While doing some research for another post I came across some surprising findings by Dr. Steven P. Martin in his presentation Education and Marital Dissolution Rates in the United States. Dr. Martin is a professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, and his speciality is Demography. On page 19 of his presentation he shows how the opinions of college grads on divorce have changed over time. Scores below 1 indicate that divorce should be made easier, 1 indicates it should stay the same, and greater than 1 indicate it should be harder to divorce.
Echoing grerp’s assertion of a generational shift in attitudes about divorce (page 17):
“(O)n the core social question of whether family fragmentation is a bad thing or a not-so bad thing, a steady shift in popular and (especially) elite opinion took place over the course of the 1990s. Denial and happy talk about the consequences of nuclear family decline became decidedly less widespread; concern and even alarm became much more common. As a society we changed our minds, and as a result we changed some of our laws. And now, it seems, we are beginning to change some of our personal behavior. This is very encouraging news.” Blankenhorn (2002)
