Divorce Statistics and Studies Blog

Latest divorce rate steady at 0.36%

The annual per capita divorce rate for the 12 months ending in September, 2007 -- the latest figures currently available -- show an annual rate of 0.36 divorces (i.e., 0.72 people getting divorced) for every 100 people in the population. For the latest figures, check the National Vital Statistics Reports at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/nvsr/nvsr.htm.

An earlier month's report had showed a rate of 0.34% for the 12 months ending in June 2007, but the rate is now 0.36%, the same as the 2006 rate.

Official state-level divorce rates still are available only through 2004.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_14.pdf

The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing: First-Ever Estimates for the Nation and All Fifty States

Divorce and unwed childbearing impose direct costs on government that are at least as much per year as the Iraq war -- $112 billion per year, even using the most methodologically cautious assumptions, says a new report published by the Institute for American Values.  

Major new stats on divorce demographics from Barna

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%]