IMPROVED INDIRECT STANDARDIZATION AND PATTERNS OF DIVORCE RISKS IN SWEDEN (1971-1989)

Sweden is commonly regarded as a country of high and increasing divorce risks. In this report, we analyze trends and patterns of divorce risks in Sweden in the 1970s and 1980s, and display differential developments by parity and by age at marriage and order of marriage. Standard patterns are verified, such as a general decrease in divorce risk with increasing parity and elevated risks for the remarried and for those who marry young. A permanent super-risk for the latter group as the marriage matures is interpreted as a lasting effect of negative selection into marriage at young ages. On the other hand, the super-risks of divorce at parity 0 over that at parity 1 disappears after a marital duration of some ten years, which suggests that couples who remain childless finally adopt or adjust to the idea of not having children and cease to see divorce as a solution any more than couples with a single child, even though the two-child norm is very strong in Sweden. The analysis is carried out by a systematic use of an improved form of indirect standardization, and it demonstrates once more the usefulness of combining classical demographic techniques of analysis with the notions of modern statistical theory.