Americans without a college degree bore the brunt of the recent recession, and so did their marriages, according to a new report by researchers at the University of Virginia.
The “Survey of Marital Generosity,” conducted on behalf of U-Va.’s Marriage Project, found that 29 percent of couples reported that the economic downturn had put financial stress on their marriages.
At the same time, about a third of the couples surveyed said the recession had prompted them to work harder on saving their marriage – a finding that the report’s author described as one of two “silver linings” to the longest economic downturn since the Great Depression. It’s unclear whether those couples might have had more stable marriages to begin with.
Those who said they had redoubled their marital commitment as a result of the recession – 52 percent – were likely to report being in “a very happy marriage,” compared with 25 percent who disagreed that the recession had caused them to deepen their commitment.
The other “silver lining,” the report’s author argued, was that 38 percent of couples who were considering divorce before the recession had postponed splitting. Those findings are consistent with other data that indicate divorce rates have fallen since the recession began. The drop in divorce rates has been attributed to couples delaying divorce because they are unable to afford the cost of lawyers and maintaining two households.
“This new survey tells us that the Great Recession has had a double-edged impact on American marriages,” said the report’s author, Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project and a U-Va. sociology professor. “For some, the financial stresses associated with the Great Recession have hurt their marriages. But for others, this recession has fostered a new commitment to marriage that appears to have improved the quality and stability of their marriages.”
