To summarize, increases in divorce preceded declines in marriage, beginning first among the most disadvantaged blacks. Whites and blacks of all classes have experienced delays in marriage, but declines in the proportion who have ever married at age 40–44 also appeared first for blacks with low levels of education. By 1980, we began to see an educational divergence in family patterns for whites. First, the college-educated saw declines in divorce, while those without college maintained high levels of divorce. More recently, whites with the lowest levels of education are beginning to experience delays in marriage relative to college-educated women, and an increasing proportion are likely to never marry.
