Divorce and Business Cycles

Abstract

HERE ARE but few domains of human life that remain impervious to the social rhythm which gets its impetus from the ebb and flow of economic life. This does not mean that the events in human life are determined by these cyclical movements, but it does mean that they are timed in response to them. We only observe the phenotype, not the genotype of the phenomena, to quote the biologist Johanssen. The Bureau of Statistics of the city of Amsterdam has calculated the correlation between various economic indices and the marriage rate,' for the years i830-I914. These data indicate an undeniable positive correlation between economic conditions and the frequency of marriages. This result cannot be interpreted as indicating that the tendency to matrimony in periods of prosperity is greater than in years of economic depression but rather that the possibilities of contracting a marriage are more favorable during a boom than during a depression. J. van der Wyk2 analyzes the birth rate in various countries and concludes that there is a clear connection between the birth rate and business cycles. This again cannot be interpreted as meaning that human fertility is greater in times of economic prosperity than during periods of depression, though this may be not impossible, but merely that the desire for children and the ability to care for them tends to increase during prosperity. The effort in the present paper to trace a connection between business cycles and divorce similarly does not mean that we consider economic conditions as the principal cause of divorce. In many cases, economic factors may have nothing to do with the inner cause of failure in marriage; in some, it merely predisposes towards failure; in others, it truly may be ''the cause. Nor will a comparison between business cycles and marriage serve to elucidate further the absolute increase of divorce, because this increase is connected with the alteration of our moral and legal conceptions and rules. To trace the measure in which this alteration itself is determined economically is a matter involving far deeper and more extensive research than is possible here. The present investigation is concerned only with the connection between business cycles and frequency of divorces. The underlying hypothesis is that such a connection exists because factors such as alimony,