Abstract—The aim of this research is to describe the risk of divorce of household in Bandung city, based on three different discipline of science specifically; communication, developmental psychology and economy. This research represents the map of households which are vulnerable to divorce. This study uses 192 households in Bandung. The result shows that the highest risk of divorce is in households which have the following characteristics: (1) Low context communication, families with pre-school children and low socioeconomic status; (2) Low context communication, families with teenagers, low socioeconomic status; (3) High context communication, families with teenagers and low socioeconomic status. Index Terms—Risk of divorce, type of communication, developmental psychology, SES. I. INTRODUCTION The rise of divorce is one of the most important social developments of recent decades, to mention in Indonesia. Indonesia is the country which the highest divorce rates in Asia Pacific. The rates of divorce is getting higher through the years, which in the last 5 years of 2010-2014, increasing 52% [1]. This fact is so saddening yet clearly threatening the sustainability of households in Indonesia. Research about divorce varies very much, but the research about divorce in Indonesia nowadays are only focusing on certain discipline of science and the theories being used are partial. For example, psychology has only focused on dimension of marital interaction, such as conflict management [2]. Meanwhile, in the science of communication, [3] indicates how the symbolic behaviors occur in a divorce conflicts or [4] test the characteristics of interaction in the families which are at the edge of divorce, describes the relationships of member in the family after the divorce, and analyzes the “meta- message” which occurs in the divorce itself. From the discipline science of economy, [5] started with building a theory about social interaction and demand. The proposition explains how individual doesn’t have much freedom to choose when the social influence is very strong. For example, the increase of income in household may not influence the amount of children or the tendency to divorce, when the income of one household compares to the other households in one social group doesn’t change. Reference [6] sees that a household is not a static Manuscript received December 11, 2015; revised March 1, 2016. Y. Sari is with the Faculty of Psychology, Islamic University of Bandung, Indonesia (e-mail: yunitasari.psy@gmail.com). S. S. Kurnia is with the Faculty of Communication Science, Islamic University of Bandung, Indonesia (e-mail: septiawansantana@gmail.com). Y. Sundaya is with the Faculty of Economic Science, Islamic University of Bandung, Indonesia (e-mail: yuhkas@yahoo.com). institution. In the last decades, the rates of marriage are decreasing, the rates of divorce are increasing, and the characteristics of the marriage itself are experiencing a change. The approach of economy with households tries to explain those trends with a model which can also explain how and why a family can be formed. He ends with an argument that, “the marriage may happen when the potential benefit of the marriage is quite big”. Unfortunately, the amount of research of interaction from many disciplines of science nowadays is still very little. Whereas, to understand household as a whole, communication, psychological state, and socioeconomic status need to be seen as an integration and become a baseline to determine the action and behavior. Reference [7] shows that divorce is a complex event that can be viewed from multiple perspectives. Reference [8], also said that it’s very much needed to use many different perspectives of science to do research about family study. Basically, divorce is a kind of an action that the husband and wife decide with many considerations. The cause of divorce also varies. Reference [7] said people’s specific reasons for divorcing varied with gender, social class, and life course variables. Economic factors have also been found to be related to divorce, the main one is wives’ participation in the labor market [9]. Several studies suggest that Social Economic Status correlates with reasons to divorce. According to the data in Office of Religious Affairs, West Java, Indonesia, divorce happens because of socioeconomic problems and the absence of harmony in the marriage. The data give early information that the decision of divorce occur because of the socioeconomic pressure. The failure of fulfilling the family needs leads them to have an affair and end up their family into a divorce. It’s clear that we need a broader perspective to understand the case of divorce. Divorce, for married couples, is an act of choice, which is driven by a variety of considerations attached. From the point of view of psychology, every couple occupies the diverse stages of psychological development, and certainly with domestic problems is diverse. From an economic standpoint, they occupy different levels of well-being as well as the communication style of the couple. Aspect of psychology, economy, and communication are intertwined, and not partial. The goal of this research is to formulize the risk factor in divorce from the communication style, stages in the family development, and type of socioeconomic status (SES). II. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH FRAMEWORK A. High and Low Context Communication High context of communication is a kind of communication which most part of information are already The Risk of Divorce: Style of Communication, Stages of Family Development, and Type of Socioeconomic Status Yunita Sari, Septiawan Santana Kurnia, and Yuhka Sundaya International Journal of Culture and History, Vol. 2, No. 1, March 2016 5 doi: 10.18178/ijch.2016.2.1.028