It seems that the recession is being reflected in the demography of the United States. In 2009, the number of new marriages, births and divorces all went down. The New York Times Economix blog has a good write up on this and the stats.
The decline of marriages and births are generally happy events, and the decline represents young people postponing these big mile stones by a year or two, when hopefully economic conditions improve.
But what about divorce? An earlier Economix blog post noted that financial stress increased divorce. Basically, that couples that fought a least once a week about money were 30% more likely to get divorced. With the recession and all the financial stress this involves, there should be an increase in the divorce rate. And most likely there will be... when the economy improves and couples can afford to get divorced. Or on a more hopeful note, the improving economy will help mend these damaged marriages (in that case, the recession might have silver lining).
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