There may be meaningful linkages between broad trends in marriage formation and marital stability and the differences we see by race. When the imperative to marry was high, as it was through the mid-20th century in the United States, the vast majority of women married despite high levels of poverty. But as an individualistic ethos took hold, the dominant model of marriage shifted from institutional marriage based on gendered roles and economic cooperation to relatively fragile marriages based on companionship, and divorce rates began to climb.70 Rising divorce rates, in turn, have further increased the ideal of individual self-sufficiency, encouraging delays in marriage and high levels of marital instability, as demographer Larry Bumpass argued in his 1990 Presidential Address to the Population Association of America.71 As women and couples became increasingly aware of marriage’s fragility, investments in some marital relationships may have declined, lowering the likelihood that they would last. The growth in divorce may also have led some women and couples to be less willing to marry in the first place. Bumpass argued that no changes have altered family life more than the growth in marital instability.
