9 ms·

> Watching and hearing about the family instability in these communities is heartbreaking. Half or more of everyone’s parents are divorced. The kids float aroun

by lkey 4y ago

> Watching and hearing about the family instability in these communities is heartbreaking. Half or more of everyone’s parents are divorced. The kids float around seeking stability and the adults can’t provide it. You seem to be attributing the cause of this to 'Telling men and boys it's cool and fine to divorce' and not attributing to say... declining material and social capitol in the lower four quintiles of wealth that have created pressure that exacerbates marriage instability and numerous other social ills. Also, divorce sucks when kids are involved, I don't think anyone on earth, left or right, would dispute that. > Creating a culture where men can attain dignity and social respect ** We do in fact need a culture where it is possible for people to attain human dignity. I don't think that the path to gaining this needs to be a rigid and proscriptive 'return to tradition'. For example, with the advent of no-fault divorce, divorces went up, but female suicide rates dropped by 20%. It wasn't all streamers and light when the 'guard rails' were on. And speaking of America specifically, dignity and respect were not equi-distributed if you were a simply a 'married man' in decades past. It was quite a bit stricter: white, middle class or higher, married men were the ones afforded government support and social protection. > My family’s rigid expectations have been such a blessing. I won't dwell on this, but not every (or even most) children benefit from this approach to parenting. Extreme rigidity, in fact, is more associated with negative long-term outcomes. Finally, historically speaking, decrying the next generation as depraved, lost, and needing traditional discipline has been something the older generations have done since at least the invention of writing (across all cultures too!). Yet I'm still continually shocked that this argument continues to be unironically employed century after century.

