Google Answers Logo
View Question
 
Q: Granular statistics on US divorce rate. ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars,   1 Comment )
Question  
Subject: Granular statistics on US divorce rate.
Category: Family and Home > Relationships
Asked by: clay_shirky-ga
List Price: $30.00
Posted: 21 Jun 2004 07:42 PDT
Expires: 21 Jul 2004 07:42 PDT
Question ID: 363986
We often hear that "50% of all marriages in the US end in divorce", a
statement that makes it seem like a coin toss. That figure hides all
the details about distribution, however. My question can be answered
in one of two ways -- either a source of raw data on the demographics
of marriage and divorce in the US I can slice and dice myself, or, if
that doesn't exist, answers to the questions below:

A: What is the breakdown of likelihood of a marriage ending in divorce
broken down by age (either age of bride, or average age of couple?)
B: What percentage of first marriages end in divorce, vs second or third?
C: What percentage of divorces occur with childless couples vs.
couples that have had at least one child?
D: What percentage of men over 40, and of women over 40, have never been married?
Answer  
Subject: Re: Granular statistics on US divorce rate.
Answered By: bobbie7-ga on 21 Jun 2004 10:22 PDT
Rated:5 out of 5 stars
 
A: What is the breakdown of likelihood of a marriage ending in divorce
broken down by age (either age of bride, or average age of couple?)


The Center for Disease Control provides a wealth of useful statistics.  


Probability of first marriage disruption by duration of marriage and
wife?s age at marriage

?First marriages by wife?s age at marriage?If the wife was a teenager
at first marriage, the marriage is much more likely to dissolve than
if the wife was at least 20 years of age at marriage. The first
marriages of brides under age 18 years are the most likely to dissolve
at all marital durations, followed by the marriages of women 18?19
years of age at marriage. Marriages of women at least age 20 years at
marriage are much less likely to dissolve (table 3 and figure 1).
After 10 years of marriage, 48 percent of marriages of women under age
18 years at marriage have disrupted compared with 40 percent of
marriages of women who were 18?19 years of age at marriage, 29 percent
of marriages of women who were 20?24 years of age at marriage, and 24
percent of marriages of women at least 25 years of age at marriage.?

See Table 3 on page 5 and Figure 1 on page 6 for detailed data 

Download publication here:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad323.pdf


Data from divorcepeers.com:

Age at marriage for those who divorce in the United States 
  
-------------------------------------------------- 
Age                       Women               Men
-------------------------------------------------- 
Under 20 years old         27.6%             11.7%
20 to 24 years old         36.6%             38.8%
25 to 29 years old         16.4%             22.3%
30 to 34 years old          8.5%             11.6% 
35 to 39 years old          5.1%              6.5%

-------------------------------------------------- 

http://www.divorcepeers.com/statistics.htm



B: What percentage of first marriages end in divorce, vs second or third?



First Marriage Dissolution, Divorce, and Remarriage: United States
Matthew D. Bramlett, Ph.D., and William D. Mosher, Ph.D., Division of
Vital Statistics

This report presents national estimates of the duration of first and
second marriages for women 15?44 years of age in 1995. National
estimates of the probability of divorce given separation and of the
probability of remarriage given divorce are also presented.

See Table 7 Page 9
 Probability of second marriage by duration of first divorce and
woman?s age at divorce: United States,

See Table 9. Page 11
Probability of second marriage disruption by duration of marriage and
wife?s age at remarriage: United States,

Second marriage

?After 10 years of remarriage, 47 percent of remarriages of women
under age 25 years at remarriage have dissolved, compared with only
34 percent of remarriages to women at least age 25 years at remarriage
(table 9 and figure 7). For the first 7 years of remarriage, the
differences are in the same direction, but they are not statistically
significant.?

(..)

?Higher age at first marriage is associated with longer marital
durations. Age at separation is not significantly related to the
probability that a separation will result in divorce. Women
at least age 25 years at the time of divorce are less likely to
remarry than women under age 25 years at divorce. Women younger than
25 years old at remarriage are more likely to experience
a second marital disruption than are women over age 25 years at
remarriage, although this difference only becomes statistically
significant at later durations of a second marriage.?

Download publication here:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad323.pdf


New Report Sheds Light on Trends and Patterns in Marriage, Divorce,
and Cohabitation
July 24, 2002
Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the United States.
Series Report 23, Number 22. 103pp.

?The report, prepared by CDC?s National Center for Health Statistics,
focuses not only on individual factors but also community conditions
associated with long-term marriages as well as divorce and
separation.?
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/02news/div_mar_cohab.htm

Download complete report (103 pages) here:
Bramlett MD and Mosher WD. Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce, and
Remarriage in the United States. National Center for Health
Statistics. Vital Health Stat
23(22). 2002.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_022.pdf


?Second marriages are even less likely to survive than a first
marriage. The probability of separation or divorce for a second
marriage after 10 years 30 years ago was 29%, but in 1995 it had risen
to 39%.?
http://www.skfriends.com/do-43-percent-of-marriages-divorce.htm


From the Cape Gazette published November 2002:

CDC releases report on marriage, divorce, cohabitation.

