There percentage of people who attend and who complete college has increased dramatically over the last few decades, changing their social class origins. Pre-GI Bill, college students had a much higher SES than they do now. And, many jobs (e.g. journalism, business management) that historically didn’t call for a college degree do now.

On the other hand, college students who actually manage to earn degrees are much less diverse in social class than you’d think if you hadn’t seen the numbers. Working class people are much less likely to attend and much less likely to complete college than their more affluent and well educated peers, even completely controlling for test scores and high school grades. And, test scores and high school grades heavily favor the upper middle class even apart from thee advantages.

Then again, I’ve seen up close what college can do to attitudes. My parents and their siblings and cousin who went to college from deep in the rural midwest, were all first generation college students. Other siblings and cousins in that generation didn’t go (all together we’re talking about perhaps four or five dozen people in the generation). There is a stark cultural difference between the two.

Even then, however, I’m not convinced that it was college itself that caused it. The college graduates who got jobs in metro areas experienced dramatic cultural changes. But, the college graduates who settled in near their home towns and applied their degrees to jobs there are very similar culturally to those who never left – a hair more sophisticated and ironic, but not much. It is the social class origins college students had in the first place, the places that a college education tends to cause you to live, and the economic circumstances that having a college education produces, as much as the experience itself, that changes attitudes.

On the economic point – I think one of the real clinchers within the ranks of the non-college educated is likely to be stability of employment and income. For example, I’d be willing to bet that postal workers and teacher’s aides had much more stable marriages than construction workers and truckers, even if they earned similar amounts on average, had similar levels of education, and similar backgrounds.

The overall “story” on divorce: with the exception of highly dysfunctional families (domestic violence or very high verbal conflict), kids do better in intact marriages than divorce, after controlling for every factor you can think of. Domestic violence or high verbal conflict, the kids are better off if the parents divorce. The impact of divorce is mitigated by well-managed divorces–that is, much of the damage is caused by the disappearance of the father, the mother returning to the workforce, and so on. Kids of divorce whose parents actively co-parent and where the mother was already working do much better, and the differences between these kids and kids in intact marriages are pretty small.

I know you’ll ask for cites, but this is old stuff and been well-established for 15 years or more, and I can’t remember the major papers anymore. The Amato research was the big story.

As for the changes in the perception, as someone who lived through the time, I remember very well when divorce went from being “no big deal” to “a big deal” and it was during the mid-90s. With no evidence at all, I’d propose the change in perception was due to a two major factors. First, and most importantly, it was clear by then, in part due to the Amato research and in part due to the first generation of divorce entering their 20s, that divorce *was* a big deal and did a lot of damage.

Second, the 90s saw a huge uptick in working hours and competitiveness of the workplace. The second generation feminists were starting to realize they couldn’t have it all. While they didn’t necessarily “opt out” (that started more in the oughts), they did start cutting back on work, taking “second jobs” and in general took a big step back from the original feminists’ determination to have it all. (And you’ll find any number of first generation feminist op-eds yelling about it). Women who aren’t taking work seriously and are living off of their husband’s income are far less likely to divorce as the first option–especially since the other bad news about divorce that started pouring in during this time was the huge cut in standard of living that women took.

In this formulation, the women more likely to stay home or live their lives off their husband’s income were the women who had husbands with good jobs, and they were less likely to divorce as a result.

This theory of mine would explain the more stable marriages at the higher end of the income spectrum. At the lower end, I agree with those who attribute the higher divorce/low marriage rates to the loss of economic opportunities for men.

For example, (this is speculation on my part) if you look at the non-college educated, I suspect that there would be at least two distinct and prominent subsets. One would be younger and middle aged individuals from the lower classes and poor. The other would include older individuals (late 50s, 60s, plus) who would span multiple economic classes. For example, my parents and grandparents would fall within the upper middle class in income, but are not college educated. It simply was not necessary in their times or occupations.

This second subset of individuals would represent a significant socially conservative element of the non-college educated, but would not possess the same cultural trends of lower classes such as high divorce. Contrasted to the college educated, whose population structure has probably changed quite a bit in the decades since the 70s and has incorporated a wider range and more conservative element of the population.

Again, this is all speculation on my part.

# 9 & #10. thanks.

http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/410541_LitReview.pdf

BTW I think that the economic causes of divorce also transcend the easy-to-measure factors such as income, employment, or wealth. The difference is in the inability of a couple to cope with the financial stress / to adjust their ways in accordance with their objective problems. Typically it is manifested by a tussle over each other’s spending and earning. It’s not like there’s too little money for the couple to survive, it’s too much disagreement over using what they have. A steady improvement of a family economic condition would have made them happier, of course. But typically, anything short of a fast economic improvement has a potential to invite trouble.

Furthermore, while I have not read the reviews (which seem a bit dated) I bet they are premised on Government benefits. Charles Murray points this out in Loosing Ground, that due to the changes to Welfare and other programs in the 70s, it became economically more beneficial for couples to never marry in the first place, even if they live together.

Such benefits would not exist for the upper middle class and not explain the trends observed by Razib.

Here’s a lit review that gives a brief mention of the studies commenter 4 may be talking about. From page 6 of the review:
Without a significant change in the earnings capacities of low-income men,
opponents of marriage initiatives argue that families who are at a high risk of poverty will
gain few economic benefits from marriage. Indeed, marriage may actually worsen rather
than ease economic hardship (Lichter, Graefe, and Brown 2001; Edin 2000).

what’s the literature on this? (warning: do not repeat yourself, send me pointers to the papers you are talking about)

What effects the social fabric the most are the causes of divorces (emotional, psychological, economic…), rather than divorces themselves. A grossly dysfunctional family stuck in marriage is at least as detrimental for the children and for its wider societal niche as a family separated. And it comes as no surprise that the professional “family-healers” (marriage counselors) have a distinction of enjoying the worst customer satisfaction rate in the broader counseling occupation … about the only thing the marriage counselors successfully achieve is channeling the couples to their “preferred lists” of divorce attorneys.