How the relationship between status and divorce shifts over historical time among industrialized countries remains largely unknown. A socioeconomic growth hypothesis posits that a more recent marriage cohort (relative to a previous cohort) in an industrialized country exhibits (1) larger divorce-suppressive effects of husbands' and wives' higher level of education and (2) a shift from a pattern in which only husbands' education substantially influences the couples' likelihood of divorce to a pattern in which both spouses' education influences that likelihood. The author tests the need to modify this hypothesis to reflect the intervening influences of cultural-institutional arrangements using the United States and Japan. The author applies event history regressions to the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the Japanese General Social Survey. Results from both countries suggest the needs for modifications and imply that divorce is increasingly tied to socioeconomic inequality in both industrialized countries, but in contrasting ways.
M. Kalmijn, P. M. De Graaf, and A. R. Poortman, "Interactions between Cultural and Economic Determinants of Divorce in the Netherlands," Journal of Marriage and the Family 66 (2004): 75-89; R. D. Mare, "Five Decades of Educational Assortative Mating," American Sociological Review 56 (1991): 15-32; S. McLanahan, "Diverging Destinies: How Children Fare under the Second Demographic Transition," Demography 41 (2004): 607-27; Z. Qian and S. Preston, "Changes in American Marriage, 1972 to 1987: Availability and Forces of Attraction by Age and Education," American Sociological Review 58 (1993): 482-95; J. Raymo, M. Iwasawa, and L. L. Bumpass, "Marital Dissolution in Japan: Recent Trends and Patterns," Demographic Research 11 (2004): 395-420; C. R. Schwartz and R. D. Mare, "Trends in Educational Assortative Marriage from 1940 to 2003," Demography 42 (2005): 621-46; J. Smits, W. Ultee, and J. Lammers, "Educational Homogamy in 65 Countries: An Explanation of Differences in Openness using Country-level Explanatory Variables," American Sociological Review 63 (1998): 264-85.
2.
H. P. Blossfeld, A. De Rose, J. M. Hoem, and G. Rohwer, "Education, Modernization, and the Risk of Marriage Disruption in Sweden, West Germany and Italy," in Gender and Family Change in Industrialized Countries, ed. K. O. Mason and A. M. Jensen (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1995); H. P. Blossfeld, "Introduction," in The New Role of Women: Family Formation in Modern Societies, ed. H. P. Blossfeld (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995); T. N. Greenstein, "Marital Disruption and the Employment of Married Women," Journal of Marriage and the Family 52 (1990): 657-76; M. Kalmijn, "Intermarriage and Homogamy: Causes, Patterns, Trends," Annual Review of Sociology 24 (1998): 395-421; Mare, "Five Decades of Educational Assortative Mating"; Qian and Preston, "Changes in American Marriage"; R. K. Raley and L. L. Bumpass, "The Topography of the Divorce Plateau: Levels and Trends in Union Stability in the United States after 1980," Demographic Research 8 (2003): 246-59; Schwartz and Mare, "Trends in Educational Assortative Marriage"; M. M. Sweeney, "Two Decades of Family Change: The Shifting Economic Foundations of Marriage," American Sociological Review 67 (2002): 132-47.
3.
For example, A. J. Cherlin, F. F. Furstenberg, L. P. Chase-Lansdale, K. E. Kiernan, P. K. Robins, D. R. Morrison, and J. O. Teitler, "Longitudinal Studies of Effects of Divorce on Children in Great Britain and the United States," Science 252 (1991): 1386-89; P. J. Smock, W. D. Manning, and S. Gupta, "The Effect of Marriage and Divorce on Women's Economic Well-being," American Sociological Review 64 (1999): 794-812; L. Waite, "Does Marriage Matter?" Demography 32 (1995): 483-520.
4.
C. Hirschman and B. Teerawichitchainan, "Cultural and Socioeconomic Influences on Divorce during Modernization: Southeast Asia, 1940s to 1960s ," Population and Development Review29 (2003): 215-53.
5.
G.W. Jones, "Modernization and Divorce: Contrasting Trends in Islamic Southeast Asia and the West," Population and Development Review23 (1997): 95-114.
6.
W. J. Goode, World Revolution and Family Patterns (London: Free Press, 1963); W. J. Goode, World Changes in Divorce Patterns (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993).