?However, there was also a strong probability that second marriages
will end in separation or divorce: 23 percent after five years and 39
percent after 10 years.?
http://www.capegazette.com/storiesmorgue/health/aaa2002health/cdcreport110102.html


June 11, 2003

?Fifty percent of first marriages, 67 percent of second and 74 percent
of third marriages end in divorce, according to Jennifer Baker of the
Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri.?
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:7kPsUi9Q2tUJ:www.christchurchepiscopal.com/Sermon_Archive/Newsleader/2003/Religion_Ethics_11june03.pdf+%2267+percent+of+second+and+74+percent+of+third+marriages+end+in+divorce+%22++Jennifer+Baker&hl=es
 
?Jennifer Baker is a licensed marriage and family therapist as well as
Director of the Post-Graduate Program in Marriage and Family Therapy
at Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield,
Missouri. She is also a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology
E-mail: pajlbaker@aol.com?
http://old.dcs.lcms.org/family/speakerstuff/displaySpeakerInfo.asp?speakerid=296



41 percent of first marriages end in divorce. 
60 percent of second marriages end in divorce. 
73 percent of third marriages end in divorce.
http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/200003/030_too_large.cfm
 

Percentage of first marriages that end in divorce in 1997:  50% 
Percentage of remarriages that end in divorce in 1997:  60%
http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsUS.shtml


?Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. Sixty-seven percent of all
second marriages end in divorce.?
http://www.mediate.com/articles/psych.cfm


?In fact second and third marriages are more likely than first
marriages to end in divorce.  The statistics say the ?54% of American
women and 61% of American men who wed a second time eventually go
through divorce again? (p. 276).  In addition, about 40% of third
marriages fail.?

Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts
http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/faculty/mmills_fp/Sexdiffs/spr01/panel6.htm


?95 percent of all divorced people eventually remarry . . . 76 per
cent of second marriages fail within five years . . . .87 per cent of
third marriages fail and 93 per cent of fourth marriages end in
divorce within five years.?
http://www.allaboutfamilies.org/00aaf14.html


C: What percentage of divorces occur with childless couples vs.couples
that have had at least one child?

?Sociologists believe that childlessness is also a common cause of
divorce. The absence of children leads to loneliness and weariness and
even in the United States, at least 66 per cent of all divorced
couples are childless.?
http://www.goacom.com/goatoday/2001/oct/perspective.html


?couples with children have a slightly lower rate of divorce than
childless couples.?
http://health.discovery.com/centers/loverelationships/articles/marriage_myths.html


D: What percentage of men over 40, and of women over 40, have never been married?

The following publication provides the data you require regarding
percentages of men and women who have never been married by age group.

Internet Table 1. Marital History for People 15 Years Old and Over by
Age, Sex, Race and Ethnicity: Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Internet Release date: February 8, 2002

Download publication here:
http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/marital-hist/p70-80/tab01.pdf

Other data that might interest you:

Percentage of people who have ever been married by the age of 25: 
Males: 32%
Females: 50% 

Percentage of people who have ever been married by the age of 35: 
Males: 77%
Females: 84% 

Percentage of people who have ever been married by the age of 45: 
Males: 87%
Females: 90% 

Percentage of people who have ever been married by the age of 55: 
Both males and females: 95%
http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsUS.shtml


====================
Additional Resources
====================



Marriage and Divorce

The U.S. Census Bureau does not collect the number of marriages and
divorces that take place in a given year.

These data may be obtained from the NATIONAL CENTER FOR HEALTH
STATISTICS (NCHS). Their phone number is: 301-458-4636.

The U.S. Census Bureau does provide the current marital status of
persons, by age, sex, and race and the estimated median age at first
marriage for men and women at the U.S. level
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/marr-div.html

Number, Timing and Duration of Marriages and Divorces: 1996
Report [PDF 170k] 
http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p70-80.pdf 


Detail Table - Marital History for People 15 Years Old and Over by
Age, Sex, Race and Ethnicity: Fall 1996
Excel (48k) http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/marital-hist/p70-80/tab01.xls
PDF (224k) http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/marital-hist/p70-80/tab01.pdf

Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the 1990?s (P23-180)
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/marr-div/p23-180.html

Number, Timing, and Duration of Marriages and Divorces in the United
States: June 1975 (P20-297)
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/marr-div/p20-297.html

Divorce Statistics Collection
http://www.divorcereform.org/stats.html

Search criteria:
Search Criteria:
U.S. divorce statistics
% of third  marriages end in Divorce
"second marriages end in divorce"
childless divorce statistics
over 40 years old and never married

I hope you find this information useful!

Best regards,
Bobbie7

Clarification of Answer by bobbie7-ga on 21 Jun 2004 10:24 PDT
Correlations of Divorce rates with other factors (e.g. age, religion,
occupation, region, race)
http://www.divorcereform.org/cor.html
clay_shirky-ga rated this answer:5 out of 5 stars and gave an additional tip of: $10.00

Comments  
Subject: Re: Granular statistics on US divorce rate.
From: bobbie7-ga on 21 Jun 2004 12:13 PDT
 
Thank you very much for the nice rating and tip!
--Bobbie7

Important Disclaimer: Answers and comments provided on Google Answers are general information, and are not intended to substitute for informed professional medical, psychiatric, psychological, tax, legal, investment, accounting, or other professional advice. Google does not endorse, and expressly disclaims liability for any product, manufacturer, distributor, service or service provider mentioned or any opinion expressed in answers or comments. Please read carefully the Google Answers Terms of Service.

If you feel that you have found inappropriate content, please let us know by emailing us at answers-support@google.com with the question ID listed above. Thank you.
Search Google Answers for
Google Answers  


Google Home - Answers FAQ - Terms of Service - Privacy Policy