What was the most likely reason for divorce rate surge after World War II?

The sharp increase in marriages observed around 1940 can be attributed to the start of the Second World War. The number of males aged under 20 and 20 to 24 marrying increased by 77% and 48% respectively between 1938 and 1940. Following this rise, the number of marriages declined during the war period of 1941 to 1943 but began to rise again towards the end of the war.

The number of divorces generally increased between 1932 and the early 1990s as a result of changes in behaviour and attitudes. The large increase in the late 1940s (following the end of the Second World War) is considered to be because of women’s increased participation in the labour force which meant couples were no longer as financially dependent on each other.

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Births peaked after the war and created the generation known as the 'baby boomers'

Annual number of births and deaths, England and Wales, 1931 to 2011

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The number of live births and the total fertility rate (TFR) fluctuated throughout the twentieth century with a sharp peak soon after the end of World War II, in 1947.  Live births peaked again in 1964 (875,972 births), but since then lower numbers have been recorded. The lowest annual number of births in the twentieth century was 569,259 in 1977. The number of births is dependent on both fertility rates and the size and age structure of the female population.

The chart shows a relatively small increase in deaths during WW2, this is because ONS doesn't have records for the significant loss of life by the armed forces overseas. The increase was mainly due to rising infant mortality at the time.

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Adoptions rose during and after the war

Annual number of adoptions, England and Wales, 1931 to 2011

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Adoptions increased during the war and peaked after the war in 1946. This is likely due to the introduction of the Children Regulations Act in 1943, formalising the process of adoption.

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Life expectancy increased after the war

Life expectancy, England and Wales, 1931 to 2011

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Life expectancy fell in 1940 because of the effect of the war on the civilian population. For instance, many armed forces were conscripted overseas. After the war life expectancy continued to increase partly due to improvements in infant mortality and childhood immunisation.

Life expectancy at birth in 1931 was 57.8 years for males and 61.8 years for females. This has risen to 80.1 years and 83.8 years respectively in 2015. However, female life expectancy has been consistently higher than male life expectancy throughout the period 1931-2015. It is worth noting that 2013, 2014, 2015 are projections.

The popular assumption about divorce is that it’s increasing over time. This perception is cemented by the marriage promotion programs aimed at lowering the divorce rate and getting couples who have children together to get married. These programs have been directed at low-income people in particular, with the federal government spending about $1 billion on marriage promotion since 2000. Like crime rates, we see rising divorce rates as an ill connected to our ever-modernizing society, one that must be overcome.

Yet Americans getting married in their late 20s probably have a less than 50 percent chance of getting divorced, and that downward trend will likely continue. Rather than a conservative turn toward family values, I think this represents an improving quality of marriages. When marriage is voluntary — when people really choose to get married instead of simply marching into it under pressure to conform — they make better choices.

There is some truth to the notion that divorce is more common than it was 75 years ago. Looked at from a slightly different angle, though, the data tells a very different story about the state of American coupling. Over the past three decades, the divorce rate has actually declined.

Overall, the long-term trend in divorce has been upward since the U.S. started collecting data on marriage. The uptick hasn’t been consistent, though. A huge spike in divorce followed the soldiers returning home at the end of World War II. Divorce rates also increased steeply in the 1960s and 1970s, following the growth of the women’s movement and no-fault divorce laws.

And to complicate an already complex picture, there is a decade of missing divorce data. Six states stopped reporting on divorce to the National Center for Health Statistics between 1998 and 2007 — though it’s unclear why — and with about 20 percent of the population missing from the sample, the resulting statistics weren’t especially reliable. The Census Bureau does do a giant sample survey, the American Community Survey, which gives us great data on divorce patterns, but they only started collecting that information in 2008.

Still, it is clear that since 1979, a higher rate of couples have decided to stay married. There is a real decline in divorce and it’s concentrated among young people. Their chances of divorcing have fallen over the last decade.

In my own analysis of the data, I’ve estimated that 53 percent of marriages end in divorce. That number is skewed, in complicated ways, by older people. Their rates of divorce have doubled over the past two decades.

Many of the people getting married today are more privileged than they used to be: more highly educated (both partners), and socially and economically stable, all of which bodes well for the survival of their marriages (even if it means more inequality in society).

That said, we should ask whether falling divorce rates are always a good thing. Most people getting married would like to think they’ll stay together for the long haul, but what is the right amount of divorce for a society to have?

It seems like an odd question, but divorce really isn’t like crime. Less crime is inarguably good, but we do want some divorces. Otherwise it means people are stuck in bad marriages. If you have no divorce that means even abusive marriages can’t break up. If you have a moderate amount, it means pretty bad marriages can break up but people don’t treat it lightly.

When you put it that way, moderate sounds best. Even as we shouldn’t assume families are always falling apart more than they used to, we should consider the pros and cons of divorce, rather than insisting less is always better.

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