21 ms·

The U.S. Divorce Rate Has Hit a 50-Year Low

• amenod 6y ago
  It is difficult to take such study seriously then the chart says: > % of newly divorced people per 1,000 married population What does that even mean? The text clears this up: > For every 1,000 marriages in the last year, only 14.9 ended in divorce... But... seriously, how difficult is it to label charts properly? https://xkcd.com/833/ https://xkcd.com/833/ /rant
• toomuchtodo 6y ago
  https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/analysis?ID=672F430A-8F6B-4E77-ABBF-009B041CFE17 https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/anal... (U.S. Marriage Rates Hit New Recorded Low) Between the above post, and this post, not good if you read why this is occurring (economic security). "Meanwhile, America’s so-called “marriage divide” is only widening. College-educated and economically better off Americans are more likely to marry and stay married, but working-class and poor Americans face more family instability and higher levels of singleness. For Americans in the top third income bracket, 64% are in an intact marriage, meaning they have only married once and are still in their first marriage. In contrast, only 24% of Americans in the lower-third income bracket are in an intact marriage, according to my analysis of the 2018 Census data."
  • treis 6y ago
    >Between the above post, and this post, not good if you read why this is occurring (economic security). I don't see why this is problematic. The characteristics that will lead to economic success like long term planning, sticking to goals, not being a shit head, etc. seem to directly translate to a successful marriage.
    • free_rms 6y ago
      If you're not a member of the professional class, there's not a lot of options where long-term planning and sticking to goals at your gas station job get you ahead in life. The issue is that the ladder for those values to get you ahead has basically disappeared unless you hop on before you're done with high school.
      • jkhdigital 6y ago
        Millions of poor immigrants would beg to differ
        • free_rms 6y ago
          Poor immigrants generally work the shitty jobs I'm referencing and try to make sure their kids are on the professional ladder before finishing high school. There's still no ladder for them, personally.
          • nradov 6y ago
            There is a ladder for poor first generation immigrants: starting a small business. Look around you. Who owns many of the restaurants, convenience stores, dry cleaners, landscaping services, etc.?
            • free_rms 6y ago
              That's a really good point, although those jobs still don't pay great from a $/hr perspective. I think first generation immigrants cut across the conscientiousness/income relationship that's being presented in this thread. It's a self-selecting group.
              • imtringued 6y ago
                >It's a self-selecting group. That only proves the rule. If your environment is awful but you have the right mindset/personality then you can still be successful.
            • deleted 6y ago
              [deleted]
      • treis 6y ago
        And who's likely to hop on that ladder in high school? People that are good at long term planning, sticking to goals, not being shitheads, etc. And even if you work a shitty gas station job opportunities you can learn the gas station business, impress the owner, and get them to invest in opening your own. Or you can learn a trade in your spare time.
    • jariel 6y ago
      'Conscientiousness' is the 'Big 5' personality trait here. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness
    • claudeganon 6y ago
      Seems like you’ve reversed causality there. Poverty is a social context that shapes many of the attributes you’ve described. It’s not as if you took a kid from a rich family and put him in with poor one, his genetic virtues would somehow make him come out on top.
      • schnable 6y ago
        The causality is reversed, but not in the way you are inciting. Regardless of background, married men tend to make more more and act more responsibly: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/04/02/dont-be-a-bachelor-why-married-men-work-harder-and-smarter-and-make-more-money/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/04...
        • eeZah7Ux 6y ago
          Please keep this garbage out of HN.
          • deleted 6y ago
            [deleted]
          • eeZah7Ux 6y ago
            The downvotes are very telling...
        • deleted 6y ago
          [deleted]
      • sjg007 6y ago
        Poverty was a reason to get married in the past. Lots of civil war brides.
      • bjlorenzen 6y ago
        There’s a lot of hard data which actually suggests otherwise. From the classic paper “Why G Matters”: https://images.app.goo.gl/X4wAFYFC6xQrSU259 https://images.app.goo.gl/X4wAFYFC6xQrSU259
  • Osiris 6y ago
    The suggestion here is that the divorce rate is dropping because fewer people are getting married, so those that do get married are more likely to "stick it out", so to speak?
    • toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Not the best term for folks who are content in their relationship, but yes. Once your relationship has made it past the climb phase, economically speaking, you have a lot of altitude to deal with issues once you're at cruise altitude. "Growing apart" and financial reasons are the top causes of divorce [1] (infidelity and addiction are still substantial but minority causes). Divorce is one of the most financially devastating events that can occur in your life (besides unexpected medical expenses), so there are incentives once you're married and financially successful to remain married [2]. Commitment and "sticking it out" is a topic onto itself. Love is sacrifice and marriage is a (hopefully rewarding) job (personal opinion, YMMV, this paragraph comes from several years of counseling and ~15 years of marriage). You want a cofounder who is going to work on the relationship and and stick it out with you, not one who is going to bounce whenever life gets hard. Marriage is just enough friction to not leave on a whim, but not so much friction you can't dissolve the partnership when necessary. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4012696/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4012696/ (Reasons for Divorce and Recollections of Premarital Intervention: Implications for Improving Relationship Education) [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-19/divorce-destroys-finances-of-americans-over-50-studies-show https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-19/divorce-d... (Divorce Destroys Finances of Americans Over 50, Studies Show)
      • ryandrake 6y ago
        > Divorce is one of the most financially devastating events that can occur in your life (besides unexpected medical expenses) I agree with your overall comment. It should be pointed out that, other than lawyer costs, divorce tends to be zero sum. So if it is financially devastating for one party, it tends to be a financial windfall for the other. Divorces can be equitable, or they can be lopsided, but don’t net destroy much value unless the parties are spiteful and deliberately destroy their own value.
  • dmux 6y ago
    It would be interesting to get a percentage that are "happily" married vs. married (or stay married) for the tax benefits.
    • lotsofpulp 6y ago
      Until just a couple years ago, there was a tax penalty for married couples who earned similar amounts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_penalty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_penalty > If the incomes of the two persons are similar, then at the lower end of the tax schedule there is no difference between filing as singles and filing as a married couple (ignoring the question of deductions, see below). But at the higher end of the tax schedule, there is a penalty for a married couple whose incomes are similar, compared to what they would pay as singles.
      • chriskanan 6y ago
        The penalty still exists and my taxes and my wife's went up because we are both relatively high earners (huge student loan debts and our annual incomes only became larger than $20-30K in our 30s since college/grad school took a long time). I am not sure what the rationale for marriage affecting taxes in the US was originally, but it doesn't make much sense to me. Presumably if one's spouse didn't work they could have just been claimed as an additional dependent.
        • bluGill 6y ago
          In the 1950s women didn't hold a job outside of the house (raising their own kids is a hard job). This isn't completely unheard of today, but it is very rare (also not sexist - I personally know as many men as women who don't have a job outside the home). In this model it is useful to claim a deduction for your spouse.
          • watwut 6y ago
            The statistics for 1950 actually have 44% of women between 16-24 having some kind of job, 34% of women between 24-34 and 39% of women between 34-44. What you describe was middle class white femalehood ideal - what was supposedly happiest setup. But that setup was impossible for quite a lot of families, plus some families choose different setup. And some women were single or their husbands die. But the actual labor participation was much higher then what the ideal suggests.
  • smexy 6y ago
    Wonder how age factors into it. Poor Americans are probably more likely to marry in the early 20s, vs career-minded professionals in large metros who wait till their 30s.
    • jolmg 6y ago
      > Poor Americans are probably more likely to marry in the early 20s vs career-minded Poor vs career-minded? Aren't the poor more likely to be career-minded in order to improve their situation? These don't seem mutually-exclusive at all. I don't see why being poor makes it more likely for one to marry earlier, either.
      • equality_1138 6y ago
        Semantics: "career-minded" implies plans for advanced education and longer term professional career goals which would correlate to delayed marriage and family.