7.
Sweeney, "Two Decades of Family Change"; Treiman, "Industrialization and Social Stratification," Sociological Inquiry 40 (1970): 207-34.
8.
P. Gottschalk and M. Joyce, "Crossnational Differences in the Rise in Earnings Inequality: Market and Institutional Factors," Review of Economics and Statistics80 (1998): 489-502.
9.
Goode, World Revolution and Family Patterns; W. J. Goode, "Family Disorganization," in Contemporary Social Problems, ed. R. K. Merton and R. Nisbet (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1976).
10.
Goode, World Revolution and Family Patterns, 381. Goode may have placed the United States at the leading edge because of its well-noted "exceptionalism"-see M. Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-edged Sword (New York: Norton, 1997)-characterized by the weak intervening influence of institutions that would buffer the impact of economic disadvantage on vulnerable families-see D. Ellwood and C. Jencks, "The Uneven Spread of Single-parent Families: What Do We Know? Where Do We Look for Answers?" in Social Inequality, ed. Kathryn M. Neckerman (New York: Russell Sage, 2004).
11.
M. Hout, "How Inequality Might Affect Intergenerational Mobility," in Social Inequality, ed. K. Neckerman (New York: Russell Sage, 2004); H. Ishida, "Industrialization, Class Structure, and Social Mobility in Postwar Japan," British Journal of Sociology 52 (2001): 579-604; A. C. Kerckhoff, "Institutional Arrangements and Stratification Processes in Industrial Societies," Annual Review of Sociology 21 (1995): 323-47.
12.
For example, M. Brinton, "The Social-institutional Bases of Gender Stratification: Japan as an Illustrative Case," American Journal of Sociology 94 (1988): 300-34; M. Brinton, "Christmas Cakes and Wedding Cakes: The Social Organization of Japanese Women's Life Course," in Japanese Social Organization, ed. Takie S. Lebra (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992).
13.
Kerckhoff, "Institutional Arrangements and Stratification Processes."
14.
Brinton, "The Social-institutional Bases"; M. Kohn, L.A. Naoi, C. Schoenbach, C. Schooler, and K.M. Slomczynski, "Position in the Class Structure and Psychological Functioning in the United States, Japan, and Poland," American Journal of Sociology95 (1990): 964-1008.
15.
Goode, World Revolution and Family Patterns, 382.
16.
J. Batalova and P. Cohen, "Premarital Cohabitation and Housework: Couples in Cross-national Perspective," Journal of Marriage and Family 64 (2002): 743-55; J. Harkonen and J. Dronkers, "Stability and Change in the Educational Gradient of Divorce: A Comparison of Seventeen Countries," European Sociological Review 22 (2006): 501-17; P. Heuveline and J. M. Timberlake, "The Role of Cohabitation in Family Formation: The United States in Comparative Perspective," Journal of Marriage and Family 66 (2004): 1214-30.
17.
For example, C. Goldin and L. F. Katz, "Decreasing (and Then Increasing) Inequality in America: A Tale of Two Half-Centuries," in The Causes and Consequences of Increasing Inequality, ed. F. Welch (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000); P. Gottschalk and T. M. Smeeding, "Cross-national Comparisons of Earnings and Income Inequality," Journal of Economic Literature 35 (1997): 633-86; T. Tachibanaki, Confronting Income Inequality in Japan (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005).
18.
For example, Brinton, "Christmas Cakes and Wedding Cakes"; M.K. Choe, L.L. Bumpass, and N.O. Tsuya, "Employment," in Marriage, Work, and Family Life in Comparative Perspective: Japan, South Korea, and the United States, ed. N. O. Tsuya and L. L. Bumpass ( Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004).
19.
For example, Blossfeld, "Introduction"; T. N. Greenstein and S. N. Davis, "Crossnational Variations in Divorce: Effects of Women's Power, Prestige, and Dependence," Journal of Comparative Family Studies 37 (2006): 253-73; Harkonen and Dronkers, "Stability and Change"; and Smits, Ultee, and Lammers, "Educational Homogamy in 65 Countries."
20.
For example, A. Thornton, Reading History Sideways: The Fallacy and Enduring Impact of the Developmental Paradigm on Family Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
21.