captainredbeard 4y ago
> but female suicide rates dropped by 20% ...hmm, male suicide rates are going up...
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  You might want to age-control that: https://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20200911/suicide-rate-keeps-rising-among-young-americans https://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20200911/suicide-rate-... > "Suicides among children and young people aged 10 to 24 rose 57% from 2007 to 2018, according to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention... In actual numbers, the suicide rate among 10- to 24-year-olds jumped from about 7 per 100,000 in 2007 to nearly 11 per 100,000 in 2018, according to the National Vital Statistics Report published Sept. 11." That's called massive societal failure any way you look at it. Oh well, I guess there's the upside that wealthy boomers can ride off into their cruise ship futures on the backs of 401K retirement plans financed by investments in student loan debt, fossil-fueled global warming, price-hiked pharmaceuticals and the war machine. What a wonderful picture, really shows the mentality here. Jim Morrison was speaking for that class when he said, "I don't know what's gonna happen, man, but I'm gonna get my kicks in before this whole shithouse goes up in flames."
photochemsyn 4y ago
So much of the elite wealthy class and their media sock puppets on both sides of the traditional left/right political divide are dedicated to pushing the identitarian culture war theme - because what they don't want to deal with is something like this: "Creating an economy where men can attain dignity and social respect."
- mola 4y ago
  This! Most of the flaming identity cultural wars are basically a distraction. The problem as always is class, and elites vieing for control. Yes progressive values are a thing, but its media representation is nuts, on purpose. The it's us vs them narrative leads to subjucating all values to pure "survival". This promotes long term irrationality. The powers at be know this and capitalize it. On both "sides". In my biased opinion this sort of Machiavellism is more common with conservatives, but its definitely common enough in non conservatives.
  - dudul 4y ago
    Why do you think it's more common with conservatives? You said it yourself, cultural wars are just distraction to keep the elite in power and talk about everything except classes. People in power don't care about conservatives or liberals, they just pick a team and play the game.
    - hotpotamus 4y ago
      Which party has been dedicated to cutting the taxes of the wealthy for decades? As the saying goes, show me your budget and I'll show you your values.
      - fallingknife 4y ago
        Which party is dedicated to importing massive numbers of cheap workers from other countries to allow business owners to undercut working class wages and pocket more profits?
irrational 4y ago
> Also, divorce sucks when kids are involved, I don't think anyone on earth, left or right, would dispute that. Tons of people dispute this. The thinking is that people staying married when they don’t want to stay married is worse for kids than people getting divorced and creating two separate households the kids float between. I don’t agree with this thinking, mostly because I’m the product of divorce that saw the aftermath and have seen the deep regret of what happened on both the parent of the previously married parents and the children. I suppose the good thing that came out of it is that neither I nor any of my siblings have gotten divorced, despite now all having been married longer than our parents ever were. Divorce is rarely the answer and does terrible things to children.
- jchanimal 4y ago
  Divorced dad, anecdote. My kids, my ex, and I are much better off now. Having the kids around 50% time is a huge sanity boost and allows me to be there for them more than before. I’m lucky to have remarried to a very engaged stepmom, but even without her we’d probably still be better off. I also saw my parents become much happier after they split up (when I was an adult.)
  - throwaway_div 4y ago
    I'll add a +1 to this as the kid of parents who divorced (when I was about 11). Home went from being an unpleasant place to be to being a nice place again. It is horrible to feel stuck between two people who don't want to be there. It was one of the best things that happened for me. And my parents.
  - pnutjam 4y ago
    100% of the problems this article is bemoaning are because of lack of financial support. The top needs to stop hoarding all the money.
- f38zf5vdt 4y ago
  I was the opposite. My parents "stayed together" in that they lived in the same house but had separate bedrooms and lives. Most of the time when they were interacting it was some kind of power struggle. By age 13 my sibling became an addict and is to this day unable to sustain a job. I attribute it to the instability in the household growing up. We're always going to see this through the lens of the experiences we grew up with.
phkahler 4y ago
>> I won't dwell on this, but not every (or even most) children benefit from this approach to parenting. Extreme rigidity, in fact, is more associated with negative long-term outcomes. Nobody is advocating "extreme rigidity". Consistently enforced boundaries have benefits for people across the board. I would argue that's the most important thing (maybe even the only thing) in raising kids to become responsible adults.
zozbot234 4y ago
