Divorce Statistics and Studies Blog

Sweeping claim based on virtually nothing: "US Divorce Rates Skyrocket Amid COVID"

"Divorce rates have spiked in the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic as couples have been stuck at home for months. The number of people looking for divorces was 34 percent higher from March through June compared to 2019, according to new data collected [by] Legal Templates, a company that provides legal documents. ... The data showed that 31 percent of the couples admitted lockdown has caused irreparable damage to their relationships."

"US divorce rates skyrocket amid COVID-19 pandemic"

By Elizabeth Rosner in the New York Post.

 

(To be fair to the author, it wouldn't be surprising if the headline, the lyin' first line, and the decision to run a story based on the "Legal Templates" peddlers' cheesy press release, were all the handiwork of editors.)

 

And that 31%? They were among those responding to a survey sent to the "My Ex Back Coach" mailing list. (Which was later updated and conclusively found that the lockdown had no effect on the respondents' relationships -- see further down.)

"These couples surveyed were married at the time the survey was conducted.
The survey was conducted April 25, 2020.
The survey/poll asked the following question:
How has the COVID-19 lock-down affected your relationship? Get your ex back with Coach Lee's Emergency Breakup Kit!

The following options were provided:

• The lock down has not changed my relationship.
• The lock down has harmed my relationship.
• The lock down has been good for my relationship." 

So wait . . . ONLY 31% of people who were on the "My Ex Back" mailing list, and chose to answer a survey from it, said the lockdown had harmed their relationships???!!! I guess most of the rest of them answered "no change" because their breakups happened before COVID. Also, we were only six weeks into the lockdown then. And I can't even begin to ponder the immense statistical implications of the survey's designers not knowing how to spell the main subject of their survey, the lockdown, but misspelling it TWO DIFFERENT WAYS!

And let's pause to flag a flagrant misuse of language in this and many other writings about divorce: The "My Ex Back" survey was not answered by "couples," it was answered by individuals. 

"My Ex Back" re-ran the survey in January, 2021, and the results (less than half of which are from the U.S.) seem pretty conclusive: The pandemic had had no effect on the great majority of the respondents' relationships: 

"The following are the results of a survey/poll sent to members of our mailing list. These couples surveyed were married as of January 19, 2021. The survey/poll asked the following question: 'Has the lockdown and other changes to life from the COVID-19 pandemic affected your marriage relationship?' The following options were provided:

Get your ex back with Coach Lee's Emergency Breakup Kit!

• • The lock down has not changed my marriage.
  • The lock down has harmed my marriage.
  • The lock down has been good for my marriage.

2429 people responded to this survey conducted January 19, 2021 to our email list. Of the 2429 respondents:

• • 17% answered that the pandemic had been good for their marriage
  • 72% answered that the pandemic had not changed their marriage
  • 11% answered that the pandemic had harmed their marriage"

The 2021 results get more interesting:

"Women were more likely to say their marriage had improved than men.
Men were more likely to say that their marriage had become worse.
21% of women said that their marriage had improved compared to 14% of men.
15% of men said that their marriage was worse compared to 7% of women."

Respondents were also asked if they were considering divorce as of January 19, 2021. Of the respondents, 19.98% (284) said that they were considering divorce. This number is down 29% from our 2019 survey of 1277 married couples where 357 or 28% responded that they were considering divorce.

Demographics of Respondents:

• 48.7% of respondents were from the United States.
• 21.4% of respondents were from the United Kingdom
• 5.8% of respondents were from India
• 5.2% Canada
• 4.6% Philippines

Sex of Respondents:

• 54% female
• 46% male

Age of Respondents:

• 18-24 years 10.6%
• 25-34 years 23.7%
• 35-44 years 37.5%
• 45-54 years 14.9%
• 55-64 years 9.1%
• 65+ years 4.2%

"It appears that some married couples experienced trauma induced limerence from the uncertainty and fear of the lockdowns of 2020-2021 and that such a spark fueled them to work out their issues and improve their marriage relationship."

 Limerence? It's nice to learn a new word, but it's a ridiculously overblown claim.

Limerence is a mental state of profound romantic infatuation, first defined in the 1970s by the psychologist Dorothy Tennov. It is characterised by an initial period of elation and intense emotional arousal that can progress to an involuntary, obsessive craving for another person.

-- From "Living with Limerence" by "Dr. Limerence". Oh. Uh, I can't wait to see what ads I start seeing after visiting Coach Ex-Back and Dr. Limerence. But it fairly matches the straight dictionary definition.

HUGE HEADLINE: DIVORCE UP TENFOLD, NEW DATA REVEALS. [From 1961 to 2011, that is, along with indoor plumbing.]

FEWER PEOPLE ARE GETTING MARRIED BUT DIVORCE RATES HAVE RISEN TENFOLD, NEW DATA REVEALS

-- By Olivia Petter in The Independent, 10 Aug. 2021.

"New data" about 1961 to 2011? Well, what the Office for National Statistics for England and Wales actually says is, "Recently digitised data from the 1961 Census Small Area Statistics can show these changes in detail at a local level for the first time." ...

In 1961, "68% of people aged 16 years and over were married and 0.8% were divorced."

In 2011, "this had changed to 49% of people aged 16 years and over married or in a same-sex civil partnership, and 9% divorced or in a legally dissolved civil partnership."

[That's actually over ELEVENFOLD!]

