Nuclear magnetic resonance linewidths are analyzed to provide information on dipole distributions in &bgr;‐polyvinylidene fluoride as a function of poling time in order to establish the contribution of the dipole reorientation mechanism to the time evolution of the piezoelectricd31constant. Results indicate that dipole reorientation proceeds continuously with time and is not uniquely associated with the initially rapid and subsequently slower evolution ofd31with time. It is observed thatd31correlates well with ⟨cos 2&dgr;⟩, where &dgr; is the angle between a typicalbaxis and the poling direction. The magnitude of ⟨cos 2&dgr;⟩ and ⟨4&dgr;⟩ which characterize the remanent polarization indicates that dipole alignment is far from perfect along the poling direction even in the most strongly poled material.