> You seem to be attributing the cause of this to 'Telling men and boys it's cool and fine to divorce' and not attributing to say... declining material and social capitol in the lower four quintiles of wealth It's six of one, half a dozen of another. As the Chinese philosopher Confucious was already well aware of, a tight-knit family is the foundation of all other social structures. > Finally, historically speaking, decrying the next generation as depraved, lost, and needing traditional discipline Except that it's not merely "the next generation", i.e. youth that's being so described. The ongoing fraying of the social fabric in late-stage modern societies, especially among those most vulnerable to marginalization due to a broad variety of added factors, has been ascertained quite objectively.
- danaris 4y ago
  > a tight-knit family is the foundation of all other social structures. But you're missing an important part there: the "tight-knit" part doesn't just mean "stays together no matter what". It means "genuinely care about each other and work well together." Yes, a close, loving, supportive family is hugely important, for everyone in it. But a) the nuclear family you're almost certainly thinking about (a married couple and their children) has not been the norm for the vast majority of human history (and certainly wasn't when Confucius was writing), and b) whether you have a nuclear family or not, when one or more of the relationships at the core of your family is dysfunctional and causing significant stress, breaking that relationship apart can be a big improvement for the family as a whole. (In fact, when you don't have a nuclear family, it's much easier and safer to do that, because you're much less likely to be losing half the income in the household, or the only stable adult-to-adult relationship in the household.)
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    > Yes, a close, loving, supportive family is hugely important, for everyone in it. Telling people that it doesn't matter if they divorce and that they should put their own short-term happiness first and foremost is tantamount to denying this. And when it's the liberal upper class doing this, they're pretty much pulling up the ladder to effective social cohesion behind themselves, even as they hypocritically enjoy its benefits while denouncing the horrific plight of those most socially marginalized. The fact that some people in terrible relationships are genuinely better off if they split apart doesn't mean that celebrating divorce as anything other than potentially a lesser evil is a sensible idea.
fundad 4y ago
Agreed. real satanic-panic vibes here. I can’t be the only one who grew up seeing how little is expected of affluent men. The ideal is someone “brilliant” who gets others to do what’s expected of him. And then you can afford to be divorced and retain respect.
- itronitron 4y ago
  I think you're making an attribution error by suggesting they are able to get others to do anything, that would imply that the person first realized that something needed to get done beyond establishing their brilliance. At this point I think my sons may accomplish more in life if they remain unemployed as adults.
onionisafruit 4y ago
People tend to be absolutist about whether it’s better for kids if unhappy parents get divorced, but as the saying goes every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Some marriages are hell for everybody involved and need to end. I put abuse situations in that category of course and also marriages that have so much animosity that they can’t stop fighting. On the other end of marriages that may end in divorce are situations where one partner gets wanderlust and doesn’t want to be tied down by a family or are disappointed that their lifestyle isn’t what they expected. In those cases it is probably best for the kids if the parents learn to be happy within the bounds of their family.
- XorNot 4y ago
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    Divorce is a legal proceeding. The Government is ipso facto involved, and even more so when kids enter the picture since otherwise there would be no one to stand for their interest.
    - the_only_law 4y ago
      > and even more so when kids enter the picture since otherwise there would be no one to stand for their interest. The situation in my case was so extreme that my father ended up with custody, but from what I’ve heard from others it doesn’t sound like the government is standing for the interests of the children. The courts for example, in my fathers parents’ divorce, gave custody go him and his siblings to his broke, alcoholic mother instead of his mentally and financially stable father.
    - XorNot 4y ago
      And what do you think the government is going to do when you eliminate no-fault divorce as this whole thread of cowards are happy to imply but not state? What do you think happens then?
  - 4y ago
fallingknife 4y ago
> You seem to be attributing the cause of this to 'Telling men and boys it's cool and fine to divorce' and not attributing to say... declining material and social capitol in the lower four quintiles of wealth that have created pressure that exacerbates marriage instability and numerous other social ills Considering that the divorce rate has increased massively while poverty has decreased, it is nearly impossible that the cause of marriage instability is poverty.
indigochill 4y ago
> And speaking of America specifically, dignity and respect were not equi-distributed if you were a simply a 'married man' in decades past. It was quite a bit stricter: white, middle class or higher, married men were the ones afforded government support and social protection. You're conflating dignity and respect with government support. These are not remotely the same things. Some highly respected men were actively opposed by their respective governments because they stood up for what they saw as right despite the corruption of their governments, e.g. MLK Jr, Mahatma Ghandi, even Jesus. All dignified and respected by large numbers of people, all opposed by their governments.