For example, S. P. Martin, "Growing Evidence for a `Divorce Divide?' Education and Marital Dissolution Rates in the U.S. since the 1970s" (Russell Sage Foundation working paper, 2000); Raley and Bumpass, "The Topography of the Divorce Plateau"; and J. D. Teachman, "Stability across Cohorts in Divorce Risk Factors," Demography 39 (2002): 331-52.
22.
C. Goldin and R.A. Margo, "The Great Compression: The Wage Structure in the United States at Mid-century," Quarterly Journal of Economics107 (1992): 1-34.
23.
Tachibanaki, Confronting Income Inequality in Japan.
24.
S. Hatchett, J. Veroff, and E. Douvan, Marital Instability: A Social and Behavioral Study of the Early Years (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995); M. K. C. Dush, M. G. Taylor, and R. A. Kroeger, "Marital Happiness and Psychological Well-being across the Life Course," Family Relations 57 (2008): 211-27.
25.
Goldin and Margo, "The Great Compression."
26.
Qian and Preston, "Changes in American Marriage"; Sweeney, "Two Decades of Family Change."
27.
Martin, "Growing Evidence for a `Divorce Divide?'"
28.
Raley and Bumpass, "The Topography of the Divorce Plateau."
29.
Raymo, Iwasawa, and Bumpass, "Marital Dissolution in Japan."
30.
Ellwood and Jencks, "The Uneven Spread of Single-parent Families"; Gottschalk and Joyce, "Crossnational Differences"; McLanahan, "Diverging Destinies."
31.
Goode, World Revolution and Family Patterns; Goode, World Changes in Divorce Patterns; W. J. Goode, "Marital Satisfaction and Instability: A Cross-cultural Class Analysis of Divorce Rates," in Class, Status, and Power, ed. R. Bendix and S. M. Lipset (New York: Free Press, 1966).
32.
Goode, "Marital Satisfaction and Instability: A Cross-cultural Class Analysis of Divorce Rates," 382.
33.
J. E. Brand, J. R. Warren, P. Carayon, and P. Hoonakker, "Do Job Characteristics Mediate the Relationship between SES and Health? Evidence from Sibling Models," Social Science Research 36 (2007): 222-53; H. Ono, "Husbands' and Wives' Resources and Marital Dissolution," Journal of Marriage and the Family 60 (1998): 674-89; T. C. Martin and L. L. Bumpass, "Recent Trends in Marital Disruption," Demography 26 (1989): 37-51.
34.
Goode also noted that values and attitudes compatible with divorce and preferences of the social network to which spouses belong are potential contributing processes.
35.
S. J. South and G. Spitze, "Determinants of Divorce over the Marital Life Course," American Sociological Review 51 (1986): 583-90; D. M. Upchurch, L. A. Lillard, and C. W. A. Panis, "Nonmarital Childbearing: Influences of Education, Marriage, and Fertility," Demography 39 (2002): 311-29.
36.
Education is commonly used to index the status of husbands and wives in cross-national studies-see Blossfeld's "Introduction" and Smits, Ultee, and Lammers's "Educational Homogamy in 65 Countries." In recent years, the view that a higher level of education captures more openness to divorce has received little support, for example, in S. P. Martin and S. Parashar, "Women's Changing Attitudes Toward Divorce, 1974-2002: Evidence for an Educational Crossover," Journal of Marriage and Family 68 (2006): 29-40. Unfortunately, no long-term time-series data regarding shifts in attitudes toward divorce in Japan are available.
37.
Higher-status jobs produce more inter-role strains than do lower-status jobs, but the rewards derived from these jobs offset such strains, as noted by S. Schieman, Y. K. Whitestone, and V. G. Gundy, "The Nature of Work and the Stress of Higher Status," Journal of Health and Social Behavior 47 (2007): 242-57.
38.
L.L. Bumpass and J. Sweet, "The Impact of Family Background and Early Marital Factors on Marital Disruption," Journal of Family Issues12 (1991): 22-42.
39.
Gottschalk and Joyce, "Crossnational Differences"; Treiman, "Industrialization and Social Stratification."
40.
Sweeney, "Two Decades of Family Change."
41.
