Factors that affect the divorce rate - Essay Example

Sociology Introduction Divorce is the final termination of a marriage, cancelling the duties and responsibilities of marriage. Divorce can be stressful in life that affects finance, living arrangements, household jobs and other things as well in life. Divorce rate is the number of divorces per 1000. Divorce rate is increased day by day. There are many factors that affect the divorce arte. These factors are education, race, prestige, religious activities etc. As per Data of the US census Bureau in 2010 the highest “First divorce rate” is 17.5 per 1000 women. Among the first divorce rate the women who have high school education has highest first divorce rate. The women who have not any high school education they share first divorce rate lowest which is 14.4. If we see race factor then according to the data of US census Bureau there are lowest divorce rate for the people who are affected from race. Asian women have lowest divorce rate which is 10 divorces per 1000 divorces while white and Hispanic women have highest divorce rate which is 16.3 and 18.1 per 1000 divorces respectively. The women which have high school education has highest divorce rate among the women who are divorced due to some race factor. Similarly prestige also related with divorce. People who have high prestige sometime are away from cultural norms and values. Divorce pattern is high among the people who have prestige. Prestige is the admiration that a particular person has in a society, it is a respect that he have in society and it usually comes from occupation. Some occupation requires liberal full freedom women. When women do these kinds of jobs, conflicts arise between husband and wife and divorce occurred. The numbers of working hours are also related with divorce. If husband belongs to working class or from that class which have low income then conflicts arises. Because wives demand for its accessories and luxurious life as well but the husband who works low no. of hours have low income and cannot fulfill his wife’s requirement and ultimately divorced occurred. People who attend the religious activities briskly has low divorce rate because religion has a strong effect on the marriage. It gives space to each partner and determines clearly roles & responsibilities of each partner. The people who attend briskly religious activities are more close to religion and more aspire from it, they obey the orders in their life what religion has said to them to obey in their life to be successful in life, they are more close to the norms and values of religion and obey the orders of religion. So, there are less chance of clash among those couples who attend religious activities and seminars. Those people who never attend the religious activities or attend but not regularly are away from religion and are not aspire from religion. They do not know that how beautifully the religion has determined the roles and responsibilities of each partner to keep peace between them. Literature review Marriage dissolution through divorce is more common among white women because they more focus on economic value of their husband; if they are not economically strong they remain dissatisfied from their marriage and think about marriage dissolution to terminate their roles and responsibilities regarding marriage (Norton, Arthur and Paul 5-20). Americans heavily depends their marriages on their psychological well-being. Quality of marriage life heavily depends upon the female and white women are more materialistic, they focus on wealth and that’s why they are more dissatisfied from their marriage when their husband are not rich. The estimated contributions of white women are lowest for the marital stability and well-being (Glenn, Norval and Charles 161-168). African Americans has strong cultural reasons, norms and values, they know the responsibility and value of the marriage. So they do sacrifice for the save of their marriage while the white Americans have low cultural norms and values they do not know the value of marriage (Dilworth-Anderson, Peggye, et al. 257-262). Education and the occupation of the partners are the main cause of their marital instability. The marital well-being strongly affected by the education and occupation. More educated a partner, it has more desire of self-esteem and when his desire is not fulfilled by other partner then the educated partner feels insult and dissatisfied from its marriage and move towards marital dissolution (Amato, Paul and Bruce 43-58). The persons who re married after first divorce are more well-being and their marriages are more stable, this is the situation for all except for white women. They are not happy in their married life until unless they get the socially and economically strong partner. Woman who work for pay and have high occupational prestige enjoys more marriage dissolution because they cannot give proper time to his husband and family. The attract more from money resources and remain more busy in their job. Their husbands dissatisfied from them because they do not give proper time to him and family and give them divorce. Time is the major constraint for the stability of marriage of women who have high occupational prestige. Full time work leads towards prestige and sometimes it is the major factor of unexpectedly divorce (Poortman 301-309). Women prestige and autonomy also have a great impact on marriage instability. There is a significant impact of profession on propensity to divorce. Propensity to divorce is high for those male and female which have high occupational prestige. Propensity to consume for professional workers and technical workers are high as compare to nonprofessional and non-technical worker. Similarly propensity to divorce is highest for female who are doing professional and technical jobs. On the other hand propensity to divorce is low for nonfarm workers who have less occupational prestige (Gruber, Jonathan, vol 5.1). Specific reasons for divorcing and marriage dissolution are the gender, social class and life course variables. People who do low number of work has low income and they cannot get all the in the life because they have shortage of money and income and their partners are also dissatisfied from their marriages because they do not give a luxurious life. So, mostly low social class leads towards marriage dissolution. Socio-economic position plays a vital role in marriage stability. The couple in which husband belongs to an upper social class spends a happy life and enjoys marital stability. But if husband belongs to a lower social class are unemployed having high rate of divorce due to shortage of income (Amato, Paul and Denise 602-626). Religious also put a positive impact on divorce rate. Religion gives guideline to spend life with peace so it has a great influence on married life. Religion determines the values and norms of family, partner. It controls the one’s behavior and those who regularly attend the religious activities greatly inspires from these values and norms (D'Antonio, William, William and Stuart 218-225). Risk of