marital dissolution in most countries, along with factors such as type of union, urban-rural residence during childhood, ethnicity, and religion. ...
BACKGROUND The Philippines is the only country in the world, aside from the Vatican, where divorce is not legal. Despite the lack of divorce law in the country and the high costs of obtaining an annulment, recent data shows that a growing number of Filipinos dissolve their marital unions, either legally or informally. OBJECTIVES I document the rise of union dissolution cases in the Philippines, and investigate the different factors associated with Filipino women's experience of union dissolution. METHODS Data is drawn from the two most recent rounds of the Philippine National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), conducted in 2008 and 2013. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression models are used in the analysis. RESULTS Results reveal that education, type of first union, and childhood place of residence are significantly associated with being divorced or separated among women in the Philippines. Filipino women with higher levels of education, those who were cohabiting without ever marrying in their first union, and those who were raised in urban settings have higher risks of experiencing union dissolution than their counterparts. Religion and ethnicity are also associated with union breakdown among Filipino women. CONTRIBUTION This paper demonstrates that the rise in union dissolution in the Philippines has not happened in isolation. It has to some extent been influenced by the changing character of union formation in the country, the prevailing legal system, a growing acceptance of divorce, increasing education for women, and increasing urbanization.
... Intimacy while ‗going steady' could be experienced in a more relaxed environment that, because effective contraception was easier, was far less likely to produce an unintended pregnancy than in the 1950s and 1960s. With divorce rates rising quickly (Carmichael, Webster, and McDonald 1997), time could be taken to evaluate relationships in marriage-like settings before committing fully to them. And young women could prioritize education and careers that would give them economic independence to survive alone should the need arise in future. ...
Background: Australia has remarkably detailed data on non-marital pregnancy dating from 1908. They both offer insight into long-term trends in childbearing resulting from non-marital sexual activity and reveal in historical context key features of the second demographic transition and its genesis. Objective: Trends are traced in rates of non-marital conception of children ultimately born both outside and within marriage. A range of related indices is also presented in examining how demographic behaviour surrounding non-marital pregnancy (i) helped generate the second demographic transition and (ii) unfolded as a component of it. Methods: Core indices are rates of non-marital conception partitioned into additive components associated with marital and non-marital confinement. Data on non-marital and early marital births (at marriage durations 0-7 months) are lagged back 38 weeks to a date of and age at conception basis to facilitate a common, unmarried, population at risk. Results: Post-war weakening of parental oversight of courtship was a fundamental trigger to the broader rejection of normative and institutional values that underpinned the second demographic transition. In tandem with denying the unmarried access to oral contraception it generated rampant youthful non-marital pregnancy, which undermined Judeo-Christian values, especially once abortion law reform occurred. Conclusions: Childbearing following non-marital conception transitioned rapidly after the 1960s from primarily the unintended product of youthful intercourse in non-coresidential relationships to mainly intended behaviour at normative reproductive ages in consensual unions. Family formation increasingly mixed non-marital births and premaritally and/or maritally conceived marital births.
... There will, though, be ethnic and religious enclaves within society where parental condemnation remains strong. Just as youthful marriages were widely found to have been especially vulnerable to breakdown at the height of the post-war marriage boom (e.g., Carmichael, Webster, & McDonald, 1997), so these days it appears that cohabiting relationships entered very young may be especially vulnerable to dissolution. They are part of a trial and error process of seeking life partners (Carmichael & Whittaker, 2007b) that it would seem often sees them found wanting as individuals mature, identify their goals in life more dearly, come to appreciate that there is more to a relationship than physical attraction and intimacy, and come to view what was fun in the short-term as having limitations for the longer term. ...
This paper mines data from in-depth interviews on family formation with 115 women, men and couples of family-forming age in eastern Australia to examine aspects of the complex phenomenon of living together unmarried. Sixty-five percent of interviews yielded evidence of one or more such relationships entered over approximately a 20-year period. Informants had rarely made considered 'decisions' to cohabit. Moving in had rathe 'just happened', often after couples were 'sort of' living together anyway through regularly staying over with one another. What tended to be transitions rather thandatable events were widely perceived to be 'natural progressions', and motives for them were typically more pragmatic than emotional. The notion of cohabitation as trial marriage did not resonate widely among cohabitors, but did appear to have aided increasing parental acceptance of the lifestyle. Non-cohabiters mostly cited religious beliefs, a desire not to offend parents or a view that by marrying directly they had shown greater commitment as reasons for not having lived together. Youthful entry to cohabiting relationships seems frequently to presage their dissolution as 'growing up' relationships in a climate that increasingly eschews serious family formation until some years later in life. Transitions to marriage, which remains a highly symbolic act of commitment despite being seen in some quarters as irrelevant, have a variety of triggers. Prominent among them are decisions to have children (notwithstanding widespread childbearing within cohabiting unions) and the age-old prerogative of a male to propose marriage when the mood takes him.
... It is well known that divorce became much more common in Australia from the mid- 1970s (Carmichael et al. 1997 ), and it is widely believed that parental marriage breakdown can inhibit family formation. Grace, for example, was of this view. ...