Both Japanese and U.S. economies have experienced continuous and gradual growth since the end of World War II-see U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Comparative Real Gross Domestic Product Per Capita and per Employed Person, Fourteen Countries, 1960-2003" (2006), http://www.bls.gov/-and are treated as industrialized countries from the end of World War II; see Ishida, "Industrialization, Class Structure."
42.
An aggregate-level correlation between higher divorce rates and higher mean levels of education is insufficient to dismiss the strengthening relationship between education and divorce risks in the United States reported at the individual level-see Raley and Bumpass, "The Topography of the Divorce Plateau."
43.
Treiman, "Industrialization and Social Stratification."
44.
Gottschalk and Joyce, "Crossnational Differences."
45.
Goode, "Marital Satisfaction and Instability."
46.
For example, Greenstein, "Marital Disruption"; R. Schoen, N. M. Astone, K. Rothret, N. J. Standish, and Y. J. Kim, "Women's Employment, Marital Happiness, and Divorce," Social Forces 81 (2002): 643-62; Smock, Manning, and Gupta, "The Effect of Marriage and Divorce"; and L. J. Waite and L. A. Lillard, "Children and Marital Disruption," American Journal of Sociology 96 (1991): 930-53.
47.
See Martin and Bumpass, "Recent Trends in Marital Disruption"; Martin, "Growing Evidence for a `Divorce Divide?'" For cohort analyses, see Raley and Bumpass, "The Topography of the Divorce Plateau," and for period analysis, see M. M. Sweeney and J. A. Phillips, "Understanding Racial Differences in Marital Disruption: Recent Trends and Explanations," Journal of Marriage and Family 66 (2004): 639-50.
48.
S.J. South , "Time-dependent Effects of Wives' Employment on Marital Dissolution," American Sociological Review66 (2001): 226-45.
49.
Teachman, "Stability across Cohorts."
50.
South, "Time-dependent Effects of Wives' Employment."
51.
Teachman, "Stability across Cohorts."
52.
For example, S. Fukuda, "Factors Affecting Divorce," in Risk and Household Economics, ed. Institute of Household Economics (Tokyo: Kokuritsu Insatsu Kyoku, 2005); E. Uchida, S. Araki, and K. Murata, "Socioeconomic Factors Affecting Marriage, Divorce, and Birth Rates in a Japanese Population," Journal of Biosocial Science 25 (1993): 499-507. 53. Raymo, Iwasawa, and Bumpass, "Marital Dissolution in Japan."
53.
Sweeney, "Two Decades of Family Change."
54.
K. Davis, "Wives and Work: The Sex Role Revolution and Its Consequences," Population and Development Review3 ( 1984): 397-417.
55.
J.P. Smith and M.P. Ward, "Time-series Growth in the Female Labor Force," Journal of Labor Economics3 (1985): S59-S90.
56.
See G. S. Becker, E. Landes, and R. Michael, "An Economic Analysis of Marital Instability," Journal of Political Economy 85 (1977): 1141-87; V. K. Oppenheimer, "Women's Employment and the Gain to Marriage: The Specialization and Trading Model," Annual Review of Sociology 23 (1997): 431-53.
57.
In the United States, women's economic contribution has increased, due partly to increased demands for women's labor, as seen in V. K. Oppenheimer, The Female Labor Force in the United States (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1970); a decline in prejudice against employed women and women's desire for greater control over resources, as seen in Davis, "Wives and Work"; and the decline in young men's relative earnings and the rising aspiration for consumption, as noted in V. K. Oppenheimer, "A Theory of Marriage Timing: Assortative Mating under Varying Degrees of Uncertainty," American Journal of Sociology 94 (1988): 563-91; Sweeney, "Two Decades of Family Change."
58.
For example, S.M. Bianchi, L.M. Casper, and P.K. Peltola, "A Cross-national Look at Married Women's Earnings Dependency," Gender Issues17 (1999): 3-33.
59.
Hout, "How Inequality Might Affect Intergenerational Mobility"; and Kerckhoff, "Institutional Arrangements and Stratification Processes."
60.