divorce is decreased as the people attend the religious activities; religion determines the rules and guidelines not only for happy married life but also for whole life (Mahoney, Annette, et al. 559). Religious play very important role in lives of Americans. It gives potential solution to every problem; major determinant of religious participation is religious market density. High market density leads towards high religious participation. High religious participation leads towards higher level of education and income, lower level of welfare receipt and disability, high level of marriages and lower levels of divorce (Gruber, 2005). Hypothesis This study basically focuses on factors that cause divorce. My dependent variable is rate of divorce and independent variables are prestige, race, social class and religious activities. All these independent variables affect the dependent variable which is divorce. My hypothesis is: “People who are white, have high prestige, low social class and do not attend religious activities briskly have high divorce rate.” This hypothesis tells us about the relationship between dependent and independent variables. Each variable has independent relationship with the divorce rate. The statistical analysis of the previous study shows that the people who are white, have high occupational prestige, low social class and do not attend religious activities have high divorce rate ratio. It is expected from the previous studies that prestige is positively related with divorce rate. Higher the prestige higher will be the divorce rate. High prestige occupation requires more number of working hours and the woman who have occupational prestige cannot give proper time to her family and husband and husband dissatisfied from them and terminate their roles and responsibilities through marriage dissolution. Woman who are doing job, more attract from job and money resources, they consider everything is money, they get occupational prestige and do not concentrate on their family, husband and their children that’s why their families and husbands remain dissatisfied from them and cannot get marital well-being and happiness. Race also has a great impact on marital stability and well-being. People who are black have more cultural norms and values. They give some value to their marriage and do sacrifices for their marriage stability. Another reason of black people marriage stability is that they suffer for occupational prestige in their life and low occupational prestige leads towards low number of divorces. But the white people are away from cultural norms and values; they are more materialistic and give value to economic wealth. If their partner is not economically well they adopt the separation from each other and terminate their rights and obligations towards marriage. Social class also has great impact on divorce rate. It is negatively related with divorce rate. Upper class has low divorce rate while the lower class has highest divorce rate. The main reason of this is income. Lower social class do work lower number of hours and that’s why they have not income to fulfill the desires of their partner and their partner are dissatisfied from them, they are not spending happy married life so they separate from each other. People who attend religion activities briskly are more close to religion. Religion has great impact on their married life. They obey the orders of religion. Religion gives the lesson of peace in their married life and clearly determines the roles, responsibilities and rights of each partner. Those who are close to religion have less divorce rate. Conclusion This paper is related to the factors of divorce. After doing statistical analysis I reached this conclusion that prestige is positively related with divorce rate, race is negatively related with divorce rate, number of working hours and social class is negatively related with divorce rate and religious activities are also negatively related with divorce rate. Prestige related with occupation. High occupation prestige requires more working hours. People cannot give proper time to family and their partner and their partner dissatisfied from each other because time is the major constraint in this relationship and when you will not give proper time to your partner, they will remain dissatisfied from them and ultimately they dissolve their marriage. Race is negatively related with divorce rate because black people has low divorce rate ratio and white people has high divorce rate ratio. The main reason of this is that white people are relatively away from religion and cultural norms and values while the black people are more close to religion and cultural norms and values. Black people give more space to religion in their lives and follow the religion in their practical life. People who have low working hours have low income and are not in a situation that they can fulfill their partner’s desires and wishes. Their partners are dissatisfied from them because they are not economically strong. White women are more dissatisfied from such kind of partners because they want economically well and socially well identified husband. White male who belongs to social class I has lowest divorce rate ratio while the white people who belongs to social class V has lowest divorce rate ratio. So, people who are more economically strong and socially identified have low divorce rate ratio. Because they have money and conflicts arises in a relationship due to shortage of money. References Amato, Paul R., and Bruce Keith. "Parental divorce and adult well-being: A meta-analysis." Journal of Marriage and the Family (1991): 43-58. Amato, Paul R., and Denise Previti. "People's reasons for divorcing gender, social class, the life course, and adjustment." Journal of Family Issues 24.5 (2003): 602-626. D'Antonio, William V., William M. Newman, and Stuart A. Wright. "Religion and family life: How social scientists view the relationship." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (1982): 218-225. Dilworth-Anderson, Peggye, et al. "Effect of race on cultural justifications for caregiving." The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 60.5 (2005): S257-S262. Glenn, Norval D., and Charles N. Weaver. "The contribution of marital happiness to global happiness." Journal of Marriage and the Family (1981): 161-168 Greenstein, Theodore N. "Occupation and divorce." Journal of Family Issues 6.3 (1985): 347-357. Gruber, Jonathan H. "Religious market structure, religious participation, and outcomes: Is religion good for you?." Advances in Economic Analysis & Policy 5.1 (2005). Mahoney, Annette, et al. "Religion in the home in the 1980s and 1990s: a meta-analytic review and conceptual analysis of links between religion, marriage, and parenting." Journal of Family Psychology 15.4 (2001): 559. Norton, Arthur J., and Paul C. Glick. "Marital instability: Past, present, and future." Journal of Social Issues 32.1 (1976): 5-20. Poortman, Anne-Rigt. "Women’s work and divorce: A matter of anticipation? A research note." European Sociological Review 21.3 (2005): 301-309 Read More