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Both scenarios have plausible reasoning for being valid: children of divorce might be understandably reluctant about entering into wedlock, given the example they witnessed while maturing during their formative years. On the other hand, children of divorce are often from less affluent social backgrounds than children of intact families. As mothers frequently assume the role as primary caregiver and breadwinner in divorced households, their children may have less financial means growing up. Poorer adolescents are more likely to marry young and repeat negative marital patterns once wedded. The desire to escape an uncomfortable home situation is another factor that can give rise to a younger age at one's first marriage, along with greater emotional neediness.

By analyzing the findings of the 1973-1994 General Social Survey, Wolfinger came to the conclusion that while overall children of divorced families are more apt to marry at a younger age, if the children of divorce remain single past the age of twenty, their chances of marrying decrease below that of their peers from intact families (Wolfinger, 2003, p. 339), Additionally, there is also a substantial generational component: while overall, children of divorced parents before the year 1994 were more likely to marry young, after that year the chances of younger marriage decreased for children of divorced families. In fact, children from divorced households of all age groups were less, rather than more likely to marry young than their counterparts from intact homes.

Wolfinger's rationale for this fact was the following: today, marriage is less commonly seen as a venue of escape from troubled home circumstances, as individuals have other vocational and educational options that do not require marriage. Additionally, the greater commonality of divorce and the easing of barriers to obtaining a divorce means that there is less pressure to remain in uncomfortable marriages: a higher divorce rate has reduced the social stigma of being a child from a broken home and thus reduced some of the negative psychological and economic effects of divorce upon children. Finally, the available option of cohabitating with a partner has reduced the likelihood of divorce amongst the children of so-called broken homes. Cohabitation provides a third option that is more attractive than remaining single, but lacks the personal and emotional baggage of marriage for children of what were once called 'broken homes.'