Mathematical modeling of the spread of divorce in Spain

Evidence shows that divorces are related to the economy and social contagion, as well as to the existence of a difference in happiness between the couple. This paper deals with the mathematical modeling of divorce propagation allowing the estimation of the future divorced population. We use a coupled discrete linear-quadratic difference system model and data collected from the Spanish Statistics Institute (INE). A sensitivity analysis of the growth of the divorced population with respect to the contagion rate is included, and several different economic scenarios are considered.