The Wall Street Journal Blows It (Again)
By David Blankenhorn and Tom Sylvester
The last time we heard from Jeffrey Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal on the subject of divorce, in January of this year, he was reporting that “tense times,” including the effects of the September 11 attacks, were causing an increase in divorce. “Divorce Makes a Comeback,” the headline dramatically declared.
But the story was bogus. As David Blankenhorn explained, there is no credible evidence that divorce in the U.S. is increasing, or making a “comeback.” In fact, research indicates that U.S. divorce rates have been modestly declining for some time now.
Unfortunately, Mr. Zaslow has revisited the subject. In Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, Mr. Zaslow reports with considerable fanfare that the U.S. is experiencing a “boom in breakups” among older couples. For the article, he interviewed some older people who are divorcing. He interviewed some divorce attorneys who describe the special challenges facing the “gray divorcee.” And he explains that today’s longer life spans are contributing to the “boom” of older couples getting divorced, since the institution of marriage, which arose a long time ago, was never “designed” to keep couples together for long periods of time after their children had grown up and when they were, well, old.
Apart from these anecdotes and suppositions, the entire factual basis for Mr. Zaslow’s claim of a “boom in breakups” among American age 65 and older is two numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. In 1990, we learn, only 6 percent of U.S. senior citizens were divorced or separated. But by 2001, “that figure had jumped to 10 percent.” A trend!
But the story is bogus. Mr. Zaslow offers no credible evidence of a “boom” in divorce among older U.S. couples. In fact, all available data suggest that divorce rates among senior citizens have remained stable at low levels. Let us count the ways in which this story gets it wrong.
1. The numbers are wrong.
Mr. Zaslow obtained his “10 percent” figure from a report by the Administration on Aging (AoA), an agency in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But that statistic is incorrect. The 2002 Current Population Survey data, which the AoA report incorrectly cites as from 2001, actually show that 8.3% of Americans over the age of 65 are currently divorced or separated.
That means that the supposed “surge” is not from 6 to 10 percent, but from 6.3 to 8.3 percent – a little correction that cuts his “surge” in half. Indeed, after considering that the proportion of divorced and separated senior citizens “jumped” 2 points over twelve years, this “jump” ends up being considerably less … jumpy.
2. Zaslow misunderstands what these numbers are measuring.
Mr. Zaslow assumes that this “surge” in divorced old folks means that more elderly couples are getting divorced. But it proves no such thing at all. What this (corrected, pretty small) “surge” most likely reflects is that more Americans who married and divorced during the post-1960 “divorce revolution” are now entering the 65-and-older age category. This phenomenon is what scholars call a “cohort effect.” It does not mean that more older couples are suddenly deciding to get divorced.
Yesterday we asked several prominent family scholars to comment on Mr. Zaslow’s interpretation of the data. They all said pretty much the same thing. Norval Glenn of the University of Texas put it this way:
An increase in the percentage of older persons who are divorced in no sense proves that the divorce rate in long-term marriages has increased. The first cohorts that participated to any appreciable extent in the "divorce boom" of the 1960s and 1970s are now aging into the "senior" level. When the baby boomers get there, the percentage ever-divorced will go up sharply, and the percentage currently divorced will go up a little less [as some are remarried]. So, this is an egregious example of a misinterpretation of divorce data.
Take this typical scenario: If a woman divorced at age 30 in 1965 (or at age 35 in 1970) and doesn’t remarry, she will have joined the “divorced” group of senior citizens in 2000. Thus, the figures Zaslow cites do not show that more senior citizens are suddenly becoming divorced adults, but that more divorced adults are becoming senior citizens.
3. Divorce rates among older U.S. couples appear to be fairly stable.
So what if you wanted to find out how many senior citizens are divorcing? For this statistic, one would look at the divorce rate for that specific age group. In any one year, for every 1,000 married persons age 65 and older, how many got divorced?
In 1970, for men, that figure was 1.9. In 1980, it was 1.9. In 1990, it was 2.1. For women, the 1970 figure was 1.3. In 1980, it was 1.4. In 1990, it was 1.4. Not very jumpy at all.
For the years since 1990 … as best we can determine, no one really knows. The reason for this lack of knowledge is the suspension, in 1996, of the collection of detailed information on marriage and divorce by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The last detailed NCHS report on divorce used data for 1989 and 1990. This suspension has been a huge problem and disappointment for family scholars, and here is another example of how it has hurt their ability to gather basic information on important questions.
Nevertheless, the available Census Bureau evidence strongly suggests that divorce rates among seniors have remained stable. Look at the trend-line data in this table we constructed with Census Data:
Marital Status of Persons 65 Years and Over
|
Year |
1994 |
1995 |
1996 |
1997 |
1998 |
1999 |
2000 |
2002 |
|
|
% separated |
1.1 |
0.9 |
0.9 |
1.0 |
1.0 |
1.0 |
0.9 |
1.1 |
0.9 |
|
% divorced |
5.3 |
5.6 |
5.7 |
6.4 |
6.8 |
6.7 |
6.7 |
6.7 |
7.4 |
|
% separated or divorced |
6.3 |
6.5 |
6.6 |
7.4 |
7.8 |
7.6 |
7.6 |
7.8 |
8.3 |
All data from Census Bureau tables available online.
As we can see, there has been a slight increase in the percentage of senior citizens who are currently divorced. However, there is no increase in the percentage of senior citizens who are currently separated. If more senior citizens got divorced—while being senior citizens—in the 1990s, one would expect a concomitant increase in the proportion of senior citizens who are “currently separated.”
Thus, this table provides additional (if somewhat indirect) evidence that more divorced adults are becoming senior citizens, not that more senior citizens are suddenly getting divorced.
4. Longer life spans do not explain changes in divorce rates.
What, in Mr. Zaslow’s view, is causing the “boom” in older couples getting divorced? Invoking Margaret Mead and an attorney, he makes much of the idea that longer life spans are a cause of more divorce. We used to die young. Now we live much longer, including many more years without young children under foot, which in turn means … more time to decide to get divorced.
To be fair, Mr. Zaslow did not invent this argument. It appears from time to time, not only in the media, but also in some college-level textbooks on marriage and the family. But it just ain’t true.
First, today’s longer life expectancies are due primarily to sharp drops during the last half of the 20th century in rates of infant and child mortality – a happy fact, but one that has no influence on marriage and divorce rates one way or the other. Life expectancy once one reaches adulthood hasn’t changed dramatically in recent decades.
Moreover, as we put in a 1997 Institute report:
[T]he increase in life expectancy due to a decline in age-specific death rates among older adults has been accompanied by an increase in the typical age at marriage, leaving the "natural" life span of marriage (excluding divorce) only moderately longer than it was earlier in the century. Between 1940 and 1990, for example, life expectancy from the median age at marriage increased by only 4.5 years for men and 6.6 years for women. From 1960 (before the modern divorce boom began) to 1990, the increase was only one year for men and less than 5 months for women.
Not much of a “jump” at all! And certainly not enough of a jump to account for a sudden “surge” in older Americans getting divorced. And, oh yes, a demographic “surge” for which, it turns out, there is not one shred of credible evidence.