cscurmudgeon 4y ago
> For example, with the advent of no-fault divorce, divorces went up, but female suicide rates dropped by 20%. It wasn't all streamers and light when the 'guard rails' were on. Did the female rate decrease more in married groups than unmarried groups? Without more data, this seems like a ripe candidate for https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations Suicide rates have been dropping across the board due to a variety of reasons. Attribution is very hard here. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2504425&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2504425&page=1
ALittleLight 4y ago
This statistic "with the advent of no-fault divorce, divorces went up, but female suicide rates dropped by 20%" seems very surprising to me. By googling I haven't been able to find a source for it. If I look at women's suicide rates over time they seem to be trending up. No fault divorce starts in California in 1969 and is legal in the last state, New York, by 2010. If that causes a significant drop in suicide rate I can't see it on this graph. https://www.statista.com/statistics/187478/death-rate-from-suicide-in-the-us-by-gender-since-1950/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/187478/death-rate-from-s... Additional Googling has turned up for me a paper that gives the 20% reduction claim. Still not clear to me how a 20% reduction in female suicide does not show up in a chart of female suicide rate. Another interesting thing about this paper is that it references another paper that found the opposite result - i.e. that no fault divorce seems to have increased the suicide rate. https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1041&context=bepp_papers https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=104... I tried to find suicide rate in California specifically around 1970. Ideally, I'd like to see a graph going from 1950 to 1990 and see that there is a ~20% drop around the legalization of no fault divorce. I found this paper that does mention a big drop in California suicide rate, especially among women and teens, between 1970 and 1990. https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1943-278X.1994.tb00660.x https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1943-278X.1994.... This paper does not attribute the drop in suicide rate to no fault divorce though. As I understand it this paper is saying that the suicide rate drop is explained by two main factors. First, a change in how California coroners coded suicides relative to how other coroners did it. If I'm understanding correctly it seems in 1970 California coroners were inclined to mark deaths resulting from suicide attempt damage as suicide. Because of this, in 1970, California cities had about double the suicide rate of US cities. By 1990 California coroners were doing what other coroners were doing and California cities had effectively the same rate of suicide as US cities. In my imagination this works as - if a woman attempts to kill herself by overdose, but survives the attempt, though has irreparable organ damage and dies from that a month later - in the 1970's California coroners would call that suicide, but by 1990 they would call it an unintentional death. Since men tend to kill themselves with guns or by hanging men tend to die when they attempt suicide. Women are more likely to try poisoning or drug over dose and thus are more likely to survive the attempt but take an eventually fatal injury. This would explain why women's suicidality is apparently more affected by a change in coroner practice than men's. Second factor is changing demographics. American Indians are the most suicidal, then white people. Between 1970 and 1990 the proportion of these two groups declined and the number of the relatively not-suicidal Hispanics increased dramatically. Thus, the suicide rate in California will appear to plummet - not because of any change in behavior or policy, but simply because there are more less suicidal people moving in. After reading about this for the last hour my current impression is that we probably don't know the affect of no fault divorce on female suicide rates. The academic literature is contested (I've seen two papers on the specific point with opposite claims), the statistics are not clear (female suicide rate is trending up), and in the state with the sharpest change in suicide rate following no fault divorce legalization (to my knowledge this is California) there are other explanations for the change.
WalterBright 4y ago
> declining material and social capitol in the lower four quintiles of wealth that have created pressure that exacerbates marriage instability and numerous other social ills. The article disputes that: "Most social scientists who study poor families assume financial troubles are the cause of these breakups. After all, these young people grow up in a context of extreme disadvantage, at least by American standards, and they come of age with little education, few skills, and not many future prospects. Lack of money is certainly a contributing cause, as we will see, but rarely the only factor. It is usually the young father’s criminal behavior, the spells of incarceration that so often follow, a pattern of intimate violence, his chronic infidelity, and an inability to leave drugs and alcohol alone that cause relationships to falter and die."