        • jolmg 6y ago
          neither of which seem to be excluded by the word "poor". My perception of poverty is that it's a transitional state, where people are interested in leaving it. Depending on how poor they are, the transition may be slow, and to a rich person, they may only seem to be moving between different tiers of poverty, but that doesn't mean they aren't career-minded. In particular, I would think that the poor vs the not-poor feel more need to delay marriage and family until they feel they can better afford it after having achieved long-term educational and career goals.
          • equality_1138 6y ago
            There will be a lot of variation among individuals, but as a demographic generalization, those from more blue-collar communities seem to start sooner with marriage and family, and probably even have tax and other financial incentives to do so. Being rich gives you options and the confidence of upward mobility; being poor usually doesn't.
  • fuzzer37 6y ago
    > working-class and poor Americans face more family instability and higher levels of singleness "singleness" is an interesting term here. Are the authors implying that being single is inherently a bad thing? It seems as though they're using it to have a negative connotation.
    • eeZah7Ux 6y ago
      Spot on. Unsurprisingly, the author is ignoring the number of lifelong unmarried couples.
    • mensetmanusman 6y ago
      Not necessarily from this context. It could be read as ‘if singleness were a natural decision and evenly distributed across demographic groups, then finding groups where there were higher levels of singleness would point to some type of involuntary singleness.’ The fact that involuntary singleness correlates with higher family instability is not a surprise.
  • grawprog 6y ago
    I just really don't understand the point of marriage at all. It's typically an expensive ceremony that acts as a front to officially registering your relationship with the government and possibly a religious group. Why does my relationship need to be officially registered? Parental laws already don't require marriage as factor. If two people are going to stay together, a piece if paper telling them they're officially together.doesn't make any difference and if two people are going to separate, some paper's likely not going to stop it.
    • vmception 6y ago
      interesting argument because I thought you were just going to point out that the ceremony is unnecessary and the paper is all you need had me in the first half anyway there are a lot of state-sponsored benefits when you have the paper, as well as some ease theoretically in medical emergencies you can skip the expensive ceremony, a lot of people do, others skip it and have one later, and of course yeah many don't get married
    • cortesoft 6y ago
      There are a lot of financial benefits to being married: https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0412/why-marriage-makes-financial-sense.aspx https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0412/why-marriag...
      • grawprog 6y ago
        Maybe it's different down there. Up here your benefits are basically being moved to a tax bracket based on your combined income. Which in our case would just push our taxes up without any benefits.
        • brewdad 6y ago
          In the US, the tax brackets double for married couples vs singles. Two single persons earning $150k per year would be taxed at the same rate as a married couple earning a combined $300k a year, all else being equal of course. Is that not the same where you live?
  • rsweeney21 6y ago
    Marriage is correlated with economic security, but economic security does not necessarily cause more marriage. I think it's more likely the reverse. Those who get married have a better shot at earning more. There are a lot of benefits to marriage, especially if you have a dual income marriage. For example, if one of you loses their job, you go to 50% of your normal income, rather than 0%. This gives you more time to wait for a higher paying job, rather than taking the first thing that comes along. The benefits of support and encouragement from a spouse are also real.
    • jjulius 6y ago
      >There are a lot of benefits to marriage, especially if you have a dual income marriage. For example, if one of you loses their job, you go to 50% of your normal income, rather than 0%. >The benefits of support and encouragement from a spouse are also real. Neither of those are exclusive to marriage. Unmarried couples typically operate in a similar manner.
      • lotsofpulp 6y ago
        In a marriage, you can go to court and force your partner to hand over a portion of their income / savings. Unmarried couples can’t do that. Life is easy and no one needs to make things official when everything is hunky dory, otherwise you need contracts.
