A new report -The 2009 “State of our Unions”– out of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and the Institute for American Values, reports that divorce fell during the first full year of the Great Recession, the first annual dip since 2005.

“Tough times foster real family solidarity and encourage many couples to stick together,” says UVA sociology professor W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project. “Many couples are rediscovering the longstanding sociological truth that marriage is one of society’s best social insurance plans.”

Despite this recent dip in the rate of divorce, the report predicts the recent recession will eventually undercut marriage in working-class communities since men-particularly working-class and uneducated men-have absorbed 75 percent of job losses since 2007. This will likely serve to further a “divorce divide” that has been growing since the 1980s between couples with college degrees and those with less education.

Find out more from this and other reports at the National Marriage Project and the Institute for American Values.