As recently as the 1970s, rural Iowa boasted a divorce rate out of 1910s America at large.
And there were hardly any paternity cases for child support and/or child custody, between parents who were not married.
Rural Iowans went to church regularly, mothers stayed at home with children and, well, people in their world did not divorce.
But forty years later, things have changed … in a big way.
Except for the fact that most rural Iowans still belong to a church and attend regularly, now, rural Iowa pretty much mirrors the rest of America.
Rural Iowa women today are more likely to be college-educated than in the past … and more likely to be college-educated than rural men.
They are out in the workforce.
Being divorced no longer carries much of a stigma in rural Iowa.
And divorce has multiplied there by a magnitude of seven times.
And rural Iowa now has its share of paternity cases for child support and custody disputes between unmarried parents.
Read more in this New York Times article: Once Rare in Rural America, Divorce Is Changing the Face of Its Families.