Cohort change in the marital life course: an analysis of marital life histories using multistate life-table techniques.

Using 1980 Current Population Survey data changes in the marital life course of successive cohorts of white American women are examined. Increment-decrement life table models modified for use in the analysis of individual life history data are used to analyze and project experience to age 70 for 1906-1910 through 1946-1950 birth cohorts. Major findings include: 1) there has been an increase in the probability of disruption of 1st marriages resulting from a large increase in the proportion divorced and a small decrease in the proportion widowed by age 70; 2) the increase in divorce is especially marked for birth cohorts from 1936-1940 on; 3) divorce from remarriage has also increased substantially; and 4) as a result of the changing probabilities and timing of major marital history transitions the number of married years is greatest for the middle birth cohorts. To some extent the experiences of the 1906-1910 cohort and the cohort a generation later suggest the "replacement" of widowhood by divorce; with the marked increases in divorce since then the overall impact of divorce in the marital life course substantially outweighs the effects of widowhood or of likely future changes in the level or timing of widowhood.