Educational Gradients in Divorce Risks in Sweden in Recent Decades

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the influence of a womans educational status on the risk that her marriage will break down as manifested in divorce levels of Swedish women in their first marriage between the late 1960s and 1991. We shall show that the risk of a first marriage breaking down has increased considerably in recent cohorts but that the increase has been concentrated in women with lower educational attainments....It is easily conceivable that the educational gradient may respond to apparently undramatic modifications in personal circumstances or in the social environment in a population in which the effect of education on risks of marriage breakdown is weak. We shall show that this has happened in Sweden recently and consider possible explanations. (EXCERPT)