Age at marriage and the risk of divorce in England and Wales

Abstract

BACKGROUNDA well-documented association exists between age at marriage and therisk of divorce. However, substantial gaps in our knowledge andunderstanding of its origins, nature, and implications still exist.OBJECTIVESThis article documents the relationship between women's ages at firstmarriage and marriage cohort divorce rates, assessing the importance ofrelative ages at marriage (based on rankings within marriage cohorts)and of absolute, chronological ages at marriage, and evaluating thecontribution of changes in the age at marriage distribution to observeddivorce rates.METHODSDirect standardisation and logistic regression analyses are applied topublished marriage and divorce data for the 1974-1994 marriage cohortsin England and Wales.RESULTSChanging ages at marriage appear to have constrained the rise in divorceacross the cohorts examined. However, the results suggest that much ofthe impact of age at marriage is linked to relative ages, reducing theextent of this `braking' effect. It also appears that a positive effectof relative age at marriage on the risk of divorce for later marriagesis outweighed by the negative effect of absolute age at marriage athigher ages.CONCLUSIONSBoth explanations relating to `maturity' and explanations focusing on`selection' or `marriage markets' appear of relevance to the associationbetween age at marriage and divorce.