Marriage and Family

After the Civil War, with a few fluctuations, divorce rates have been steadily rising throughout the United States. However, the rates for divorce have more than doubled from the mid 1960’s to the early 1980’s and the trend is continuing to rise to this day.

Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, divorce was looked down upon and against the social norms in the United States. Most marital endings at this time were an outcome of desertion or informal separation and not as a result of divorce. It is challenging to figure out the rates of divorce during this time period because population surveys were not created yet and no record was kept of these divorces and remarriages, however, it seems likely that many marriages ended before the death of one of the persons involved.

Starting in the 20th century, the idea that divorce is not an end to the foundation of marriage but can be a transition to the next marriage became very popular. The rates for remarriage after a divorce in the United States in the 70’s and 80’s was about 75%, however, the rates of remarriage today have been declining. This could be due to many people becoming cautious of reentering a marriage or having an unwillingness to form partnerships after already having a failed marriage.

Today, there are almost 880,000 divorces per year in the United States. That is one divorce for every 36 seconds. The average length of a marriage that ends in divorce is 8 years and the average age of couples getting divorced is 30 years old. If remarriage occurs, usually there is only 3 year wait before remarrying.

Oklahoma has the highest overall divorce rate in the United States with Arkansas and Alaska following close behind. Factors that can decrease your chance of getting divorced would be if your parents are happily married, you wait until at least the age of 25 to get married, you went to college, or you have had children with your spouse.

The actual divorce rate for the United States today is hard to figure out because the 50% divorce rate we have all heard can be very misleading. Some room for error when calculating the divorce rate can come from factors such as that not every state reports divorce statistics, the divorce rate counts the total population and not the married population only, and the