Blossfeld, "Introduction"; T. W. Chan and B. Halpin, "Divorce in the U.K." (Sociology Working Papers, University of Oxford, 2001); Harkonen and Dronkers, "Stability and Change"; J. M. Hoem, "Educational Gradients in Divorce Risks in Sweden in Recent Decades," Population Studies 51 (1997): 19-27; M. Jalovaara, "Socio-economic Status and Divorce in First Marriages in Finland 1991-93," Population Studies 55 (2001): 119-33; M. Jalovaara, "The Joint Effects of Marriage Partners' Socio-economic Positions on Divorce Risk," Demography 40 (2003): 67-81; Kalmijn, De Graaf, and Poortman, "Interactions between Cultural and Economic Determinants."
61.
Goldin and Katz, "Decreasing (and Then Increasing) Inequality"; and Goldin and Margo, "The Great Compression."
62.
Gottschalk and Smeeding, "Cross-national Comparisons of Earnings."
63.
Tachibanaki, Confronting Income Inequality in Japan.
64.
Choe, Bumpass, and Tsuya, "Employment"; Greenstein and Davis, "Cross-national Variations in Divorce"; L. A. Sayer, H. Gauthier, and F. F. Furstenberg Jr., "Social Class Differences in Parental Time with Children: Cross-National Variations," Journal of Marriage and the Family 66 (2004): 1152-69.
65.
Unfortunately, I rely on all women's labor force participation rates here because long-term time-series data regarding married Japanese wives are not available. The persistently suppressed economic role of Japanese wives relative to wives in other industrialized countries is, at least in part, attributed to the institutions that were founded in response to the gendered industrialization policy of the Meiji (1868-1912) government. For example, the educational system established by the Meiji government aimed to socialize women into being devoted domestic workers who supported their husbands' labor market productivity; see Brinton, "Christmas Cakes and Wedding Cakes"; S. H. Nolte and S. A. Hastings, "The Meiji State Policy toward Women, 1890-1910," in Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945, ed. G. L. Bernstein (New York: Praeger, 1991). These scholars argue that Japanese institutional structures, including educational ones, better reproduce gender stratification than equivalent structures in the United States. Economic institutions, such as tax and social security systems, also play a role in discouraging Japanese wives from working-see N. Ogawa and J. F. Ermisch, "Family Structure, Home Time Demands, and the Employment Patters of Japanese Married Women," Journal of Labor Economics 14 (1996): 677-702.
66.
T. Ishikawa, Population Decrease, Aging, and Japan's Long-term Economic Outlook to 2050 (Nissei Basic Research Report Series, November 2002).
67.
L. L. Bumpass and M. K. Choe, "Attitudes Relating to Marriage and Family Life," in Marriage, Work, and Family Life in Comparative Perspective: Japan, South Korea, and the United States, ed. N. O. Tsuya and L. L. Bumpass (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004); Choe, Bumpass, and Tsuya, "Employment"; J. Raymo and M. Iwasawa, "Marriage Market Mismatches in Japan: An Alternative View of the Relationship between Women's Education and Marriage," American Sociological Review 70 (2005): 801-23; and N. O. Tsuya and L. L. Bumpass, "Gender and Housework," in Marriage, Work, and Family Life in Comparative Perspective: Japan, South Korea, and the United States, ed. N. O. Tsuya and L. L. Bumpass (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004).
68.
If institutionalized barriers against combining work (e.g., well-paying jobs) and family are substantial, Japanese wives who are economically better off may experience more strains in their marriages than wives who are worse off. The limited labor market options of older Japanese wives-see M. Osawa, "Japan's Changing Economy and Women Workers," Japanese Economy 32 (2005): 96-108-however, make this outcome unlikely.
69.
Brinton, "Christmas Cakes and Wedding Cakes."
70.
R. Lesthaghe and D. Meekers, "Value Changes and the Dimensions of Familism in the European Community," European Journal of Population2 (1986): 225-68.
71.
Blossfeld et al., "Education, Modernization"; Harkonen and Dronkers, "Stability and Change."
72.
Goode, "Marital Satisfaction and Instability"; L. J. Weitzman and R. B. Dixon, "The Transformation of Marriage Through No-fault Divorce: The Case of the United States," in Marriage and Cohabitation in Contemporary Societies, ed. J. M. Eekelaar and S. N. Katz (Toronto, Canada: Butterworths, 1980).
73.
