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What do you think is the divorce rate in the US?

82
jackclee lmposted 2 years ago
What do you think is the divorce rate in the US?

I heard the convention wisdom is that the divorce rate is around 50%. I took a sample of just people I know (family, friends colleagues and neighbors) and I found the rate to be 20%. I did not include singles and people who cohabit. Just people who are married and what percent are divorced or married to a divorcee. I'm curious what your experience is. It is not a scientific study, just sampling.
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87
dashingscorpioposted 2 years ago

I believe the 50% number is generally over the average lifetime of an individual. For instance not long ago Al & Tipper Gore got divorced after being married for over 40 years. You'd think they were "safe".
Essentially every marriage is a potential ticking time bomb of divorce. The statistic is not tied to age range or length of marriage. It's according to whether or not the individual (died while married).
Another way people measure is they look at how many weddings took place during a year versus how many divorces took place in the same year. Although it's not scientific if there were 2 million weddings and 1 million divorces during a year people will say that's 50%.
An unreported statistic is "emotionally divorced" couples.
These people are "legally married" but may not live in the same house, state, or even if they are in the same house they have nothing to do with one another. One person lives in the basement and the other upstairs. In many instances they're dating other people.
And yet statistically they're being counted as a "successful marriage" only because they never filed for divorce.
If you were to add the "emotionally divorced" to the legally divorced stat you'd probably have something close to 60-70% "broken households".
By the same token couples like Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have lived together for over 30 years and plan to get married on New years
If they file for divorce one year later it will be stated their marriage only lasted one year. There is no credit given for the happy 30 years of cohabitation. And yet so many married couples will tell you that we've been married for two years (BUT) have been together for ....etc
Years apart while married don't count against you and years together while unmarried don't count for you.
In the end marriage is a legal status and commitment is a behavior.
There are millions of couples who have one without the other!
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1. 82
  jackclee lmposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  I understand all the points you raise but I am speaking from my own experience. I looked at 50 couples and I only came up with 20% divorces. That includes couples from beginning of marriage to life long marriages. It seems the 50% is too high.
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2. 87
  dashingscorpioposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  What people will tell you is "give it time". Check in on those same couples in 10 or 20 years. The other thing about statistics is there may be 20% you know and another person has 70% they know. It's a random sampling (combined).
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3. 82
  jackclee lmposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  That's the reason for my question in the first place. What is your personal experience? Look at the people you associate with. It is a snapshot in time but it is a valid data collection method. The law of large numbers will give a good estimate.
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4. 87
  dashingscorpioposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  If I were to go by people (I personally know) I would say the 50% is about right or higher! Both my parents were married and divorced twice. I have several relatives, friends, and co-workers I know of who have been divorced at least once.
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5. 82
  jackclee lmposted 2 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks for the feedback. I hope others will jump in and help out.
  Checkout this article - http://qz.com/306166/the-divorce-stat-t … eating-50/
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