Yuexin Zhou

Professor

English 1201

12 November 2019

Annotated Bibliography

My essay will attempt to answer why people get divorced. If a divorce is needed, in most

cases it cannot be avoided and is bound to occur sooner or later. There are many factors as to

why people get divorced, but getting a divorce does not happen overnight, there has to be

some type of building up, reason, or an event that leads to said divorce. I want to know what

factors would influence people’s decision of getting divorced.

Hurley, Dan. “Divorce Rate: It's Not as High as You Think.” The New York Times, The New

York Times, 19 Apr. 2005, www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/health/divorce-rate-its-not-as-

high-as-you-think.html.

Dan Hurley a writer for The New York Times Wrote an article called "Divorce Rate: It's

Not as High as You Think”, in April of 2005. In this article he tells the reader how the

divorce rate is not actually as high as the experts say it is. He explains the different ways

divorce rate is calculated and which ways actually tell the true divorce rate and which ways

do not. His purpose in writing this article was most likely to inform and educate the public

that the divorce rate is not as high as it appears and that methods used to find the rate play a

part in that. Dan Hurley is an American health and medical journalist and author. He has

written several books and contributed pieces to the New York Times, Wired, the Washington

Post, Neurology Today and The Atlantic. I will use this information to aid in explaining how

divorce rates change over time.

Lehrer, Evelyn L, and Yeon Jeong Son. “Marital Instability in the United States: Trends,

Driving Forces, and Implications for Children. SSRN, Social Science Research Network,

22 Jan. 2017, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2903125.

Evelyn Lehrer and Yeon Son are two professors from the University of Illinois at

Chicago, together in January of 2017 they wrote a discussion paper titled, “Marital Instability

in the United States: Trends, Driving Forces, and Implications for Children”. Touches on

multiple topics some of which being, long term factors to increasing divorce rate, how age,

race, and ethnicity affect the likelihood of a divorce with data supporting that, and marital

instability by socioeconomic status. The purpose of this paper is to educate the reader on why

divorce rates rise with solid factual information supporting their claims. I will use this

information to help explain why the divorce rate is always fluctuating.

"Marriage and Divorce: Patterns by Gender, Race, and Educational Attainment: Monthly

Labor Review." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1

Oct. 2013, www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divorce-patterns-by-gender-

race-and-educational-attainment.htm

This is an article written by the Bureau of Labor statistics, it does not supply an author

but is a credible government funded website. The article, “Marriage and Divorce: Patterns by

Gender, Race, and Educational Attainment : Monthly Labor Review” was written in October

of 2013. The article gives information on marriages and divorces based on age, gender, race,

and ethnicity, as well as by education. This article is more of a “hard” source of information

it gets straight to the point and provides plenty of statistical data to support the points made. I

will most likely use this source to help with explaining the statistics within the divorce rate.
 Scott, Shelby B, et al. “Reasons for Divorce and Recollections of Premarital Intervention:

Implications for Improving Relations hip Education.” Couple & Family Psychology,

U.S. National Library of Medicine,

2013.www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4012696/.

This article was written by 5 Psychologist from the University of Denver, all of which have a

master degree or higher. All of the writers specialized in couple and family psychology. The

article was published by the National Center of Biotechnology Information, a government

funded organization. This article is about experiment that attempted to uncover the main

reasons that lead to divorce in the United States. The experiment span over a 14- year time

period with 52 married couples. The article states the experiments’ procedure, data tables,

and a conclusion. I will use this article to help me explain the main factors people get

divorced in my research paper.

Wallerstein, Judith. “Nine Psychological Tasks for a Good Marriage.” American Psychological

Association, American Psychological Association, www.apa.org/helpcenter/marriage.

Judith Wallerstein has a PhD is psychology and is a writer for the American Psychology

Association. In the article “Nine Psychological Tasks for a Good Marriage”, she states tips

about what would help a couple to have a health marriage. The purpose is to give information

that will aid in sustaining a healthy marriage. The American Psychology Association is a very

prestigious organization and releases only credible and factual information. I plan to

implement this article to my essay as part of evidence of psychological factors influence the

marriage.
"USA TODAY." Marriage rate may be low, but more weddings predicted . N.p., n.d. Web.

17 Feb. 1995. <http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/17/marriage-

trends-demographics/2424641/>.

In the newspaper, USA Today, the author argues that marriage rates are at a national

low; marriage rates declined 5% during the recession. Even though the statistics are at a

record low, demographers predict that they will rise by 2.208 million in 2015. They note that

apart from the recession, the reason marriage rate lowered was because of the indecisive

social “when and why to marry” as well as the rise of cohabitation. This article is trustworthy

because it is from a well renowned newspaper—USA Today. It was part of the Health and

Wellness section and written by Janet Loehrke, a worker for the National Center for Health

Statistics of the US Census Bureau. I will use information to indicate the statistics number of

a failed marriage that would have signs before the wedding.

Cohen, Philip. "How to Live in a World Where Marriage Is in Decline." The Atlantic.

Atlantic Media Company, 4 June 2013. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.

<http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/06/how-to-live-in-a-world-where-marriage-

is-in-decline/276476/>.

This article mainly discusses statistics about marriage, such as marriage rates in the

1980’s versus marriage rates now. The author, Phillip Cohen’s, discusses ages between 25-49

years and even incorporates all 50 states and their political parties. He also incorporates what

the future may entail for marriage regarding whether it may spike, fall or level out. Phillip

Cohen is a reliable source because he also runs a second site, the National Marriage Project.

He is a sociology professor at University of Marriage who specializes in marriage. I will use

this article to help me explain the fact that the divorce rate is getting higher compared with

the past.
Stevenson, Betsey, and Justin Wolfers. Marriage and divorce changes and their driving

forces. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2007. Print.

The most prominent source in my essay, “Marriage and Divorce Changes and their

Driving Forces”, explains marriage trends over the past 150 years, in particular annotating

how women are now able to execute and control their own fertility with the procedure of

contraceptives. The book also notes that though divorce rates have risen over the past 150

years, they are now slowly beginning to fall again. This source has everything I am looking

to address in my essay. It draws in information from other time periods and addresses the

different social customs of those time periods in conjunction with marriage. This source is

trustworthy because I found it off of the UCR library database. It is a documented book from

the UC Library systems. I will use this source to explain what influence a failed marriage.

Isen, Adam, and Betsey Stevenson. Women's education and family behavior trends in

marriage, divorce and fertility. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic

Research, 2010. Print.

“Women’s Education and Family Behavior Trends in Marriage, Divorce, and

Fertility” focuses on the women side of marriage and discusses the effect of education. It

talks about how in the past educated women had higher rates of lower marriages. Contrary to

popular belief, marriage rates for educated women have risen though they vary in the age,

amount of children, and even happiness. In short, the book also discusses the minor effect

education has had on men in marriages. This source is considered trustworthy because I

found it off of the online library database at UCR. It was pulled off of the UC Library system
database. The book has a series of citations from professionals amongst other information. I

will use this source to emphasize the character of women education that serve as a marriage