Divorce among descendants of immigrants

Using Norwegian register data on all first marriages contracted 1990-2011, where the husband was born between 1972 and 1989 (N=139 861 couples), this report investigated divorce among Norwegian-born to immigrant parents. Those couples where both or one spouses were Norwegian-born to immigrant parents were compared with couples in which one or both spouses were immigrants or non-immigrants.

Results showed that:

• Couples in which both spouses were Norwegian-born to immigrant parents were more divorce prone compared with couples consisting of two immigrants and those couples where one spouse was immigrant and the other was born in Norway by two immigrant parents.
• Norwegian-born to immigrant parents who had married a majority background individual were more likely to divorce than majority-background couples.
• Restricting the sample to immigrant-background couples (i.e., spouses were Norwegian-born to immigrant parents or immigrants) we found that those couples in which both spouses originated from the same country were less likely to divorce than heterogamous couples.
• Immigrant-background couples in which only the wife had completed a tertiary education were significantly more likely to divorce than those immigrant-background couples where none of the spouses were tertiary educated.
• In line with prior research on divorce, couples with common children were less divorce prone than childless couples, whereas couples in which one or both spouses had prior