The Future of Remarriage in the United States: Its Determinants and Model-Based Projections

Neil G. Bennett, CUNY Institute for Demographic Research (CIDR)
Boning Cao, CUNY Institute for Demographic Research (CIDR)

We develop a parametric model of remarriage patterns (by duration since divorce) in the United States. Applying this model to several data sets, we seek to estimate the magnitude and direction of the association between a number of socioeconomic factors and the remarriage process, and how those associations have changed over time (i.e., by divorce cohort). Further, by artificially truncating the data at a variety of alternative durations and conducting out-of-sample forecasting, we test the model’s ability to project the remaining remarriage experience for a given divorce cohort of women. We then forecast the proportion of women who will ultimately remarry for cohorts of women who have yet to complete their remarriage experience.