There are lies, damn lies and statistics. Last week, the newspapers were filled with stories about rising divorce rates. It was widely reported that couples that married in the 1970's had a less than even chance of celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary. But those statistics were misleading. Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers report:
The story of ever-increasing divorce is a powerful narrative. It is also wrong. In fact, the divorce rate has been falling continuously over the past quarter-century, and is now at its lowest level since 1970. While marriage rates are also declining, those marriages that do occur are increasingly more stable. For instance, marriages that began in the 1990s were more likely to celebrate a 10th anniversary than those that started in the 1980s, which, in turn, were also more likely to last than marriages that began back in the 1970s.
Why were so many analysts led astray by the recent data? Understanding this puzzle requires digging deeper into some rather complex statistics.
The Census Bureau reported that slightly more than half of all marriages occurring between 1975 and 1979 had not made it to their 25th anniversary. This breakup rate is not only alarmingly high, but also represents a rise of about 8 percent when compared with those marriages occurring in the preceding five-year period.
But here's the rub: The census data come from a survey conducted in mid-2004, and at that time, it had not yet been 25 years since the wedding day of around 1 in 10 of those whose marriages they surveyed. And if your wedding was in late 1979, it was simply impossible to have celebrated a 25th anniversary when asked about your marriage in mid-2004.
If the census survey had been conducted six months later, it would have found that a majority of those married in the second half of 1979 were happily moving into their 26th year of marriage. Once these marriages are added to the mix, it turns out that a majority of couples who tied the knot from 1975 to 1979 -- about 53 percent -- reached their silver anniversary.
Why is divorce getting less common? That's a good question. My guess is that part of the answer is that more couples are now living together before they get married. Co-habitation is good training, and gives you a much more accurate sense of how you and your partner will get along thereafter. (I know of several couples who lived together before getting married only to discover that they couldn't live together.) In other words, it's good to live in sin, at least for a little while.
See more on Wolfers and divorce here.
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I still want to know what the data say about divorce and marriage rates in countries/states that allow gay marriage. Seems to me some recent states legalizations may have provided us with pristine data sets by now, but I haven't seen them reviewed as of yet. Anybody? Anybody? Beuuuuuler?
Another fun fact is the Barna Group findings on divorce according to religious background. They found that the protestant evangelicals actually have the highest divorce rates, while agnostic, atheists, etc. have the lowest. Just some fun stuff to chew on.
All I know is that 1980 didn't work out for me.
Just a hunch, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of this is explained by changing behaviors associated with SES. I would ask if lower SES is associated with both a higher rate of divorce and declining rate of marriage? To put it another way, are the people most likely to get divorced (low ses) getting married at a lower rate than they used to marry? If that's the case, it could explain why we see fewer marriages and lower divorce rates.
Jonah, you might like my article on divorce myths. For instance, the idea that 50% of marriages end in divorce is, well, a myth.
What I had to teach in intro psych, although it surprised me and it may be an indication of the textbook I used - was that co-habitation prior to marriage was thought by 62% of people to minimize divorce risk (Whitehead & Popenoe, 2001) but studies have found that it actually lead to higher rates of both marital disfunction and divorce (Dush et al 2003, Popenoe & Whitehead, 2002, Kline et al, 2004). Popenoe & Whitehead run something called The Marriage Project, so that may influence them some, and Scott Stanley another author on the Kline study serves on the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative. If I weren't going into midterms and GREs I'd do some more trolling around for studies.
boojieboy: look to Scandinavia.
Ted: is it possible that the apparent shortening effect of cohabitation on marriage is really a case of lead-time bias? If two couples' relationships are "fated" to last, say, only 10 years, and one marries at the beginning of their relationship while the other cohabitates for 5 years and then marries, the former's marriage will last twice as long even though the overall relationship length was the same.
You also have to take into account that some cohabitating couples may be marrying in a futile attempt to "hold together" a deteriorating relationship.
Michael: the high Bible Belt divorce rates seem to be a result of marriage at too young an age; the regions and demographic groups in question have lots of late-teens/early-twenties marriages, and due to religious mores a lot of them may simply be motivated by horniness, which is unlikely to hold a couple together long-term.
In a rush, don't know if it's been mentioned yet -- but older ages at getting married account for some of it (Steve Sailer was the first I read to point this out). When you get married at 30, after the honeymoon period is over and you're 35-40, you're not hot anymore, and no one is interested in tempting you to stray. When you get married at 20, the honeymoon ends -- but you're 25-30. Plenty of hotness left in you, so more people are interested in tempting you.
I believed the 50% myth, but I wasn't married to the idea.
EB I didn't know about the expiration date on relationships! I don't know if the studies looked at length of marriages in addition to whether they lasted or not but it would be an interesting point to tease apart. See if after seven-years there really is that itch.
I wonder if there is an overjustifaction type effect. If we tend to enjoy doing things less when we're paid for them, maybe we enjoy cohabiting less once we've gotten the seal of approval and the blender?