The Barna Group, which has done major, highly respected studies in the past on the demographics of marriage, divorce and religion, released a major new survey March 31, based on interviews conducted in 2007.
Some of its findings:
25% of Americans over 18 have been divorced.
One-third of Americans who have ever married have divorced at least once. (Note: that's not the same as one-third of all marriages.)
The highest-divorce groups (per marriage):
downscale adults (39%) [i.e. income <$20,000, no college]
Baby Boomers
(38%)
members of non-Christian faiths (38%)
self-described
social and political
liberals (37%)
African-Americans (36%),
The least-divorced groups (per marriage):
Asians (20%)
upscale
adults (22%) [i.e. income >$75,000, college grads]
evangelicals (26%),
Catholics (28%),
self-described
social and political conservatives (28%)
Groups with near-average divorce rates (per marriage):
Whites 32%
Hispanics 31%
Moderates 33%
born-agains 33% [apparently very distinct from evangelicals although there's considerable overlap. Barna specializes in polling distinctions of religious identity.]
atheisits and agnostics 30% [rate may be distorted by their lower marriage rate, which is 65% -- average is 78% and evangelicals are 84%]
