Divorce rate

A co-worker and I were discussing marriage the other day and I wondered out loud why the divorce rate is as high as it is in the United States. I had heard that the divorce rate is around 50% but never looked into why. The other night, I did a couple of Google searches on the topic and turned up some interesting information. On this site, I found out that 50% of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce, according to Jennifer Baker of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri. According to enrichment journal on the divorce rate in America, the divorce rate in America for first marriage is 41%, 60% second marriages, and 73% for third marriages. In 2005, the National Fatherhood Initiative performed a national survey on marriage in America (see report). It's a long report but some of the more notable findings from my perspective were that the three leading causes of divorce were: “lack of commitment” of one or both spouses, “too much conflict and arguing”and “infidelity.” Other frequently cited reasons were “married too young,” “unrealistic expectations,”“lack of preparation,” and“inequality.”

Two questions on the survey asked ever-divorced respondents (a) if they wished that they, themselves, had worked harder to save the marriage, and (b) if they wished their ex-spouse had done so. Only about a third of the respondents answered no to both questions, and 62 percent of both the ex-husbands and the ex-wives answered yes to the question about their ex-spouse’s efforts. Neither this finding nor the fact that “lack of commitment” was the most frequently chosen reason for the respondents’ divorces is consistent with the claim made by some commentators on American marriage that most divorces occur only after the spouses have done their best to make the marriage work.

Another unexpected finding from the survey related to cohabitation.

During the past several years, a majority of American couples who married were living with one another before they married, and the belief that it is a good idea to live with someone before deciding to marry that person has become widespread. The reasoning is that if couples test their compatibility by living together before they marry, many bad marriages will be prevented. It is indeed likely that a good many couples have decided not to marry after discovering that they do not get along well in a cohabiting relationship. Nevertheless, numerous recent studies have shown that couples who live together before marriage are more likely to divorce than those who do not cohabit premaritally. The NFIMS findings shown in Figure 13 add to the findings that premarital cohabitation is not associated with marital success, though the marriages of those who live together only after they have decided to marry apparently turn out better on the average than the marriages of couples who decide to marry while they are cohabiting. There is agreement among researchers who have studied this topic that the marriages of persons who live together before marriage turn out poorly on the average partly because of the kinds of persons who cohabit. These persons tend to be nontraditional in their attitudes, and nontraditional attitudes are not conducive to marital success. It is also possible that the cohabitation itself has negative effects on marriage. For instance, a casual decision to live with someone may start a process that ends with marriage to that person, even though more suitable partners are available. That is, cohabitation may often be a form of “premature entanglement,” which limits the person’s ability to circulate “on the marriage market” to test his or her desirability on the market and to find a highly suitable partner.

In Figure 13 (referenced above), we find out that couples that did not cohabit prior to marriage are 2x more likely to have marital success than those who did cohabit before getting engaged and about 1.5x more likely than those who decided to cohabit after getting engaged.

There was lots of good information available on divorcereform.org (although the site doesn't appear to be functional at the moment). Some of the things I remember seeing there was data that indicated that people who get married young (in their teens or early twenties) have the highest divorce rate. There was a "peak marriage period" from 23 to 28 years old (give or take a year) where marriages were the most successful. And then divorce rate went back up for marriages after 30 years old. There was a strong link between divorce rates going up overall and the introduction of "no fault divorces" about 25 years ago (perhaps this anti-Prop 8 video is onto something - even though the true intent of the video is satire of those favoring traditional marriage). And there was a LA Times article from around 2000 that said that the divorce rate for those who get married in LDS temples is about 6% whereas LDS marriages outside the temple experience the same divorce rate as the general population.

I'm sure I've only scratched the surface of this topic but some interesting findings to consider.