Varying educational difference in divorce risks in eastern Europe: evidence from the GGS countries

Allan Puur, Estonian Interuniversity Population Research Centre
Leen Rahnu, Estonian Interuniversity Population Research Centre
Ausra Maslauskaite, Institute for Social Research (ISR), Vilnius
Vlada Stankuniene, Institute for Social Research (ISR), Vilnius

From the 1960s divorce rates have risen dramatically in all countries of Europe and doubled or tripled in most of them. Countries of Eastern Europe have belonged to trendsetters in this „divorce revolution“, top-ranking rates of union dissolution have been manifest in the region ever since the 1960s and early 1970s. Against that background, however, there are relatively few studies that have addressed the trends and differentials in divorce in the countries of Eastern Europe in comparative perspective. In the present analysis, we investigate the educational gradient in divorce in seven countries of the region: Bulgaria, East-Germany, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania and Russia. We hypothesise that educational gradient in divorce varies across countries of the region. Following the ideas of W.J.Goode, we assumed the educational gradient to be more positive in the countries that are less advanced in the Second Demographic Transition (SDT), and less positive or neutral in countries in which the features of the SDT are more pronounced. The data for the study come from national surveys carried out in the framework of the Generations and Gender Programme. To examine the relationship between divorce and education, the proportional hazard event history models were fitted. Consistent with the expectation, we report noticeable variation in divorce risks between the countries included in the analysis. In general, the results lend support to our hypothesis that countries which have progressed farther in the Second Demographic Transition tend to exhibit reduced contrast in divorce risks between population groups with high and low educational attainment.