Divorce and the 1950s

Back then, people spend more of their lives married than they do today due to lower divorce rates and earlier ages at marriage. People just didn't live alone. Only 9.3% of homes had only a single occupant in 1950, up slightly to 16.3% in 1960. Today that number is over 25%

Women's prospects as single people were pretty grim. Even today, divorced women suffer about a 45% decline in economic status and it was worse then. Today a woman can get a decent paying job but back in the Fifties, a woman's best chance at employment was in traditionally accepted "women's jobs" such as secretary, teacher, nurse, librarian and so forth. So there was an ecomonic incentive to stay married. Men felt the societal pressure. A proper fella had a wife and kids. His boss expected it. His neighbors and family expected it.

In 1950 there were 385,000 divorces which only rose slightly to 395,000 by 1959. Contrast that with 1,135,000 in 1998, and you begin to see the trend. To put those numbers in perspective, only 2.6 people out of 1,000 were divorced in 1950, whereas it climbed to 4.2 out of 1,000 in 1998.