Can Divorce Rate Be Affected By The Rate Of Unemployment In A Country?
Introduction
Globally, in approximately four decades between 1970 and 2008, the divorce rate has been doubled, from 2.6 divorces for every 1,000 married people to 5.5. Those results are averaged across all the regions of the world that they studied (DePaulo, 2019).
Unemployment is defined as a situation where someone of working age is not able to get a job but would like to be in a full time job (Pettinger, 2019) Unemployment is crucial economic indicator because it alarms the capability of workers to readily obtain gainful work (Chappellow, 2020). Unemployment usually occurs when someone is passionately seeking for a job and unable to find. It is generally used to measure how healthy the economy is.
The consequences of the business period are usually measured in terms of unemployment rates or poverty indicator. It was established that unemployment leads to conjugal and family instability that’s why starting a family is becoming less popular and the divorce rate is rising up (Kontrafouri, 2019). Accordingly, it is common nowadays that unemployment and financial compression put pressure on relationships and increase the risk of divorce and separation that can lead to suicide. However, financial pressures are considered as one of the chief marital shattering balls.
Furthermore, husbands and fathers are opposing a higher risk of divorce when they don’t sustain their family’s needs by being part of full time job.
This paper aims to shed light whether unemployment rates affects divorce rates or not. Some countries believe that unemployment has a great impact on divorce rates and some thinks it’s just a normal reason like the other reasons. This Paper highlights the problem from a global perspective by including United States, Spain and UK. Additionally the national aspect will be considered by assessing the cases in my home country Egypt and also the local perspective part will be collected by doing and interview with a lawyer.
Uk Divorce rate
The rate of weddings finished by divorce has raised, 33% of marriages from 1995 has finished at the 15th ceremony (haines, 2018). Moreover the predicted rate ends in divorce is 42% and half of them habitual to exist in the premier 10 years of marriage (haines, 2018).
Divorce rate for men and wives has reduced crosswise every age category except age 60 and above (haines, 2018). Greater number of divorces of different sex pairs in 2017 about 62% were asked by the wife (haines, 2018).Furthermore the utmost familiar mind was senseless behavior with 42% and the separation after it with 27% adultery with 15% (haines, 2018).
To wrap up the majority of divorce cases in UK not related to money Nor work it has other reasons
U.S. DIVORCE RATE
Divorce has always been a part of the American society but now on decline and has been since 1980 in America (LUSCOMBE, 2018).All millanials are choosing to wait longer to get married so that they can feel financially secure (LUSCOMBE, 2018). However, money issues may not be the top cause of divorce but it is the fourth one and it is considered one of the 5 top causes (drjim, 2019).Money issues can make couples crack up because money is so important and touches many people’s heart. It can wreck a marriage in so many different ways. Different spending habits and different financial goals can put a strain on a marriage (drjim, 2019). Money can become a power struggle and any change in income can increase stress, sometimes lack of money is because the employments not both of them working and the bills are more than the salary, may be because the unemployment rate is high and there’s no enough employments with good salaries.
Why is the divorce rate in Spain so high?
Rates increased due to the empowerment of women and their independence. Most of the men can’t find work and starting to be the breadwinners and women started to have a more domestic position that’s why the marriage rate is lower than the divorce rate. The rate of marriages ending in divorce has ascended to 65 percent since divorce was legalized in 1981 and divorce system was eased in 2005 through a government bill (Kontrafouri, 2019).
Spain has the highest divorce rate following Luxemburg. Victor Martin Organista, a Madrid attorney, said that even after divorce became legal it is still a very problematic long-winded process but then it became faster (Kontrafouri, 2019).
Divorce rates, according to Spain’s National Statistics Institute, are steadily going up in the age group of 40-49, the group that accounts for close to half of all divorces in Spain (Kontrafouri, 2019). However, after age of 40 kids are grown up and more independent so the couples find themselves face to face again so they start arguing, some people start asking if this person is the right one to complete the second half of their life with or not.
Nowadays a lot of young people avoid thinking about marriage as they think it is an impossible deal because it is a great responsibility they prefer to be an un married partners until they have a baby after that they start thinking about taking this step but if you don’t have a job or a monthly income it will be very hard to create a family.
National perspective
Egypt’s social solidarity minister has said that the number of divorce cases in Egypt has increased over the past decade from around 100,000 to a record of 186,000 (El-Din, 2018). According to the president, research suggests that 40% of marriages end within the first 5 years (Reda, 2019) Wali accredits that the rise in divorce cases in Egypt is due to the tough economic conditions and low employment rates, she stated that “people who marry but their low incomes don’t help them live an honorable life mostly end up with divorce” (El-Din, 2018).
