Divorce and social class during the early stages of the divorce revolution: evidence from Flanders and the Netherlands

In times of low divorce rates (such as the nineteenth century and early twentieth century), the authors expect higher social strata to have the highest divorce chances as they are better equipped to break existing barriers to divorce. In this article, the authors analyze data from marriage certificates to assess whether there was a positive effect of occupational class on divorce in Belgium (Flanders) and the Netherlands. Their results for the Netherlands show a positive association between social class and divorce, particularly among the higher cultural groups. In Flanders, the authors do not find this, but they observe a negative association between illiteracy and divorce, an observation pointing in the same direction.