Social Integration and Divorce

Abstract
Using panel data from a national survey of married persons, the role of social integration in stabilizing marriage is explored. The analysis indicates that social integration does not appear to have a strong uniform negative effect on divorce, as others have proposed. Of the three forms of integration considered (communicative, functional, and normative), we find only two that relate to divorce in a substantive manner. Mechanisms by which integration might deter divorce are examined, and the implications of the findings for a theory of divorce are discussed.