More than 4 million divorced women and 9 million children became victims of family separation (Dr, 2019). According to official statistics, Egypt ranks first among world countries in divorce, with more than 250 divorces per day (Dr, 2019). Another cause of this aspect is misuse of technology and social networking sites many couples became addicted to the internet. A study has confirmed that among serious effects of the internet is the breakdown of the marital relationships in addition to many other effects mental illnesses and others (Dr, 2019).
One of the positive impacts is that there is about 41% of 18-29 year olds in serious relationships that felt closer to their partner because of the online conversations (LENHART, 2014). However, there is a lot of negative impacts as an example 42% between the ages of 18 to 29 that olds in serious relationships say that their partner has been distracted by their mobile phone while they were together (LENHART, 2014). Another point is that 18% of the online couples have argued about the amount of time spent online (LENHART, 2014).
Jealousy plays a huge role Marlyn Wei a psychiatric agreed to studies related social media usage with marriage, one of them said that high usage of Facebook can trigger jealousy since that in Facebook you see the other’s friends and another one such as being jealous from another couples (Biarezky, 2019 ) To sum up young adults are more likely to report that the internet has had an impact on their relationship 45% of internet users ages between 18 to 29 in serious relationships say the internet has had an impact on their relationship, while just one in ten online adults 65 and older say the same (LENHART, 2014)
Contrasting perspectives
Divorce has always been a part of the society in the U.S, the reasons behind divorce gather around more than one reason but money issues is one of the top 5 reasons may be from the weak salaries or excessive spending. Moreover, the society in Spain also is having a very high divorce rate even when it is a problematic long-wined process. However, the Egyptian government believes that besides the money issues, there is another aspect which is the social media aspect. Moreover the United Kingdom says that the familiar reason is senseless behavior this was the main reason of divorce in the United Kingdom.
Local perspective part
An Interview was conducted with George Malak a lawyer and council in law. I asked him as I thought he will serve my paper because he studied law and he is aware of what’s going on, also because he is a lawyer that saw a lot of divorce cases and would help me. I asked him some simple questions; first question was how much divorce rates increased in Egypt has? The answer was from 1996 to 2017 it was about 1.2 per 1000 marriages but starting 2017 it increased to 2.2 per 1000 marriages. Second question was why in your opinion the divorce rate has increased in Egypt? He said there are many reasons but one of the most common reasons between different generations is that life expenses are very expensive and increasing day after day that’s why the young generation is avoiding getting married because more than 50% of this generation can’t find a good job. Another question was what is the government doing to help these generations? The government is trying to provide job opportunities to whoever can’t find a job and trying to provide cheap apartments to anyone who can’t afford to buy and expensive one.
He was so helpful he answered all my questions and they were very direct and to the point briefly he said that unemployment may be one of the main reasons behind divorce.
Personal perspective and evaluation
Before conducting the research I thought that the divorce is a family separation that no one can help in it. I thought that the main reason behind divorce is that they don’t love each other I never thought about the money issues or even that the money issues may be the reason behind separating a family.
Due to my religion I never saw a divorced family that’s why I didn’t know what they feel or the reasons behind their divorce. But after conducting this research I found out that divorce has many reasons and money is one of the main big issues of divorce and avoiding marriage between young people.
After referring el ahram online and a national journal that have served my paper a lot and I found out that the government is developing a comprehensive program to address the problem of high divorce rates in Egypt. I can see that Essam el Din has developed his point of view and he always write about everything happens in Egypt he has wrote about 52 nominees battling for a place.
Another reference that I was amazed about was couples, the internet and social media that was written by Amanda Lenhart is addressing teens in more than 118 articles she is very professional she has contributed a lot of articles for example teens and sexting and a lot more she was proofing how internet could have a good or bad effect in any relationship.
Problems and causes
I can see that the problem in all countries is that they are not trying to help they are accepting divorce in all cases that’s why young people are avoiding getting married. Marrying someone or having a relationship is a great responsibility that we should now a take care of it.
Governments need to do awareness campaigns to teenagers about how to save money and how to spend their money in an organized way, when it comes to work the companies should start providing more positions whether to a man or a woman and maybe to start giving internships to students under graduate to help them more , money issues banks can give a specific amount of money to newly graduates to help them start their own business and lives. Giving internships and providing more spots to teenagers and undergraduates will help a lot and will give them hope.