EXERCISE 1
There are numerous web sites about divorce, most devoted to practical information for people who are about to divorce, in the process of obtaining a divorce, or dealing with postdivorce issues, such as modifying the legal agreement. Balanced overviews are hard to find. In addition to dispensing practical advice, www.divorceonline.com reprints many articles on divorce-related topics. See also www.divorcecentral.com or www.divorceinfo.com for a sense of the issues of greatest concern to people going through a divorce. EXERCISE 2 Over the past several years, a "marriage movement" has developed among professionals and academics who believe that the benefits of marriage are underappreciated, and that too many marriages end in divorce. A key web site is www.smartmarriages.com, which offers information about upcoming conferences, recent books and articles, and news reports. How might the resources available at this web site help to strengthen marriages? EXERCISE 3 - How Much Divorce? You'll need your calculator for this one. Visit the Census bureau site, http://www.census.gov and click on "M" in Subjects on the left. Then click on Marital Status and Living Arrangements Data. Scroll to the bottom to the time series data and click on Table MS-1, Marital Status of the Population 15 Years Old and Over, by Sex and Race: 1950 to Present. Examine the divorce data over time. The data are in actual numbers, not percentages, so to make sense out of them you'll need to figure the percentage of each group that is divorced by taking the number in the "Divorced" column and dividing it by the number in the "Total" column for a given year (for example, for males of all races in 1998, take the number divorced, 8331 and divide by the total, 101,123 for 8.2%). Now, compare that to the figures for earlier years to see the change. Do this for several years and for both men and women. What do you observe? How prevalent is divorce and how have the figures changed? EXERCISE 4 - International Divorce Rates Go to the website of Public Agenda Online at http://www.publicagendaonline.com. Click on The Family on the left, and then click on Fact File. Click next on International Divorce Rates. Where does the U.S. appear on the chart? What variables would you use to explain the international differences you observe? |
2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education