In times of economic crisis, Americans turn to their families for support. If the Great Depression is any guide, we may see a drop in our sky-high divorce rate. But this won't necessarily represent an increase in happy marriages. In the long run, the Depression weakened American families, and the current crisis will probably do the same. We tend to think of the Depression as a time when families pulled together to survive huge job losses. By 1932, when nearly one-quarter of the work force was unemployed, it had declined by around 25 percent from 1929. But this does not mean that people were suddenly happier with their marriages. Rather, with incomes plummeting and insecure jobs, unhappy couples often couldn't afford to divorce. They feared that neither would be able to manage alone. Today, given the job losses of the past year, fewer unhappy couples will risk starting separate households. Furthermore, the housing market meltdown will make it more difficult for them to finance their separations by selling their homes.  After financial disasters family members also tend to do whatever they can to help each other and their communities. A 1940 book, "The Unemployed Man and His Family," described a family in which the husband first reacted to losing his job "with tireless search for work." He was always active, looking for odd jobs to do. The problem is that such an impulse is hard to sustain (continue). For some, the hardships of life without steady work eventually defeated their attempts to keep their families together. The rate rose again during the rest of the decade as the recovery took hold. Millions of American families may now be in the initial (earliest) stage of their responses to the current crisis, working together and supporting one another through the early months of unemployment.  Today's economic depression could well generate a similar backlog  of couples whose relationships have been irreparably ruined. So it is only when the economy is healthy again that we will begin to see just how many fractured  families have been created. In addition to job losses, what stands in the way of unhappy couples getting a divorce?
Mounting (increasing) family debts. Falling housing prices. Difficulty in getting a loan. A sense of insecurity.