In the Japanese case, Confucian ideology was incorporated into the education of the Samurai class, a class of elites that was eliminated during the Meiji restoration in the mid-1800s; see L. J. Schoppa, Education Reform in Japan (London: Routledge, 1991). Even at the time of the restoration, educational leaders pointed out the weak relevance of Confucian teachings to everyday life practices of marriage; see C. Blacker, "Fukuzawa Yukichi on Family Relationships," Monumenta Nipponica 14 (1958): 40-60. Thus, if Confucian teachings had influences on Japanese divorces, they would have been most notable among the elite prior to the mid-1800s, with weakened influences since that time.
74.
T.B. Heaton , M. Cammack, and L. Young, "Why Is the Divorce Rate Declining in Indonesia? " Journal of Marriage and the Family63 (2001): 480-90; Hirschman and Teerawichitchainan, "Cultural and Socioeconomic Influences on Divorce."
75.
Y. Zeng, P. Schultz, D.D. Wang, and D. Gu, "Association of Divorce with Socio-demographic Covariates in China, 1955-1985: Event History Analysis Based on Data Collected in Shanghai, Hebei, and Shaanxi," Demographic Research7 (2002): 409-28.
76.
Hirschman and Teerawichitchainan, "Cultural and Socioeconomic Influences on Divorce."
77.
S. Price-Bonham and J.O. Balswick, "The Noninstitutions: Divorce, Desertion, and Remarriage," Journal of Marriage and the Family42 (1980): 959-72.
78.
G. S. Becker, A Treatise on the Family (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981); Schoen et al., "Women's Employment"; South, "Time-dependent Effects of Wives' Employment."
79.
South and Spitze, "Determinants of Divorce."
80.
For example, South, "Time-dependent Effects of Wives' Employment"; and Schoen et al., "Women's Employment."
81.
V.K. Oppenheimer , "The Sociology of Women's Economic Role in the Family," American Sociological Review42 (1977): 387-406.
82.
Schoen et al., "Women's Employment."
83.
T.A. DiPrete , S.P. Morgan, H. Engelhardt, and H. Pacalova, "Do Cross-national Differences in the Costs of Children Generate Cross-national Differences in Fertility Rates?" Population Research and Policy Review22 (2003): 439-77.
84.
Greenstein, "Marital Disruption"; Ono, "Husbands' and Wives' Resources"; L. Sayer and S. Bianchi, "Women's Economic Independence and the Probability of Divorce," Journal of Family Issues21 (2000 ): 906-43.
85.
See Ellwood and Jencks, "The Uneven Spread of Single-parent Families"; Jalovaara, "Socio-economic Status and Divorce"; W. R. Johnson and J. Skinner, "Labor Supply and Marital Separation," American Economic Review 76 (1986): 455-69.
86.
United Nations, Statistics Division, Demographic Yearbook (New York: United Nations, 2005).
87.
S. Ruggles, "The Rise of Divorce and Separation in the United States, 1880-1990 ," Demography34 ( 1997): 455-66.
88.
J. Goldstein, "The Leveling of Divorce in the United States," Demography 36 (1999): 409-14; R. Schoen and N. J. Standish, "The Retrenchment of Marriage in the US," Population and Development Review 27 (2001): 55-63.
89.
H. Fuess, Divorce in Japan: Family, Gender, and the State, 1600-2000 ( Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004).
90.
Heaton, Cammack, and Young, "Why Is the Divorce Rate Declining"; Hirschman and Teerawichitchainan, "Cultural and Socioeconomic Influences on Divorce"; Jones, "Modernization and Divorce."
91.
United Nations, Demographic Yearbook.
92.
Raymo, Iwasawa, and Bumpass, "Marital Dissolution in Japan."
93.
Japanese divorces are established on the grounds of mutual consent; see N. Iwai, "Divorce in Japan: Historical Changes and Current Issues," in With This Ring: Divorce, Intimacy, and Cohabitation from a Multicultural Perspective, ed. R. R. Miller and S. L. Browning (Stamford, CT: JAI, 1995). In both countries, divorces are more likely to be initiated by the wife than by the husband-see M. M. Sweeney, "Remarriage and the Nature of Divorce: Does It Matter Which Spouse Chose to Leave?" Journal of Family Issues 23 (2002): 410-40; Supreme Court, General Secretariat of Japan, Annual Report of Judicial Statistics for 2003-Domestic Cases (Tokyo: Supreme Court, 2004).
