Risking Divorce from the End of the 19th Century to Nowadays

Sandra Brée , Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)
Jean-François Mignot, OSC-Sciences Po and Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE)

Despite recent researches, knowledge about divorce is still limited. The mobilization of Family surveys will provide information on people who have divorced since the generation born in 1899. These surveys are complementary to the census and focus on family history to study fertility and nuptiality. The first survey was implemented in 1954 and was followed by those of 1975, 1982, 1990, 1999 and 2011. The two first only concern women but men are interviewed since the one of 1982. In addition, the latest wave of the Family surveys (2011) makes it possible to study civil union breakdowns between couples of the same sex and of different sexes. These surveys make it possible to follow the familial and reproductive history of individuals and to know the future of a couple. They give information, for each individual, on the date of birth, the date of marriage(s) and dissolutions of these marriage(s), the number of children with their dates of births, their sex and their eventual date of death. They also provide information on the level of education, the region of residence. By using so-called life course or biographical analysis methods, it will be possible to know the risk that women and men of a certain generation have of divorce, depending on their level of education, their age, the year of marriage, the number of their children or their region of residence. The analysis will be though using gender and social perspectives.

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 Presented in Session P1. Poster Session Fertility, Family and the Life Course