Marital Disruption among Professional Women: The Timing of Career and Family Events

This paper looks at why highly educated women in the United States have a high rate of separation and divorce, and at what point in their careers their marriages break up. We asked 663 women graduates about the timing of their career and family events and found: marriages usually break up after, not before, women begin graduate school; women who marry before graduate school are more likely to divorce or separate than those who marry after; and women who have children before or during graduate school are more likely to divorce or separate than those who have children after graduate school. We also look at how husbands' support for their wives' careers affects marriages. While the effect of timing of marriage on disruption is mitigated by cooperation and support on the part of husbands, such support does not reduce the likelihood for women who have had children either before or during graduate school. We conclude that marital disruption among highly educated women is caused, at least partly, by the strain that results from their efforts to balance both work and family roles.