94.
See Martin and Parashar, "Women's Changing Attitudes Toward Divorce."
95.
L. Lillard and L. Waite, "Panel versus Retrospective Data on Marital Histories: Lessons from the PSID," in Individuals and Families in Transition: Understanding Change Through Longitudinal Data, ed. H. V. Beaton , D. A. Ganni, and D. T. Frankel (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1990).
96.
For example, Waite and Lillard, "Children and Marital Disruption."
97.
M.S. Hill, The Panel Study of Income Dynamics: A User's Guide (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990).
98.
K. Yamazaki, K. Kashiwazaki, and A. Kondo, "Toward the Construction of a Social Policy" (Meiji University Social Science Research Institute Discussion Paper No. J-2002-1, 2002).
99.
J.A. Sweet and L.L. Bumpass, American Families and Households (New York: Russell Sage, 1987).
100.
The Panel Study of Income Dynamics has a family-based sample design that was originally geographically clustered but became more dispersed over time. Among married whites within their first twenty years of marriage, in a given year of being at risk of divorce, less than 1 percent of the couples belonged to a household with another married couple within their first twenty years of marriage.
101.
The addition of married Japanese teenagers to the Japanese General Social Survey's 2000-2002 samples would have increased the person-year sample by very little; hence it is not likely to have changed the conclusions of this study. Teenage marriage is rare-only 1.7 percent of the marriages formed in 2001; see Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Table 1-42: Counts of First Marriages and First Marriage Rates by Age and Year (Tokyo: Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, 2004).
102.
A. Inaba, "An Empirical Test of the Family Stress Model: Using Data on Japanese Families' Adaptation to Job-induced Separation," Japanese Sociological Review [Shakaigaku Hyoron]41 (1991): 34-47.
103.
P.S. Morgan and R.R. Rindfuss, "Marital Disruption: Structural and Temporal Dimensions," American Journal of Sociology90 (1985): 1055-77.
104.
For example, W.-H. Yu and K.-H. Su , "Gender, Sibship Structure, and Educational Inequality in Taiwan: Son Preference Revisited," Journal of Marriage and Family68 (2006): 1057-68.
105.
To test for possible nonlinearity in the effect of husbands' or wives' education among Panel Study of Income Dynamics respondents, I created a dummy variable indicating sixteen or more years of education, interacted it with cohort-sex, and added it as additive and interactive effects to model 1, Table 3. Results indicated that in each cohort-sex, the college effect beyond the linear effect of education was not statistically significant at p < .05. The addition of these nonsignificant college effects also contributed to multicollinearity problems.
106.
Schoppa, Education Reform in Japan.
107.
Martin, "Growing Evidence for a `Divorce Divide?'"
108.
For the ninety-five cases with missing values, ordinary least squares equations that estimate spouses' educational levels are derived from an equation with divorced male and female respondents' education as the dependent variable and several predictors: respondents' mothers' and fathers' educational levels, respondents' age at first marriage, and year of marriage. To predict a female or male spouse's education, an equation with coefficients estimated from female or male respondents is used, with the spouse's age at marriage in place of the respondent's age at marriage.
109.
Given that all of the respondents with imputed educational values are divorced and hence lack variation in the dependent variable, the effect of imputed education on divorce risks could not be estimated. I did conduct a sensitivity test by estimating two additional regressions, first by estimating the effect of the spouse's years of education by adding 1 to the imputed value, and then by estimating the effect of education when subtracting 1 from the imputed value. The results did not change substantially and did not alter the conclusions.
110.
Waite and Lillard, "Children and Marital Disruption."
111.
T. Lyngstad , "Why Do Couples with Highly Educated Parents Have Higher Divorce Rates?" European Sociological Review22 (2006): 49-60.
112.
South, "Time-dependent Effects of Wives' Employment"; Morgan and Rindfuss, "Marital Disruption."
113.
For example, R.J. Udry, "Marital Alternatives and Marital Disruption ," Journal of Marriage and the Family43 (1981): 889-97.
114.
South, "Time-dependent Effects of Wives' Employment."
115.
Although separately analyzing men and women would ease interpretation, as already noted, due to the very small number of divorces in each sex category of the early cohort, this approach was not feasible.