by lkey 4y ago

captainredbeard 4y ago

> but female suicide rates dropped by 20% ...hmm, male suicide rates are going up...

photochemsyn 4y ago
You might want to age-control that: https://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20200911/suicide-rate-keeps-rising-among-young-americans https://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20200911/suicide-rate-... > "Suicides among children and young people aged 10 to 24 rose 57% from 2007 to 2018, according to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention... In actual numbers, the suicide rate among 10- to 24-year-olds jumped from about 7 per 100,000 in 2007 to nearly 11 per 100,000 in 2018, according to the National Vital Statistics Report published Sept. 11." That's called massive societal failure any way you look at it. Oh well, I guess there's the upside that wealthy boomers can ride off into their cruise ship futures on the backs of 401K retirement plans financed by investments in student loan debt, fossil-fueled global warming, price-hiked pharmaceuticals and the war machine. What a wonderful picture, really shows the mentality here. Jim Morrison was speaking for that class when he said, "I don't know what's gonna happen, man, but I'm gonna get my kicks in before this whole shithouse goes up in flames."

photochemsyn 4y ago

So much of the elite wealthy class and their media sock puppets on both sides of the traditional left/right political divide are dedicated to pushing the identitarian culture war theme - because what they don't want to deal with is something like this: "Creating an economy where men can attain dignity and social respect."

mola 4y ago
This! Most of the flaming identity cultural wars are basically a distraction. The problem as always is class, and elites vieing for control. Yes progressive values are a thing, but its media representation is nuts, on purpose. The it's us vs them narrative leads to subjucating all values to pure "survival". This promotes long term irrationality. The powers at be know this and capitalize it. On both "sides". In my biased opinion this sort of Machiavellism is more common with conservatives, but its definitely common enough in non conservatives.
- dudul 4y ago
  Why do you think it's more common with conservatives? You said it yourself, cultural wars are just distraction to keep the elite in power and talk about everything except classes. People in power don't care about conservatives or liberals, they just pick a team and play the game.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    Which party has been dedicated to cutting the taxes of the wealthy for decades? As the saying goes, show me your budget and I'll show you your values.
    - fallingknife 4y ago
      Which party is dedicated to importing massive numbers of cheap workers from other countries to allow business owners to undercut working class wages and pocket more profits?

irrational 4y ago

> Also, divorce sucks when kids are involved, I don't think anyone on earth, left or right, would dispute that. Tons of people dispute this. The thinking is that people staying married when they don’t want to stay married is worse for kids than people getting divorced and creating two separate households the kids float between. I don’t agree with this thinking, mostly because I’m the product of divorce that saw the aftermath and have seen the deep regret of what happened on both the parent of the previously married parents and the children. I suppose the good thing that came out of it is that neither I nor any of my siblings have gotten divorced, despite now all having been married longer than our parents ever were. Divorce is rarely the answer and does terrible things to children.

jchanimal 4y ago
Divorced dad, anecdote. My kids, my ex, and I are much better off now. Having the kids around 50% time is a huge sanity boost and allows me to be there for them more than before. I’m lucky to have remarried to a very engaged stepmom, but even without her we’d probably still be better off. I also saw my parents become much happier after they split up (when I was an adult.)
- throwaway_div 4y ago
  I'll add a +1 to this as the kid of parents who divorced (when I was about 11). Home went from being an unpleasant place to be to being a nice place again. It is horrible to feel stuck between two people who don't want to be there. It was one of the best things that happened for me. And my parents.
- pnutjam 4y ago
  100% of the problems this article is bemoaning are because of lack of financial support. The top needs to stop hoarding all the money.
f38zf5vdt 4y ago
I was the opposite. My parents "stayed together" in that they lived in the same house but had separate bedrooms and lives. Most of the time when they were interacting it was some kind of power struggle. By age 13 my sibling became an addict and is to this day unable to sustain a job. I attribute it to the instability in the household growing up. We're always going to see this through the lens of the experiences we grew up with.

phkahler 4y ago

>> I won't dwell on this, but not every (or even most) children benefit from this approach to parenting. Extreme rigidity, in fact, is more associated with negative long-term outcomes. Nobody is advocating "extreme rigidity". Consistently enforced boundaries have benefits for people across the board. I would argue that's the most important thing (maybe even the only thing) in raising kids to become responsible adults.

zozbot234 4y ago

> You seem to be attributing the cause of this to 'Telling men and boys it's cool and fine to divorce' and not attributing to say... declining material and social capitol in the lower four quintiles of wealth It's six of one, half a dozen of another. As the Chinese philosopher Confucious was already well aware of, a tight-knit family is the foundation of all other social structures. > Finally, historically speaking, decrying the next generation as depraved, lost, and needing traditional discipline Except that it's not merely "the next generation", i.e. youth that's being so described. The ongoing fraying of the social fabric in late-stage modern societies, especially among those most vulnerable to marginalization due to a broad variety of added factors, has been ascertained quite objectively.

