Lecture room: Árnagarður – 101 .Click for a map.
Working institution
ABUP, Sorlandet Hospital, Norway
Abstract
Divorces were rare in Norway until the middle of the 20th century, but have after that become common experience. The common knowledge of the subject is that 50 % of all marriages end in divorce. This based on calculations done by researchers back in the 1980th.The research that will be presented here contains data on all marriages in Norway over the last 129 years (1886 to 2013) and does not support that hypothesis. The survey follow each married person for every year from marriage to divorce or death, and the data are compiled in marriage cohorts. The dataset contains more than 2.7 million Norwegian marriages.
The researcher will present several measures of divorce frequency, describe developments in divorces in recent decades in detail and discuss why one cannot indiscriminately use the total divorce rate as a measure of divorce frequency. Possible effect of knowledge of divorce rates on the clinical work as a couple and family therapist will also be presented and open for discussion.