Divorce
40% of first marriages in Canada end in divorce
Historical Divorce trends
Rare before 1900
- Key legal amendments in 1968 and 1985
Divorce in 2008
Average age at divorce: 42 for women and 45 for men
- Average length of marriage 14.5 years
- Risk of divorce highest at year 4 or 5
Trends in Divorce
- Overall trend toward increased divorce
- family bonds now are voluntary, emotional ties
- Secularization and individualism
- Women’s economic independence
- Liberalized divorce laws (which reflect broader changes)
Who is less likely to divorce?
- People married at older ages
- University educated
- (used to be) people who cohabited first (no longer true)
- Religious people
- No children before marriage
- People whose parents didn’t divorce
- Some specific ethnicities
Patterns of Remarriage
- Most divorced Canadian men and women remarry (except in Quebec)
- Multiple remarriages are rare
- Remarriages are more likely than first marriages to end in divorce
Remarriages and Divorce
- more accepting of divorce
- More complex family structures
- Fewer “scripts” to follow (incomplete institutionalization)
Trends in Remarriage
- Historically prevalent among widows and widowers
* Remarriage is now more common and involves younger people
Consequences of Divorce for Adults (Symbolic Interactionist Perspective)
Family members must renegotiate relationships and meaning
- Can be a positive experience
- Can have negative effects on social-psychological well-being
- Economic repercussions
Single parent households
16% of Canadian Children
81% of these children live with single mothers
Consequences of Divorce for Children
- Assumptions of negative consequences
- Children in single-parent families do face challenges
- result from economic circumstances, lack of support
- not a product of family structure in itself
Consequences for children (Divorce) Depend on
- Age of child (timing!)
- Living and parenting arrangements
- Level of parental conflict
- Socioeconomic resources
- Other social networks
- Divorce is better than a conflictual marriage for children
Murdock vs. Murdock (1968)
- Alberta ranchers
- Ruling that wife had no claim on property acquired during marriage
- led to revisions in matrimonial property laws
Child Custody and Support
Custody awarded based on the “best interests of the child”
Legal Custody
Long-term decisions about how child is raised
Physical custody
Responsibility for child on a daily basis
Join Custody
Legal custody is shared equally
- Bi-nuclear family
- 9% of divorced families
Trends in child custody
- More fathers seeking sole or joint custody
- child support determined based on living arrangements
Counter-transition
Is a transition produced by the life changes of others
Bi-nuclear family
Is created when both the mother and the father act as parents to their children following divorce, although they maintain separate residences
Crude divorce rate
is calculated as the number of divorces in a given year divided by the mid-year population
Joint custody
Is defined as the legal right and responsibility of both parents to make decisions and care for their child(ren) following a divorce
Legal separaration
Occurs when married couples separate with the intention of obtaining a divorce
Remarriage as an incomplete institution
Refers to a lack of normative guidelines for solving problems and can result in disagreement, division, and conflict among family members
