The ratio of divorces in a year to weddings that same year is not very scientific -- few of the people getting divorced got married that same year -- but it is one of the easiest statistics to measure and is not completely devoid of value. According to this chart by a former Stanford professor, "The rate of divorces to marriages was about 25-27% from 1950-1967. That rate doubled to more than 50% ten years later in 1977. Since that time it has remained remarkably constant at about 50%."
From SOCIAL INDICATORS 2006: Family Formation and Sexuality (Part 1)
Part of American Social Indicators, 2006: Getting Better but Feeling Worse, Kruse Chronicle 12/28/06
Kruse also writes:
The percentage of families with both parents present declined from 87.7% in 1960 to 85% in 1970. Except for a brief plateau in the late 1980s, the percentage continued a steady decline to 69.2% in 1993. From 1993 until 2003 the percentage has stayed between 68% and the 1993 level. Over the last two years it has fallen to 67.3%. In 1968, 10.7 of children lived only with their mother, 1.1% with their father, 2.4% with other relatives, and .4% with no relative. By 2003, those percentages were 23.4% with their mother, 4.8% with their father, 3.4% with other relatives, and .9% with no relative.
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