Is There a Declining Trend in the Intergenerational Transmission of Divorce?

Abstract

This study investigates changes in the effect of parental divorce on the odds of union dissolution in children in the Czech Republic. Using survival analysis and Czech GGS data, it shows that the intergeneration transmission of divorce varied over marital cohorts to a significant degree. While parental divorce had insignificant effect in the oldest marriage cohort, it subsequently grew. In the 1980-1989 marriage cohort, the risk of divorce was 3.7 times higher among children of divorced parents than among children whose parents did not divorce. In the most recent marriage cohort (1990-2005), the parental divorce effect weakened but was still significant: Children of divorced parents experienced a divorce risk that was twice as high that of children from intact families. This convergence of divorce risks resulted from two parallel trends: The rising divorce risk among children from non-divorced families and the declining divorce risk among children of divorce.