Drawing on in-depth interviews conducted during 2002–03 for the Australian Family Formation Decisions (AFFD) Project, this
paper probes the relationship formation experiences of 115 women, men and couples of family-forming age living in eastern
Australia. Contemporary relationship formation is characterized by a mixture of ambivalence and resignation to having limited
control over the process on the one hand (if it happens it happens), and urgency on the other, especially among women seeking
to fulfil maternal ambitions in their thirties after prioritizing other things earlier in their adult lives. For most the
process of partnering involves trial and error, with timing — finding someone whose expectations of a relationship match one's
own — posing a major challenge. It gives rise to a common phenomenon, the ‘too soon syndrome’, where relationships with many
positive attributes are abandoned because one party perceives the other as too keen to ‘settle down’, and/or himself or herself
as not ready to do so. The paper also examines impediments to partnering, including traditional ones like shyness; negative
trial-and-error experiences; the demands of study and career establishment; pursuit of agendas emphasizing travel and enjoyment;
sole parenthood; and parental marriage breakdown. A framework is provided by Beck's (1992) concept of reflexive modernization,
and his associated proposition that life has become highly individualized with an emphasis on creating do-it-yourself biographies.
... As with most developed nations relationship and family formation in Australia has undergone major changes over the last century, arguably the trend with the most far reaching consequences has been divorce. The divorce rate in Australia is currently 33% (ABS 2005), however, leading Australian demographers predict that recent marriage cohorts will experience rates of divorce around 45% (Carmichael et al 1997). Around half of those divorces involve children under the age of 18 (ABS 2005). ...
Changes to family life in Australia over the last century have been numerous. One such change has been the increase in the number of couples divorcing. Around half of divorces involve children under the age of 18 and it is estimated that around 25% of children are living in households with only one parent (de Vaus 2004). Much research has investigated the consequences of parental divorce for children, and finds that children of divorced parents are more likely to divorce themselves (the intergenerational transmission of divorce). Relatively little attention has been given to the ways in which parental divorce shapes adolescents' perceptions and expectations of their own marriage and family life. In this paper we use data on 6,680 high school children in Queensland, Australia to investigate the association between parental divorce and adolescents' expectations of their own divorce. We find that, net of a range of social and demographic characteristics, there is a strong a positive association between parental divorce and adolescents expectations that they will also get divorced. This adds to our understanding of the intergenerational transmission of divorce as these expectations are likely to contribute to the trajectories and behaviours that increase the risk of divorce in adult children of divorced parents.
... 16 18 20 L a t e 1 8 0 0 ' s 1 9 4 7 1 9 6 1 1 9 7 1 1 9 7 2 1 9 7 6 1 9 8 1 1 9 8 7 1 9 9 3 1 9 9 6 2 0 0 0 Number of divorces per 1000 people Figure 1.1. Australian divorce rates (Carmichael, Webster and McDonald, 1997) 2. Legal changes in many countries, particularly the introduction of no-fault divorce laws, made it easier for unhappy couples to divorce (Carmichael et al, 1997). ...
... 16 18 20 L a t e 1 8 0 0 ' s 1 9 4 7 1 9 6 1 1 9 7 1 1 9 7 2 1 9 7 6 1 9 8 1 1 9 8 7 1 9 9 3 1 9 9 6 2 0 0 0 Number of divorces per 1000 people Figure 1.1. Australian divorce rates (Carmichael, Webster and McDonald, 1997) 2. Legal changes in many countries, particularly the introduction of no-fault divorce laws, made it easier for unhappy couples to divorce (Carmichael et al, 1997). ...
... 3. Changes in government policy lead to the introduction of financial support for single parents. This has allowed separation for people, particularly women, who previously would not have been able to consider divorce for financial reasons (Carmichael et al, 1997). For example, in Australia, the Supporting Mother's Benefit was introduced in 1973 and the Child Support Agency Scheme in 1988. ...
This paper investigates gender differences in time on housework with relationship dissolution. Using longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey (2001-2005) and a linear mixed modeling approach, we examine changes in housework hours before and after separation from marriage or cohabitation. The results indicate that relationship type affects change in housework hours of men and women following separation. Men's housework time increase with separation from marriage, but not from cohabitation. Women's housework time decrease after separation from both cohabitation and marriage. We also find evidence of anticipatory behavior where women who separate do less housework hours prior to separation than those who remain partnered. The paper concludes that gender equality is most likely in the absence of a co-residential partner.
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This chapter provides an overview of recent trends in divorce and relationship dissolution in Australian society. It commences by describing historical and contemporary trends in marriage dissolution using Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data. These data offer little insight into the dissolution of cohabiting relationships. To fill this gap we use unit record data from the first 10 waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey to compare and contrast the stability of marital compared to cohabiting relationships since 1995. Next we examine the consequences of marital and cohabiting relationship dissolution for income and health outcomes for men and women. We conclude with a brief discussion of the extent to which unstable marriages have been replaced by cohabitation.
New Zealand origin academics have played a key role in the academic study of Australia's population in the post-war period. The paper argues that New Zealanders have contributed not only to the furthering of knowledge of the processes of change in the Australian population but have been important in the teaching of population geography in Australian universities, made inputs into policy relating to population and been influential in the development of the Australian Population Association. Major contributions have been made by New Zealanders not only in the traditionally strong areas of population geography such as internal and international migration but also in the areas of fertility, mortality and ageing.
