What Is Behind the Rising Divorce Rate?

Viktor Perevedentsev, Commentary on Statistics: Incompatibility?. February 6, 1978

In this article, demographer Viktor Perevedentsev used the rising divorce rate to probe broader shifts in late Soviet social life. While acknowledging familiar triggers such as alcoholism and household conflict, he argued that divorce reflected structural tensions produced by women’s mass employment, chronic housing shortages, and the uneven redistribution of domestic labor. Perevedentsev framed the problem as an unfinished transition from the patriarchal family to a “biarchal” one, in which spouses were expected to be equals but institutions and habits lagged behind. The piece shows sociology cautiously expanding its public voice in the Brezhnev era.

Original Source: Literaturnaia gazeta, 6 February 1978, p. 11.

According to demographic statistics recently published by the USSR Central Statistical Administration, there were 861, 000 divorces in the USSR in 1976. This is 78, 000 more than in 1975 and over three times as many as in 1960, when there were 270, 000. In 1960 there were 104 divorces per 1, 000 marriages, in 1975 288 per 1,000 and in 1976 332 per 1,000. So now there is one divorce for every three marriages!

Studies show that one-third of divorces are of couples who have been married for less than a year and another one-third are of couples who have been married from one to five years. Hence it is apparent that divorce is largely a problem of young families.

Obviously, the above figures are quite alarming.

Divorce means, in the first place, fatherless children. About half of the couples who divorce have children, and some of them have several. It is not difficult to calculate that the number of divorces that occurred in 1976 means that about 500, 000 children end up in so-called "partial" families, where there is no father. Some of the youngsters later acquire a stepfather, but I am afraid that by no means all of them do. Fewer than half of the divorced women remarry, and most of those who do are childless.

The rise in divorces also means a reduction in the birthrate. Many couples deliberately limit the number of children because they foresee a possible divorce.

Finally, divorce is always a painful experience for at least one spouse.

All this compels us to seek ways to strengthen the family. But in order to do so it is necessary - first and foremost! - to know the reasons for divorce.

Do we know them? Yes and no.

If we are speaking of the reasons for the specific breakup of specific families, then we do know them at least on the legal level. It is not very difficult to classify all divorces according to the reasons that are cited in the court decisions. But can divorcing couples always speak sincerely about the reasons for their separation? Usually they cite something trite and superficially convincing, and often they simply give a pretext for divorce. Researchers attempt, with more or less success, to uncover the real reasons behind these superficial ones.

In recent years some very interesting special studies have come out that have given a great deal of attention to the reasons for divorce. They include, for example, L. Chuiko's book "Marriages and Divorces" and N. Soloviev's book "Marriage and the Family Today. 11 According to the data of L. Chuiko, who analyzed materials gathered in Kiev, the main reason for divorce is the drunkenness or alcoholism of husbands. More than half of all divorce suits (61%) are initiated by wives, and in nearly half of these cases (47%) drunkenness or alcoholism is given as the main reason for divorce; in almost all the remaining cases, they are cited as secondary reasons.

This accords with the common views of non-specialists. But does it accord with reality? The question is by no means a simple one. Of course, drunkenness may become the reason for the breakup of a particular family, but can't matters also be the other way around, and drunkenness be the result of bad relations in the family? Isn't it also possible that drunkenness and divorce both stem from other causes that are common to both? ...

Let us note that all researchers seek the reasons for divorce only within the family, in relations between husband and wife. They also find another reason in shortcomings in living conditions.

I think there is a methodological error here. If the problem lay merely in a wife's dissatisfaction with her husband or a husband's dissatisfaction with his wife, then the vast majority of divorced persons would quickly remarry. Let us look at what actually happens. In 1967 there were 646, 000 divorces, but only 354, 000 men - or 55%- remarried. In 1976 there were 861, 000 divorces, and 408, 000 men - 47% -remarried. Yet by this time the population included many millions of divorced persons who had not remarried, which was not the case in 1967, since the divorce rate did not rise until the mid-sixties. This means that most divorced persons do not want to remarry. (Let us note, incidentally, that people marrying for the second time include widows, of whom there are also a good many.) In the present demographic situation, when there is a shortage of eligible bachelors, it is relatively easy for men to remarry. So the problem does not only (and, perhaps, not mainly) lie with specific wives. Many people simply do not want to tie themselves down with a "legal" marriage. Isn't it possible that the discovery of precisely this phenomenon is the main point in understanding the reasons for divorce? And, moreover, the reasons for the difficulties that the family, and especially the young family, is experiencing today?

I shall venture to give my own hypothesis.

The essence of the difficulties that the young family is experiencing consists in the fact that it is going through a period of transition from the patriarchal family, in which the husband's supremacy was complete and unconditional, to a "biarchal" family, in which husband and wife enjoy equality. This transition is difficult, since men do not want to "yield their positions" and women do not want to reconcile themselves to the former inequality. Women are rebelling. And, of course, they are correct in doing so.

The equality of rights between men and women that was proclaimed in our country 60 years ago has led to women's equality with men in social production. Whereas previously only the man, the husband, was employed and was the provider, and the wife was a housewife who shouldered all concern for home and children, now the wife is also a provider and breadwinner on a par with the husband. Let us note, moreover, that in many families the wife's earnings are no lower than the husband's. And let us add that six of every ten higher school and technical school graduates are women.

One must admit that women have made very effective use of the broad opportunities to obtain an education. Statistics show that young women are substantially better educated than men the same age, even if one considers external indicators alone -years of schooling, diplomas, etc. This, you see, means that young women make higher intellectual and moral demands of their chosen partners. It is evidently no mere coincidence that divorces increased sharply just when the Soviet young people's educational level was rising rapidly and women were rapidly achieving educational superiority.

Finally, girls and young women in school enjoy genuine equality with male classmates and even some advantage over them; one of the reasons for this advantage ties in the feminization of the school and the almost exclusively female makeup of teaching staffs.

From a situation of equality, the young wife lands in a family in which her husband and her in-laws frequently expect the wife voluntarily to assume the duties of a servant and do all the housework entirely by herself. If a wife agrees to this, the result is that she has two full workdays -on the job and at home - every day and practically does not have a single free minute, while her young husband (if he is not combining work and study) doesn't know what to do with his free time - how to "kill" it. So, of course, he starts getting together with the boys - and not only the boys - and drinking. Today's young wife, as a rule, cannot put up with this. The husband and wife often determine domestic duties virtually in open combat, the wife taking the offensive and the husband defending himself - supported by traditions that say housework degrades a man ...

The way to normalize family relations is the way of equality. Only then will the problems of relations between spouses and the problem of strengthening the family be solved, and only then will the tasks of reducing the number of divorces and their negative consequences be accomplished ...

Source: Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. XXX, No. 7 (1978).