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This authoritative book examines current trends in divorce throughout the world, analyzing hitherto inaccessible information on Asian and Arab countries and Eastern Europe, as well as data from Latin America, Western Europe, and the Anglo countries. William J. Goode asserts that these trends over the past four decades challenge previous theories, including his own, first offered in his classic World Revolution and Family Patterns .

Among the topics Goode discusses are how divorce rates in different countries are affected by industrialization, dictatorship, civic standards for nations, and easier divorce laws; the relations between divorce and such factors as age and class; the meaning of the worldwide rise in cohabitation; and why people are becoming less likely to remarry.

In all these divorce systems he points to the problems caused by divorce: how to get child support from ex-husbands, the increase in mother-headed families (even in Arab countries), and the scanty help (if any) governments give to such families. He argues that modern countries with high rates must learn an important lesson from what he calls traditional "stable high-divorce-rate" systems--that divorce is part of the system, and that we must create and support social norms (not only laws) that reduce its harsh effects.

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Goode's work contributes detailed information about divorce, marriage, and cohabitation rates from nearly every geographic area of the world for the period between 1950 and 1990. With the exception of the introduction and conclusion, each of the chapters examines divorce customs, laws, and rates in a different country or geographical area, and each could easily constitute a separate book. The significance of this work is that it is grounded in sound methodological procedures; the first chapters describe the rationale and details. Goode does not attempt to uncover causes of the worldwide increase in divorce patterns nor does he explain reasons for declining marriage and remarriage rates in nearly every geographical area. Instead, he examines the social and economic consequences associated with divorce, and he allows the data to speak for itself. Throughout, he continues to address the question of why divorce has been on the increase in industrialized and traditional countries--regardless of religious and political type. Goode has used his fluency in reading and speaking a number of foreign languages--along with a network of acquaintances among demographers--to report data that would be otherwise unavailable. This work is a "must have" for demographers and family scholars. Advanced undergraduate and above. A. S. Oakes; Idaho State University

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William J. Goode was Giddings Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. Later he taught at Stanford and Harvard Universities. He is a past president of the American Sociological Association and the Eastern Sociological Society, the recipient of many awards, and the author of seventeen books and numerous articles on a wide range of topics.