116.
As already noted, marital duration and annual year of marriage are interacted with cohort instead of cohort-sex because these variables capture couple-level effects that should be the same between the spouses.
117.
For example, Sweeney, "Two Decades of Family Change."
118.
J.M. Tzeng and R.D. Mare, "Labor Market Experience and Marital Stability, 1965-1987," Social Science Research24 (1995): 329-51.
119.
Mare, "Five Decades of Educational Assortative Mating."
120.
Ibid.
121.
The conclusions drawn in this study do not change when further differentiating the effect of education across the marital duration groups of zero to nine and ten to nineteen years.
122.
Goode, "Marital Satisfaction and Instability."
123.
For example, Harkonen and Dronkers, "Stability and Change."
124.
Goldin and Katz, "Decreasing (and Then Increasing) Inequality"; Tachibanaki, Confronting Income Inequality in Japan.
125.
Goldin and Katz, "Decreasing (and Then Increasing) Inequality"; Gottschalk and Smeeding, "Cross-national Comparisons of Earnings."
126.
For example, Goldin and Margo, "The Great Compression."
127.
Tachibanaki, Confronting Income Inequality in Japan.
128.
Brinton, "The Social-institutional Bases"; Brinton, "Christmas Cakes and Wedding Cakes."
129.
I do not anticipate that the control would drastically change either country's results for the early cohort for two reasons: (1) educational homogamy in the early cohort is probably weaker than that in the middle cohort-see Mare, "Five Decades of Educational Assortative Mating"-and (2) the effects of both spouses' education were weak whether controlling for the spouse's educational level in the middle cohort or not.
130.
J.W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: Norton, 1999).
131.
Ogawa and Ermisch, "Family Structure."
132.
Y. Tsubouchi and R. Tsubouchi, Divorce: A Comparative Sociological Analysis (Tokyo: Sobunsha, 1970).
133.
Japanese women were unlikely to be exposed to these ideas through the schools; they virtually never attended universities during that period; see S. Shirahase, "Women's Increased Higher Education and the Declining Fertility Rate in Japan," Review of Population and Social Policy9 (2000): 47-63.
134.
M. Ishikawa, History of Education in Japan [Nihon Kyoikushi] (Tokyo : Tamagawa Daigaku Shuppanbu, 1987 ).
135.
Goode, "Marital Satisfaction and Instability"; Harkonen and Dronkers, "Stability and Change"; Lesthaghe and Meekers, "Value Changes."
136.
Goode, "Marital Satisfaction and Instability"; Weitzman and Dixon, "The Transformation of Marriage."
137.
Weitzman and Dixon, "The Transformation of Marriage."
138.
Oppenheimer, "Women's Employment"; Sweeney, "Two Decades of Family Change."
139.
Becker, A Treatise on the Family; Becker, Landes, and Michael, "An Economic Analysis of Marital Instability." See Oppenheimer, "Women's Employment."
140.
Harkonen and Dronkers, "Stability and Change."
141.
Goldstein, "The Leveling of Divorce."
142.
Martin, "Growing Evidence for a `Divorce Divide?'" Raley and Bumpass, "The Topography of the Divorce Plateau."
143.
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Comparative Civilian Labor Force Statistics, Ten Countries, 1959-2004 (April 5, 2006), http://www.bls.gov/.
144.
N. Sarkisian and N. Gerstel, "Kin Support among Blacks and Whites: Race and Family Organization," American Sociological Review69 (2004): 812-37.
145.
H. Ono , "Women's Economic Standing, Marriage Timing, and Cross-national Contexts of Gender," Journal of Marriage and the Family65 (2003): 275-86.
146.
M. Iwasawa, J.M. Raymo, and L. Bumpass, "Unmarried Cohabitation in Japan" (paper presented at the annual meetings of the Population Association of America , Los Angeles, 2006).
147.
L.M. Casper and P.N. Cohen, "How does POSSLQ Measure Up? New Historical Estimates of Cohabitation," Demography37 (2000): 237-45.
148.
D.T. Lichter , Z. Qian, and L.M. Mellott, "Marriage or Dissolution? Transitions to Marriage among Poor Cohabiting Women," Demography43 (2006), 223-40.