    • chaorace 6y ago
      There's also the simple fact that marriage usually improves upward economic mobility and even outright creates wealth in some cases: * If you're both employed, the higher earner could potentially be pulled down into a lower tax bracket * If at least one spouse is salaried, the employer's insurance can often be shared at a reduced cost * If both are salaried, the market of insurance policies you have to choose from essentially doubles * If you're renting, you can essentially halve the cost of living (assuming dual income of some kind) * If you're looking for a car or home, you can usually qualify for better loans (assuming neither spouse is a credit disaster)
  • hacknat 6y ago
    To add to this, I know many "married" people, myself included, who are permanently separated with no intention of reconciliation, but who are not legally divorced. My ex and I did not have an acrimonious "divorce" and money was never an issue between us, but the mess and expense of divorce don't seem worth it to us as long as we both trust each other (which we do). I'm sure we'll eventually get divorced once one of us gets a long term partner, but I do think the trend for avoiding the legal system as long as possible is here to stay. I know one couple (or ex-couple, rather) that has been separated for over 5 years now.
    • deanstag 6y ago
      If there are no issues money wise, and you have a good understanding between you two, what is the mess and expense of divorce? I am someone who always assumed that divorce proceedings were expensive when there were conflicts in alimony, possessions and kids. ( and all this information is mostly from movies )
      • hacknat 6y ago
        A cheap, non-acrimonious divorce will probably still cost you about $10k in legal fees. That's not the biggest expense though. I won't get into the details of my specific situation, but I stand to lose about $10k-20k in taxes every year if I get divorced, instead I just split that money with my ex. You definitely have to trust your ex for stuff like this, because being legally married you can get really screwed (she could go crazy on a credit card and I would be liable for half of it).
        • akamia 6y ago
          It doesn't necessarily have to be that expensive. I have a friend who recently went through a very friendly divorce. Both parties had agreed on who would get what. In Washington State there's a process for these types of amicable divorces where a judge doesn't have to make any of these determinations. They had to pay the ~$500 filing fee, wait 90 days and that was it. I'm sure it varies quite a bit from state to state though.
  • vmception 6y ago
    > What’s worse, all signs point to a continuing downward trend for new marriages. I greatly disagree with the phrasing. It puts too much emphasis on marriage as a desired state when clearly some non-negligible subset of the data is signaling something else that the author is not considering at all. The article makes passing mention of a list of reasons people aren't getting married, taking a look at that study[1] shows "Not ready for the commitment" and "Haven't found the right person" accounting for 70% of all reasons, equivalently across both sexes. did they factor in "not interested and don't really think about it except when people keep bringing it up for me" with the implication that of course the sentiment can change if someone made that connection or found such an arrangement interesting with another person? I think the entire framing around this needs to match what people actually think, and I think it neglects a very common sentiment which would become more common as more people become aware that others think this way. Good news, then the divorce rate drops much closer to 0 or perhaps the financial repercussions around divorce are modernized and made more pragmatic. [1]https://ifstudies.org/ifs-admin/resources/final2-ifs-single-americansbrief2020.pdf https://ifstudies.org/ifs-admin/resources/final2-ifs-single-... , page 11
  • dragonwriter 6y ago
    > For Americans in the top third income bracket, 64% are in an intact marriage, meaning they have only married once and are still in their first marriage. In contrast, only 24% of Americans in the lower-third income bracket are in an intact marriage Is this age corrected, because people tend to be in a low income segment earlier in their careers, and I don't think that “people are more likely to have gotten married the older they are” is surprising.
  • rayiner 6y ago
    > "Meanwhile, America’s so-called “marriage divide” is only widening. College-educated and economically better off Americans are more likely to marry and stay married, but working-class and poor Americans face more family instability and higher levels of singleness. For Americans in the top third income bracket, 64% are in an intact marriage, meaning they have only married once and are still in their first marriage. In contrast, only 24% of Americans in the lower-third income bracket are in an intact marriage, according to my analysis of the 2018 Census data." I think looking at it in terms of education mistakes the symptoms for the disease. Most people obviously had intact marriages back when few people went to college. A college education isn't a prerequisite for stable marriages. The delta is caused by something else that's correlated with both. This is the thing that turned me away from liberalism after I got married and had kids. In Asian culture, we strongly believe that marriage and families are the purpose of life. Not only that, we believe that society has a responsibility to establish and reinforce norms that encourage people to get married and support their marriages. In my culture, elders get involved pretty intensively in e.g. mediating disputes between young couples to help establish healthy relationships. When I hear "elite" social conservatives lament about the breakdown of norms and social support around marriages, it strikes me as very much in line with how my culture perceives the same issues. And I can't help but agree with them when they complain that social elites won't preach what they practice when it comes to these norms.