danaris 4y ago
> a tight-knit family is the foundation of all other social structures. But you're missing an important part there: the "tight-knit" part doesn't just mean "stays together no matter what". It means "genuinely care about each other and work well together." Yes, a close, loving, supportive family is hugely important, for everyone in it. But a) the nuclear family you're almost certainly thinking about (a married couple and their children) has not been the norm for the vast majority of human history (and certainly wasn't when Confucius was writing), and b) whether you have a nuclear family or not, when one or more of the relationships at the core of your family is dysfunctional and causing significant stress, breaking that relationship apart can be a big improvement for the family as a whole. (In fact, when you don't have a nuclear family, it's much easier and safer to do that, because you're much less likely to be losing half the income in the household, or the only stable adult-to-adult relationship in the household.)
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > Yes, a close, loving, supportive family is hugely important, for everyone in it. Telling people that it doesn't matter if they divorce and that they should put their own short-term happiness first and foremost is tantamount to denying this. And when it's the liberal upper class doing this, they're pretty much pulling up the ladder to effective social cohesion behind themselves, even as they hypocritically enjoy its benefits while denouncing the horrific plight of those most socially marginalized. The fact that some people in terrible relationships are genuinely better off if they split apart doesn't mean that celebrating divorce as anything other than potentially a lesser evil is a sensible idea.

fundad 4y ago

Agreed. real satanic-panic vibes here. I can’t be the only one who grew up seeing how little is expected of affluent men. The ideal is someone “brilliant” who gets others to do what’s expected of him. And then you can afford to be divorced and retain respect.

itronitron 4y ago
I think you're making an attribution error by suggesting they are able to get others to do anything, that would imply that the person first realized that something needed to get done beyond establishing their brilliance. At this point I think my sons may accomplish more in life if they remain unemployed as adults.

onionisafruit 4y ago

People tend to be absolutist about whether it’s better for kids if unhappy parents get divorced, but as the saying goes every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Some marriages are hell for everybody involved and need to end. I put abuse situations in that category of course and also marriages that have so much animosity that they can’t stop fighting. On the other end of marriages that may end in divorce are situations where one partner gets wanderlust and doesn’t want to be tied down by a family or are disappointed that their lifestyle isn’t what they expected. In those cases it is probably best for the kids if the parents learn to be happy within the bounds of their family.

XorNot 4y ago
- zozbot234 4y ago
  Divorce is a legal proceeding. The Government is ipso facto involved, and even more so when kids enter the picture since otherwise there would be no one to stand for their interest.
  - the_only_law 4y ago
    > and even more so when kids enter the picture since otherwise there would be no one to stand for their interest. The situation in my case was so extreme that my father ended up with custody, but from what I’ve heard from others it doesn’t sound like the government is standing for the interests of the children. The courts for example, in my fathers parents’ divorce, gave custody go him and his siblings to his broke, alcoholic mother instead of his mentally and financially stable father.
  - XorNot 4y ago
    And what do you think the government is going to do when you eliminate no-fault divorce as this whole thread of cowards are happy to imply but not state? What do you think happens then?
- 4y ago

fallingknife 4y ago

> You seem to be attributing the cause of this to 'Telling men and boys it's cool and fine to divorce' and not attributing to say... declining material and social capitol in the lower four quintiles of wealth that have created pressure that exacerbates marriage instability and numerous other social ills Considering that the divorce rate has increased massively while poverty has decreased, it is nearly impossible that the cause of marriage instability is poverty.

indigochill 4y ago

> And speaking of America specifically, dignity and respect were not equi-distributed if you were a simply a 'married man' in decades past. It was quite a bit stricter: white, middle class or higher, married men were the ones afforded government support and social protection. You're conflating dignity and respect with government support. These are not remotely the same things. Some highly respected men were actively opposed by their respective governments because they stood up for what they saw as right despite the corruption of their governments, e.g. MLK Jr, Mahatma Ghandi, even Jesus. All dignified and respected by large numbers of people, all opposed by their governments.

