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Title: Rethinking marriage metabolism: The declining frequency of marital events in the United States

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2022

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DOI: 10.31235/OSF.IO/UT8BC

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Abstract: Previous research has employed an inadequate measure of marriage metabolism, but the concept may be useful for understanding the system of marriage. This paper addresses changes in the incidence of marital events in the United States from 2008 to 2020. I offer a measure, the Total Rate of Marital Events (TRME), that captures the lifetime experience of marital transitions (marriage, divorce, and widowhood) for a life table cohort. I find that the TRME declined steeply over this relatively short period: 25 percent for men and 23 percent for women. All three components declined in every age group below 90. I suggest that the slowing churn of the marriage system reflects the diminished social presence of marriage in daily life – if not its declining importance – which coincides with the increasingly selective status of married life. A higher status marriage system is a smaller, slower, and more stable marriage system.

Url: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/ut8bc/

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Authors: Cohen, Philip N.

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Pages: 1-16

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Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Family and Marriage

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