    • pjc50 6y ago
      This would be great if it came without the levels of coercion towards the women in relationships.
      • rayiner 6y ago
        I agree, but there are layers to that. Most women will get married at some point. Presumably they want those marriages to last. And about half of those who have never married want to marry someday. Women on average want 2.6 kids. Even in 2019, almost half of women would prefer to stay at home and be homemakers (including a plurality of women with children under 18): https://news.gallup.com/poll/267737/record-high-women-prefer-working-homemaking.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/267737/record-high-women-prefer.... Herein lies a fundamental difference in worldview. A liberal would say: well, let people who want to get married and have kids do that, and people who don't want to get married and have kids can do that. No need for coercive social norms. In a vacuum, that sounds true. But a conservative would say: how can you be so sure that those social norms aren't helping people who ultimately want to get married to do so and stay married? The idea that societal happiness is maximized by maximum personal freedom and the total absence of social coercion is not obviously true. There are life happiness benefits to older people helping younger people know what to look for in a spouse, and setting expectations about marriage and life in general. There are benefits and efficiencies that come from people of a similar age having kids at the same time. There are benefits that accrue from people being involved in supporting each others' marriages. My wife and I got married and had kids in our mid 20s--average for Americans in general but pretty early among our demographic (college-educated coastal urbanites). We didn't realize it at the time, but living in DC/NYC we were pretty miserable. Nobody our age had kids and it was very isolating. We were so much happier after we moved to a more socially traditional exurban place where other people our age also had kids, peoples' parents were actively involved in helping them raise their children, etc.
  • DoreenMichele 6y ago
    but working-class and poor Americans face more family instability and higher levels of singleness. As a very poor divorced single mom, I will suggest this is not entirely bad news. Poor people used to marry as their only hope of surviving and this often left them stuck in dysfunctional and unhappy relationships. I would rather be single than forced into a miserable and possibly abusive relationship as my only hope of survival. The upper classes have something of a tendency to view all details of lower class life like every single bit of it is terrible and more bad news. There is a tendency to never see any stats in any kind of positive light. If you are poor, well it must suck to be you and you must be a victim every step of the way. I think that is problematic as a framing. I think discussions of issues impacting poor people really need more nuance than that.
    • KorematsuFred 6y ago
      > them stuck in dysfunctional and unhappy relationships. I see this a lot in India where a young woman quickly gets out of a bad relationship and then prefers to be alone than in a bad relationship as she has more economic independence now.
    • seniorivn 6y ago
      also a lot more important not a current state of wealth, but a continuous trends for an average individual born being poor/medium/rich, if people tend to get richer poorer than their parents were, it means wealth is not that important in your society.
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    • teraku 6y ago
      > The upper classes have something of a tendency to view all details of lower class life like every single bit of it is terrible and more bad news. There is a tendency to never see any stats in any kind of positive light. If you are poor, well it must suck to be you and you must be a victim every step of the way. I mean it's the general fault in all the communication of politicians and media since the late 70s that depict receivers of social security as beggars and undeserving and everybody who is poor is responsible for it themselves. I know this varies a bit from country to country, but even in Germany where we have a "strong" social security system (although it was weakened in the early 00s), the general public's opinion is receivers of social benefits are freeloaders, even among poor people. Although studies show time and again that even if you are able to become a higher-earner, it still won't make you rich. The strongest indication for wealth is inheritance. And the top percent (owners, not earners) also pay less tax per wealth. So why are they not depicted as freeloaders?
