Who Converges to Whom? Divorce Patterns across East, West, and Migrant Populations More than 30 Years after German Reunification

Pauline Kleinschlömer , Bundesinstitut für Bevölkerungsforschung
Nadja Milewski, Federal Institute for Population Research

This study investigates divorce patterns in Germany, focusing on the roles of social origin and marriage cohort. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), we analyze 14,404 couples, in which the women were born between 1960 and 1990, of whom 2,539 experienced a first divorce during the observation period. We differentiate between East and West Germany and international migrants and examine three marriage cohorts: 1976–1989 (married before reunification), 1990–2005 (married after reunification; predominantly socialized in a divided Germany), and 2005–2020 (married after reunification; predominantly socialized in a reunified Germany). Kaplan–Meier survival analysis is employed to estimate the likelihood of divorce within 30 years of marriage. Overall, divorce risks have declined across cohorts, with the youngest cohort exhibiting markedly lower likelihoods. Over time, differences by social origin have converged: while migrants previously had lower divorce risks than couples in East and West Germany, all social origin groups in the youngest cohort now display similarly low risks. Since reunification, divorce risks of East and West Germans have remained largely similar across marriage cohorts. These findings underscore that, although social origin matters, temporal context—represented by marriage cohort—emerges as the most influential factor in determining divorce risk. In the next step, we aim to assess whether differences in selection into marriage can explain the observed convergence in divorce risks, taking into account socio-demographic characteristics such as education, fertility patterns, age at marriage, and religion.

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 Presented in Session P2. Families, Fertility, and the Life Course 2