Can differential exposure to risk factors explain recent racial and ethnic variation in marital disruption ? q

Large racial and ethnic differentials in the risk of marital disruption are observed in the United States, with Blacks exhibiting higher rates of disruption than many other groups. We use data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth to investigate whether racial/ethnic differences in exposure to risk factors for disruption can explain variation in levels of marital instability across groups. We consider a wide array of risk factors for disruption and offer one of the few recent analyses of marital instability among Mexican American women. Our results suggest that, if differences in population composition between groups were removed, the White–Black and Black–Mexican differentials in disruption would be reduced by approximately 30% and 50%, respectively. The story regarding the White–Mexican differential is more complicated, however, and hinges on nativity status of Mexican women. Finally, in light of large differences in marital instability between US-born and foreign-born Mexican 0049-089X/$ see front matter 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2005.04.002 q A previous version of this paper was presented at the annual meetings of the Population Association of America, Minneapolis, May 1–3, 2003. The authors gratefully acknowledge support for this project from the UCLA Academic Senate Council on Research and thank Diane Davis and Hongbo Wang for expert research assistance. We also appreciate the helpful comments of the anonymous reviewers. * Corresponding author. Fax: +1 732 445 0974. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J.A. Phillips), [email protected] (M.M. Sweeney). 410 J.A. Phillips, M.M. Sweeney / Social Science Research 35 (2006) 409–434 women, we also explore the possibility that compositional differences might contribute to differentials in marital instability between these two groups. 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.