A study conducted by the University of California’s Dr. Thomas Trail and Dr. Benjamin Karney has revealed that people from lower economic backgrounds have lower marriage rates and higher divorce rates compared to their counterparts of higher economic status. The study consisted of over 6,000 participants from Florida, California, New York and Texas with 66% being women and 34% men. The study’s results were taken from a 27-minute long telephone interview. The average age of the respondents was 46 years, with 29% identifying as low-income, 26% as moderate-income, 35% as high-income and 10% being on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
Despite being of low-income, these respondents tended to have more traditional outlooks on marriage and shared a lower approval of divorce or even separating. Also, these respondents were much more likely than their higher-economic counterparts to value the economic aspects of marriage, such as both spouses having a good job, for example. However, these respondents stated that economic standards and social issues greatly played roles in the status of their marriage. Drug and alcohol abuse also contributed to a low-income couple’s reason for divorce.
Higher-income respondents, on the other hand, had less traditional attitudes toward marriage and are less likely to value the economic aspects that come with being married, which accounts for their lower divorce rates. Unlike their lower-income counterparts, these respondents are less likely to experience straining social issues such as drug use and are much less likely to experience economic woes, both of which would lead to divorce.
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