cscurmudgeon 4y ago

> For example, with the advent of no-fault divorce, divorces went up, but female suicide rates dropped by 20%. It wasn't all streamers and light when the 'guard rails' were on. Did the female rate decrease more in married groups than unmarried groups? Without more data, this seems like a ripe candidate for https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations Suicide rates have been dropping across the board due to a variety of reasons. Attribution is very hard here. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2504425&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2504425&page=1

ALittleLight 4y ago

This statistic "with the advent of no-fault divorce, divorces went up, but female suicide rates dropped by 20%" seems very surprising to me. By googling I haven't been able to find a source for it. If I look at women's suicide rates over time they seem to be trending up. No fault divorce starts in California in 1969 and is legal in the last state, New York, by 2010. If that causes a significant drop in suicide rate I can't see it on this graph. https://www.statista.com/statistics/187478/death-rate-from-suicide-in-the-us-by-gender-since-1950/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/187478/death-rate-from-s... Additional Googling has turned up for me a paper that gives the 20% reduction claim. Still not clear to me how a 20% reduction in female suicide does not show up in a chart of female suicide rate. Another interesting thing about this paper is that it references another paper that found the opposite result - i.e. that no fault divorce seems to have increased the suicide rate. https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1041&context=bepp_papers https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=104... I tried to find suicide rate in California specifically around 1970. Ideally, I'd like to see a graph going from 1950 to 1990 and see that there is a ~20% drop around the legalization of no fault divorce. I found this paper that does mention a big drop in California suicide rate, especially among women and teens, between 1970 and 1990. https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1943-278X.1994.tb00660.x https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1943-278X.1994.... This paper does not attribute the drop in suicide rate to no fault divorce though. As I understand it this paper is saying that the suicide rate drop is explained by two main factors. First, a change in how California coroners coded suicides relative to how other coroners did it. If I'm understanding correctly it seems in 1970 California coroners were inclined to mark deaths resulting from suicide attempt damage as suicide. Because of this, in 1970, California cities had about double the suicide rate of US cities. By 1990 California coroners were doing what other coroners were doing and California cities had effectively the same rate of suicide as US cities. In my imagination this works as - if a woman attempts to kill herself by overdose, but survives the attempt, though has irreparable organ damage and dies from that a month later - in the 1970's California coroners would call that suicide, but by 1990 they would call it an unintentional death. Since men tend to kill themselves with guns or by hanging men tend to die when they attempt suicide. Women are more likely to try poisoning or drug over dose and thus are more likely to survive the attempt but take an eventually fatal injury. This would explain why women's suicidality is apparently more affected by a change in coroner practice than men's. Second factor is changing demographics. American Indians are the most suicidal, then white people. Between 1970 and 1990 the proportion of these two groups declined and the number of the relatively not-suicidal Hispanics increased dramatically. Thus, the suicide rate in California will appear to plummet - not because of any change in behavior or policy, but simply because there are more less suicidal people moving in. After reading about this for the last hour my current impression is that we probably don't know the affect of no fault divorce on female suicide rates. The academic literature is contested (I've seen two papers on the specific point with opposite claims), the statistics are not clear (female suicide rate is trending up), and in the state with the sharpest change in suicide rate following no fault divorce legalization (to my knowledge this is California) there are other explanations for the change.

WalterBright 4y ago

> declining material and social capitol in the lower four quintiles of wealth that have created pressure that exacerbates marriage instability and numerous other social ills. The article disputes that: "Most social scientists who study poor families assume financial troubles are the cause of these breakups. After all, these young people grow up in a context of extreme disadvantage, at least by American standards, and they come of age with little education, few skills, and not many future prospects. Lack of money is certainly a contributing cause, as we will see, but rarely the only factor. It is usually the young father’s criminal behavior, the spells of incarceration that so often follow, a pattern of intimate violence, his chronic infidelity, and an inability to leave drugs and alcohol alone that cause relationships to falter and die."