• geocrasher 6y ago
  Fewer people are getting married, therefore fewer marriages are ending. Not surprising.
  • bryanlarsen 6y ago
    It's the rate as a percentage of married population.
    • colejohnson66 6y ago
      Genuine question: Could it be that fewer are getting married because there’s less of a push to get married? Basically, people are waiting until they are more sure before “pulling the trigger”.
      • catawbasam 6y ago
        "waiting until they are more sure" implies that they will get there in the end. But it looks like only a minority of Americans ever reaches that point. Most non-college graduates aren't getting there.
        • colejohnson66 6y ago
          That wasn’t my intention, but I could see how one could read it like that. I was simply thinking that they’d wait more before getting married. Those who decide before marriage it (or the other) is not for them lead to one less divorce.
      • tbihl 6y ago
        Yes, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Contraceptives make sex less risky, meaning that doing so outside of marriage is less hazardous, reducing one of the greatest historical "perks" of marriage. There are plenty of other ways in which people are probably feeling less pushed toget married. Holidays are very inconvenient when married if your and your spouse's families live in different places, for example.
      • 6y ago
• ars 6y ago
  With far fewer people getting married, it seems like only those who wants to stay married get married in the first place. And then they don't divorce. Or put another way, people are splitting up (a form of divorce) without ever getting married, so the stats look good if you only track true divorces. I would like to see stats on poeple living together in a committed relationship, who then split. It seems more like people are rejecting the marriage certificate, but not everything else that comes with marriage (commitment, living together, children, etc). Maybe it's time to extend common-law marriage?
  • Beaver117 6y ago
    If they wanted to be formally married, they would have made it official. Why force common law marriage when they obviously didn't want the certificate?
• frockington1 6y ago
  The most concerning part is the marriage difference between poor and upper class people. A stable family is one of the best predictors of future success and taking this away from poor families is not likely going to result in upward social mobility
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
    It gets worse. Familial instability, generational poverty[0], increased rates of child (physical, sexual, mental, spiritual) abuse[1], neglect[2], mental illness[3], learning disabilities[4], worse educational outcomes[5], reduced rates of secondary education[6], increased risk of serious drug addiction[7], homelessness[8], and untreated medical conditions[9] will severely harm the labor force reducing our competitiveness on the world stage while increasing second+ order costs. Our continued failure to meaningfully and collectively address these emergencies today is costing us all, a nearly impossible to calculate, amount of money in reactionary services, reduced economic velocity, stunted GDP, and the unrealized potential of our neglected human capital. [0] https://urbanventures.org/facts-about-poverty#:~:text=Generational%20Poverty%20is%20defined%20as,Generational%20Poverty%20and%20Situational%20Poverty https://urbanventures.org/facts-about-poverty#:~:text=Genera.... [1] https://www.nber.org/digest/jan00/poverty-and-mistreatment-children-go-hand-hand https://www.nber.org/digest/jan00/poverty-and-mistreatment-c... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5371750/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5371750/ [3] https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/report_2720/Spotlight-2720.html https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/report_2720/... and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5880535/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5880535/ [4] https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/19/02/low-income-students-and-special-education-mismatch https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/19/02/low-income-student... [5] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/education-isnt-enough/590611/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/educati... and https://hechingerreport.org/a-decade-of-research-on-the-rich-poor-divide-in-education/ https://hechingerreport.org/a-decade-of-research-on-the-rich... and https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/education https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/education [6] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2016/02/19/a-college-degree-is-worth-less-if-you-are-raised-poor/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2016/02... and https://www2.ed.gov/offices/OPE/AgenProj/report/theme1a.html https://www2.ed.gov/offices/OPE/AgenProj/report/theme1a.html and https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262954174_Poor_and_Rich_Student_Economic_Stratification_and_Academic_Performance_in_a_Public_Research_University_System https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262954174_Poor_and_... [7] https://sunrisehouse.com/addiction-demographics/socioeconomic-groups/ https://sunrisehouse.com/addiction-demographics/socioeconomi... [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033350620300044 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003335062... [9] http://economyleague.org/colorofinequalitypart5 http://economyleague.org/colorofinequalitypart5 and https://academic.oup.com/inthealth/advance-article/doi/10.1093/inthealth/ihaa016/5827139 https://academic.oup.com/inthealth/advance-article/doi/10.10... and https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/28/736938334/the-gap-between-rich-and-poor-americans-health-is-widening https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/28/7369383...
