Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2021
Abstract
Research suggests that young adults commonly approve of divorce but still feel anxious about the possibility of divorcing themselves due to anticipated emotional and financial repercussions. However, the existing research focuses exclusively on heterosexual young adults, which is a significant oversight given the recent legalization of same-sex marriage. As such, we rely primarily on qualitative data from an online survey of unmarried sexual minority young adults (n = 257) to examine how they think about divorce. Our results suggest that sexual minority young adults have somewhat distinct perspectives compared to heterosexual young adults. In particular, they anticipate being quite willing to divorce under a broad set of circumstances, and they report minimal anxieties regarding the prospect of divorce. Given documented associations between attitudes toward divorce in young adulthood and subsequent relational behavior (e.g., cohabitation, marital delay), we conclude by discussing what our results suggest about sexual minority young adults’ relationships in the era of marriage equality.
Department
Sociology and Corrections
Online ISSN
2076-0760
Publication Title
Social Sciences
Recommended Citation
Hoy, A., Pokhrel, S., & Nkwenti, J. A. (2021). Who's afraid of divorce? Sexual minority young adults' perspectives on divorce. Social Sciences, 12(10), Article 483. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10120483
DOI
10.3390/socsci10120483
Link to Publisher Version (DOI)
Publisher's Copyright and Source
Copyright © 2021 by the authors.
Included in
Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons
