Divorce Statistics and Studies Blog

China's real divorce rate: Half of US's but quadrupled since 1985

This Telegraph acticle has much more solid, useful divorce rates for China than the non-standard and easily misunderstood ones that have been circulating in the press lately. It uses annual divorces per capita, which does not tell you much that you can intuitively relate to everyday life, but it's the standard measure for comparisons with different times and places. The latest US rate, which like the one below is for 2009, is 3.6 per thousand. 

"China's divorce rate has more than quadrupled since economic opening up began in earnest in 1985 – from 0.4 per 1,000 people to 1.85 per 1,000 people in 2009 – but still compares favourably to Britain's 2.8 divorces per 1,000 population, the highest rate in the EU."

"Divorce-rates in Beijing ... have nearly doubled since 2004 from 11,582 in 2004 to 21,013 last year."

"China combats 'seven year itch' with love letter service", By Peter Foster, Beijing, 13 Sep 2011

 

Marriage cuts child poverty 87% - state-level stats

"In Pennsylvania, Marriage Drops the Probability of Child Poverty by 87 Percent," according to just one of a set of 51 state-level reports comparing poverty rates in married and unmarried families. (They can be accessed via the page for Pennsylvania or any other state, though I don't see a link for the whole set).

This is part of a new report by the Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector, titled "Marriage: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty".

Materialism & shallowness strongly linked to marriage problems - new study

A study  of 1,700 married couples, published Oct. 14, 2011 in the Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, found, as reported in "Can't Buy Love: Materialism Kills Marriages" - ABC News 10-13-11:

Materialism was associated with spouses having lower levels of responsiveness and less emotional maturity ... less effective communication, higher levels of negative conflict, lower relationship satisfaction, and less marriage stability,"

The correlation between materialism and marital difficulties remained stable regardless of the actual wealth of the couple.

Jason Carroll, Brigham Young University professor of family life, was lead author of the study.

Other studies have shown that materialism is correlated with a host of personality traits and interpersonal skills that might hinder a marriage.

For one out of every five couples in the study, both partners admitted a strong love of money. These couples were worse off in terms of marriage stability, marriage satisfaction, communications skills and other metrics of healthy matrimony that researchers studied.

The one out of seven couples that reported low-levels of materialism in both partners scored 10 to 15 percent higher in all metrics of marital quality and satisfaction. 

Relationships usually fare better when partners share priorities and values, but researchers found that the opposite was true in this case. When only one partner was materialistic and the other not, the non-materialistic partners seemed to buoy the marriage, resulting in higher levels of satisfaction, communication and stability in marriages made of mismatched couples when compared to dual-materialistic ones.

"Spouses that are mismatched on materialism may do better in their relationships than spouses with shared materialistic values because at least one spouse may possess more 'other-centeredness' and 'emotional readiness,'" said Laura Frame, clinical psychologist and supervisor of the Supporting Healthy Relationships Program at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.

 Researchers gauged materialism using self-report surveys that asked questions such as to what extent do you agree with these statements? "I like to own things to impress people" or "money can buy happiness."