But before it gets to divorce, first it deals with indoor plumbing. Finely-pixellated maps reveal that more indoor plumbing correlates intensely with more divorce. In a couple areas, only 41% had "inside or attached toilets" when Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard first went to space in 1961.

 

Can this marriage be saved? An analytical forecast.

Analytics is eating the world: Can this marriage be saved?

By Adam Braff

 

American Community Survey: Huge Data Drop Coming, Webinar Gives Background

2015-2019 American Community Survey 5-year Pre-Release Webinar

DECEMBER 03, 2020

Time: 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. (ET)

Join online
Or Dial-in: 1-888-469-1664
Participant Passcode: 8228488
Note: If access to webinar requires a password, type Census#01

Learn more about the latest American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year data release. This webinar will cover background information about the ACS, changes for this release, and where to find new data release information on the ACS website. In addition, we will demonstrate how to access tables on data.census.gov.

Old but incredibly thorough studies of all measurable aspects of divorce in the U.S.: They don't make 'em like this anymore.

Really. Nowadays relatively little information about divorces is collected; far less is aggregated and reported; and hardly any of it is actually studied, compared, correlated, etc. But from the beginning it was not so. The CDC's web site maintains these reports, which include analyses that are still somewhat relevant because nothing like them has been done in recent decades. They stand as testimony to the decline of the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

100 Years of Marriage and Divorce Statistics, United States, 1867-1967

Divorces and Divorce Rates, United States: Analysis of divorce statistics for the early 1970’s, including specific divorce rates by various characteristics, based on population data from the 1970 census, and trend data through 1976.

Everything you could want to know about Europe's marriage and divorce statistics process

(Meanwhile, several major U.S. states don't even collect any raw data for divorce statistics)

Marriages and divorces: Eurostat metadata

Reference metadata

1. Contact 2. Metadata update 3. Statistical presentation 4. Unit of measure 5. Reference Period 6. Institutional Mandate 7. Confidentiality 8. Release policy 9. Frequency of dissemination 10. Accessibility and clarity 11. Quality management 12. Relevance 13. Accuracy 14. Timeliness and punctuality 15. Coherence and comparability 16. Cost and Burden 17. Data revision 18. Statistical processing 19. Comment Related Metadata Annexes (including footnotes)

Divorces per 100 marriages in 39 European countries through 2017

This seems awfully high, and this number is notoriously hard to determine -- you don't really know a cohort's divorce rate until they're all dead, and meanwhile they're all mixed up with other cohorts. Looking at the original source, these appear to be the ratio of divorces in a given year divided by marriages that same year. That kind of statistic is roundly criticized as unscientific, although it seems like it would be meaningful in the long run.

This kind of measurement will generally overstate the likelihood of divorce, because marriage rates are mostly falling, as are divorce rates. So the raw divorce rate now, from older, more plentiful, marriages, is being compared with the current marriage rate, which is lower and which will translate into a lower divorce rate later on.

Population growth or decline does not affect this, IF what is being compared is raw per capita divorce rates versus marriage rates. However, Eurostat, the source of these numbers, defines "Divorces per 100 marriages" as "the ratio between the number of divorces (independently of the duration) and the number of marriages in a given year." So if they are being careful with their terms, that means absolute numbers, not rates.

(For the study's stats on duration of marriages before divorce, and children in divorces, see European Divorce Monitor.)

The Spectator Index:

Divorce rates per 100 marriages.

 

Portugal: 69

Denmark: 56

Spain: 56

Finland: 55.4

France: 55

Belgium: 52.7

Netherlands: 51.2

Italy: 48.7

Norway: 42

UK: 41.7

Germany: 40.8

Hungary: 37.7

Austria: 35.5

Poland: 32.8

Greece: 22.2

 

 

The original report from Eurostat covers 39 countries and goes up through 2017.

 

 

The Divorce Surge Is Over, but the Myth Lives On: CUMULATIVE Stats Tell a More Relevant Story

"About 70 percent of marriages that began in the 1990s reached their 15th anniversary, up from about 65 percent of those that began in the 1970s and 1980s.Those who married in the 2000s are so far divorcing at even lower rates. If current trends continue, nearly two-thirds of marriages will never involve a divorce. 

"The decline in divorce is concentrated among people with college degrees. For the less educated, divorce rates are closer to those of the peak divorce years. Of college-educated people who married in the early 2000s, only about 11 percent divorced by their seventh anniversary, the last year for which data is available. Among people without college degrees, 17 percent were divorced."

Condensed from:

The Divorce Surge Is Over, but the Myth Lives On: Cumulative share of marriages ending in divorce

 

By Claire Cain Miller  in the New York Times, 12/2/14

 

But I heartily disagree with Justin Wolfers's explanation for this (or what looks like his explanation after the reporter and editors get through with it): 

“It’s just love now,” Mr. Wolfers said. “We marry to find our soul mate, rather than a good homemaker or a good earner.”

Being a good earner has always been important in the marriage market. Just ask the President.

Specious accuracy: We need to be approximately right, not precisely wrong - Edward Tufte

By Edward Tufte

Headlines show how journalism distorts statistics & studies

Headlines from a Mathematically Literate World by Ben Orlin at mathwithbaddrawings.com

Big caveat: Some of the examples make points that go outside the author's actual expertise -- he's solid on mathematics and statistics but those necessarily overlap all kinds of other fields, which in turn depend on statistics but also on other branches of science. His example about the minimum wage is uniquely outside the scope of his expertise and of the whole point of his article, because it's actually about microeconomic analysis and prediction, not an empirical, statistical  analysis of outcomes.