Aspire Research Notes
Number, Timing, and Duration of Marriages and Divorces: 2001
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Introduction
Marital patterns are affected by social and
economic events, as well as by changes in
cultural attitudes and behaviors. Changes
in the patterns of marriage and divorce
can then affect family life and other interactions. The Survey of Income and
Program Participation (SIPP) is one of very
few data sources that can provide a comprehensive
look at both current and historical
marriage and divorce behaviors of
men and women in the United States.
SIPP data contain a detailed marital history
for men and women of all ages, as well
as extensive information about the characteristics
of adults, their households, and
those with whom they live. In addition,
information about both husbands and
wives is available for people who are currently
married.
SIPP has become one of the principal
data sources for marriage and divorce
statistics, and the leading source of
detailed marital history information,
since the National Center for Health
Statistics no longer publishes detailed
information about marriages and divorces. Estimates of indicators such as
the characteristics of people who had a
recent marital event, the percentage of
currently married couples who have
reached their fiftieth anniversary, the
percentage of men and women who have
ever divorced, or the percentage of
recent marriages in which both the bride
and groom were marrying for the first
time are at this point available only from
SIPP data. In addition, characteristics such as labor force participation,
poverty status, and the presence of
children for people with recent
marital events are available only
from the SIPP and represent socioeconomic characteristics that were
never collected in the Vital
Statistics system.
The SIPP marital history topical
module is a nationally representative
survey that is fielded approximately
every 5 years, with the
most recent data collection prior to
this survey occurring in 1996.
This report updates some of the
tables shown in the previous
report with data collected in the
second interview of the SIPP 2001
Panel, and adds several tables that
cover other topics.
In 2001, marital history data were
collected from men and women
15 years and older in approximately
30,000 households. In the sample,
56,574 people were asked
questions about the number of
times they had been married, and
the month and year of marital
events (including marriage,
divorce, widowhood, and the date
of last separation, if divorced) for
the first, second, and most recent
marriage. Since less than 1 percent
of adults have been married
four or more times, few events are
missed by using this approach.
The first section of this report
describes changes in the age at
which different cohorts of men and
women born since 1935 to 1939
have married, divorced, and remarried.
The second section provides
current indicators of the percentage
of the population who have married
more than once, who have ever
divorced, or who experienced other
marital events. This section also
answers questions about how long
first marriages last, the median age
at which people marry or divorce,
and what percentage of currently
married couples involve spouses
who are both in their first marriage.
The third section profiles the characteristics
of people who experienced
a marital event in the year
prior to the survey. The last section
of the report considers the relationship
between whether people
remarry after a divorce and the
number of children born to them.
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