The goal of this research is to explain why states with larger proportions of religious conservatives have higher divorce rates than states with lower proportions of religious conservatives. This project will examine whether the earlier ages at marriage and first birth observed among religious conservatives contribute to this paradox, while attending to other plausible explanations. These include higher rates of marriage itself in religiously conservative states, and lower proportions of single or cohabiting adults whose relationship breakups are never counted. Higher rates of crime and other social problems associated with economic decline produce may also produce both higher divorce rates and greater popularity of conservative churches. To investigate regional variation in divorce, county-level demographic information from all 50 states will be combined from a variety of public data sources, including the U.S. Census and county court records on marital dissolutions. Statistical models will assess whether the proportion of religious conservatives in a county affects the incidence of divorce and, if so, how this influence occurs.
Divorce has attracted the attention of policymakers and scholars because of its negative consequences for the health and economic well-being of single parents and their children. The growth of conservative religious denominations and their concentration in particular geographic regions represent an opportunity to understand how community norms regarding sexuality, birth control and abortion, as well as efforts to restrict sexual activity to marriage, might affect both the popularity of marriage and future divorce risk. Understanding how religious beliefs can both encourage marriage and weaken its stability can help inform policies designed to strengthen marriage.
