Divorce Statistics and Studies Blog

CDC releases 2010 state divorce rates

"Divorce Rates By State: 1990, 1995 and 1999-2010." From the National Center for Health Statistics at the CDC. 

 

 

Divorce, marriage down in Canada; projected lifetime divorce rate around 40%

Divorce Rates in Canada on Decline: But So Are Marriage Rates  -- The Smart Divorce® Weblog

This is based on reports of divorce cases from several provinces covering 66% of the population. Original source: "Divorce cases in civil court, 2010/2011" By Mary Bess Kelly, Statistics Canada. The Statistics Canada web page includes many other findings about divorce litigation, and long historical graphs of divorce and marriage rates.

It also includes projections, which are uncertain and subjective but are also the most intuitively understandable kinds of rates - they answer the question that's most often on people's minds but which there's rarely an answer for: What is a couple's chance of getting divorced? A chart shows this rising from 36.1% in 1996 to a peak of 41.9 in 2006, then declining to 40.7 in 2008. But it varies greatly by province, from 59.7 in the Yukon Territory to 25.0 in Newfoundland and Labrador. This projection is actually the "30-year divorce rate", described as:

"The 30-year total divorce rate (TDR-30) represents the proportion of married couples who are expected to divorce before their 30th wedding anniversary. For example, a TDR-30 of 40.7 per 100 marriages for Canada in 2008 indicates that 40.7% of marriages are expected to end in divorce before the 30th year of marriage (if the duration-specific divorce rates calculated for 2008 remain stable)."

 

Study of Lincoln's 131 Illinois divorce cases

A summary of the records of Lincoln's law firm's divorce cases, by Stacy Pratt McDermott, was the subject of a recent Wall Street Journal blog post. Statistics include which sex filed how often; what percentage of plaintiffs of each sex were granted the divorces they sought; what grounds were claimed and how each kind of case was treated; and child custody and support outcomes.

The full study is "Lincoln Legal Briefs #45" but you have to scroll down a couple screens to get to it. It also includes descriptions of several individual cases.

Massachusetts's Most-Divorced Towns, from Census Data

"Massachusetts Most-Divorced Towns" - WCBV-TV Boston

 

2009 State Divorce Rates

This table from the Wall Street Journal says it's based on absolute numbers "collected in the National Vital Statistics Report from December 2008 to November 2009", so it's not exactly the 2009 rate, but it's close to it. The Journal then "divided by state population, collected by the U.S. Census Bureau as of July 1, 2009"

China: 8.5% divorce rate report mistaken

This story, repeated on many news sites, is titled "China divorce rate 8.5% in 2010" but that's probably not the actual rate, because what the text of the story says is that the number of people who "ended their marriage" -- which it equates with divorces plus judicial separations -- is UP 8.5% over the 2009 rate. The actual divorce rate, though, is reportedly up 11.5 percent over 2009.

 "According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, 2.68 million couples ended their marriage during 2010, up 8.5 percent over 2009.   This included 2.01 million couples who filed for divorce, an increase of 11.5 percent over 2009, and 668,000 couples who separated via court sanction. Over 5,000 couples divorce each day in China. The number of divorces has been steadily rising in the past five years. However, marriages also increased in 2010, reaching 12.4 million, up two percent in 2009." 

Another take on it, via Phoenix lawyer Wendy Raquel Hernandez:

According to China's Ministry of Civil Affairs, there were approximately 465,357 divorces during the first quarter of 2011 (January through March). This constitutes a 17 percent increase from the first quarter of 2010.

Experts point to several reasons for this increase in the number of divorces:

• The decision by government officials in 2001 to allow couples to separate without securing approval from their employer beforehand
• The growing wealth in various sectors of the population
• The country's increasing transformation to consumer-driven social norms which puts pressure on husbands to earn/provide more

Another report says:

According to statistics as of May 2011, southwest China's Sichuan Province ranks the highest in the divorced population with 38,228 divorced couples, and Shandong ranks second with 29,367 couples ending their marriages,.

According to China Marriage and Family Consulting Research Center, a social group affiliated with the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the increased divorced population in Sichuan and Shandong is mainly due to the migration of workers, who spread out in other places in China.

The couples have to face the pressure of separation and their feelings are often neglected, leading to a growing number of people having affairs, said Shu Xin, the center's director.

More developed regions have seen a fairly low increase in the divorce rate. According to first-quarter statistics for Guangdong, Shanghai and Beijing, the divorce population increased by 15.4 percent, 8.5 percent and 8.2 percent respectively compared to the same period in 2010.

"The high increase in divorce is a direct result of economic growth," Shu said.

Brooklyn divorces drop 25% in 3 years

Let's stay together! Divorces are way down in Brooklyn - The Brooklyn Paper. 

So the divorce downturn isn't just a few Park Slope hipster friends of Pamela Paul.

Broken marriages drain tax coffers; help available

Broken marriages draining tax coffers | Deseret News.By Lois M. Collins, 4/30/11. Excerpts:

The cost of divorce and out-of-wedlock births to taxpayers nationally exceeds $112 billion a year, including the cost of federal, state and local government programs and forgone tax revenues, according to "The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing: First-ever Estimates for the Nation and All 50 States".

...

 Utah taxpayers spend about $276 million on the effects of divorce and out-of-wedlock childbirth. But while there are effective tools to strengthen marriage and families, those who statistically need help most are the least likely to seek it out, experts say. "Those who are younger, less educated and less religious feel that such education is not important. But they are more apt to divorce, as well," said Melanie Reese, coordinator for the Utah Healthy Marriage Initiative.  

...

The top five reasons people divorce are not a mystery, said Reese: lack of commitment, conflict/arguments, infidelity, marrying too young and finances. Often, these factors intertwine ...

Survey of happiness with past decisions to divorce, to stay married, & more

David Lapp on the Family Scholars Blog reports on a  baseline statewide survey on marriage and divorce conducted just as Oklahoma was launching its statewide marriage initiative. Findings he discusses include that 1/5 of divorced women and 1/3 of divorced men wish they had worked harder to save the marriage; but 3/4 of both sexes wish their exes had. Happiness at deciding to stay married during a bad phase in the marriage was 80% in the first 7 years afterwards, and 96% after that (for those who were still married then). The survey looks at correlations with age at the time of marriage, religon, and probably many other things.

States' Divorce Rates Per Marriage Line Up Quite Differently

"Divorce Rate in the US, 2008", a short "Family Profile" sheet from Bowling Green University's National Center  for Family &  Marriage Research, reports on a more rarely calculated but much more informative version of the divorce rate -- divorces per existing marriages, instead of the standard measure, the raw per capita divorce rate. It reports:

The US rate of divorces per married couple: 1.94 % in 2008. This means one out of every 52 couples divorced that year. The lowest was North Dakota with 1.43%. The highest was DC at 3.45% (although it has recently had the LOWEST raw per capita divorce rate.) Most states, though, generally seem at first glance to be higher on this scale if they have higher raw per capita divorce rates, and vice versa. The US per capita rate, in contrast, was 0.72% of the population divorcing every year, or 0.36 divorces for every 100 people. (It's now down to 0.68%, or 0.34 divorces, etc.)

US ratio of marriages celebrated to divorce granted: 1.83 in 2008. This number ranged from 3.1 in North Dakota to 1.3 in Delaware.