U. Okla. Study Shows No-fault Law is what Increased Divorce
Using a quasi-experimental pre-post intervention design and archival
data from the National Center for Health Statistics, a team of
researchers at the University of Oklahoma examined the effect adoption
of no-fault divorce law had on the divorce rate across the 50 states.
Education and income data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census and
religiosity data from the Glenmary Research Center were used to assess
the role of education, median family income and religiosity under the
no-fault divorce regime. The researchers found that no-fault divorce
laws had a significant positive effect on the divorce rate across the 50
states. Among the other variables median family income was the only
significant predictor of the change in divorce rate; the adjusted no-
fault divorce rate increased as median family income increased.
Paul A. Nakonezny, Robert D. Shull, Joseph Lee Rodgers. "The Effect
of
No-Fault Divorce Law on the Divorce Rate Across the 50 States and Its
Relation to Income, Education, and Religiosity." _Journal of Marriage
and the Family_ (May 1995): 477-488.
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Abstract posted to newsgroup by Mark Thomas
[ The latest study on this, which I don't yet have, is something by somebody
Freiburg in the June, 1998 American Economic Review.]
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