Verschilt de intergenerationele overdracht van echtscheidingsrisico's tussen samenlevingen? Een vergelijking tussen de Bondsrepubliek en de DDR

Samenvatting

The intergenerational transmission of divorce risk is a well known long-term effect of divorce which has been found in many different Western societies. Less is known about how different family policies and divorce laws contribute to these effects. In this article we consider the separation of Germany between 1949 and 1990 in two states with very different family policies as a natural experiment and investigate the effect of family policies on the strength of social inheritance of divorce. Therefore, we analyse data from the German Life History Study for respondents from the former FRG and GDR with multivariate event-history methods. Our results indicate that the strength of the intergenerational divorce transmission net of the difference in divorce level was lower in the former GDR than in the former FRG. This effect can be explained by differences in denominational composition, marriage age and timing of first birth which are partly indicators for different family policies. Furthermore, we do not find a significant decline in the dynamics of divorce transmission over time, both in the GDR and the FRG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]; Copyright of Mens en Maatschappij is the property of Amsterdam University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)