• caturopath 6y ago
  https://i.imgur.com/b07CQKU.png https://i.imgur.com/b07CQKU.png https://i.imgur.com/0rWEnNh.png https://i.imgur.com/0rWEnNh.png https://i.imgur.com/l9E3rVY.jpg https://i.imgur.com/l9E3rVY.jpg
  • mcbuilder 6y ago
    Any explanation on how you think this data effects divorce rate, or are you just showing us some related data for the sake of it.
    • gen220 6y ago
      People are putting off marriage to later ages. People are more likely to think that premarital sex is morally justifiable. People of marrying-age are more active participants in the work force. Historically, if you were a median woman you needed marriage to have access to a stable income. If you were a median human, you needed marriage to have socially-acceptable sex. Nowadays, people in their 20s have many paths to wealth and sex that do not require the commitment of marriage. People can remain financially and sexually independent for more of their lives (feasibly indefinitely), which means they can be more choosy with their marriage partners. This implies fewer and happier marriages, and a lower divorce rate. That's my interpretation of the presented data, anyways.
    • nicolashahn 6y ago
      I'll take a stab. > https://i.imgur.com/b07CQKU.png https://i.imgur.com/b07CQKU.png Higher age at marriage means that people are more sure of what they want by the time they settle down, so are less likely to regret their choice of partner. > https://i.imgur.com/0rWEnNh.png https://i.imgur.com/0rWEnNh.png More premarital sex also means more are sure of sexual compatibility before marriage. That's a massive component of a healthy relationship that the no-sex-before-marriage crowd gets no data on before committing. > https://i.imgur.com/l9E3rVY.jpg https://i.imgur.com/l9E3rVY.jpg More women entering the workforce means that there's more equality on many parts of the relationship. Speaking anecdotally, my parents (dad was in tech working long hours, mom raised us and did housework) always accused the other of not doing enough, and a big factor of that is that the type of work they did was more or less incomparable. How do you measure the effort and stress of corporate life vs that of raising kids? There's also the resentment a non-working partner can have of being completely financially reliant on the other. In the other direction, resentment for being seen as only good for being a source of money. Both parents having roughly equivalent types of work, financial power, and relationship responsibilities probably facilitates better communication and empathy.
• Medicalidiot 6y ago
  I wonder if this is because people are dating more before getting married, which probably leads to more mature people who know what they're looking for in a spouse.
  • rbecker 6y ago
    Dating experience corresponds to less stable marriage: https://img.ifunny.co/images/0b11659d375d3cc296d5683e8e54e28a49073be5c56815a6efa406e727e66abd_1.jpg https://img.ifunny.co/images/0b11659d375d3cc296d5683e8e54e28...
  • piptastic 6y ago
    Yeah, getting married at 16-20 was pretty much the norm before. Women expecting to have careers instead of their parents just trying to get them married off. Just a whole mind-shift from 50 years ago.
• dfxm12 6y ago
  What’s worse, all signs point to a continuing downward trend for new marriages. Is this bad? I understand marriage as a religious rite. I've never understood why the government cares enough to give tax, finance and legal incentives to married couples...
  • coldpie 6y ago
    Society has a pretty clear interest in both procreation and healthy raising of children. Whether encouraging marriage is the best way to accomplish those goals is a reasonable question, but it's not obviously an invalid approach, either.
    • t00ny 6y ago
      Where I live we have Civil Union. I feel like it's the best of both worlds.
      • swat535 6y ago
        Not sure where you are located but where I live a Civil Union is just as risky as a marriage, in terms of finances, mostly for men (though obviously not always) in terms of support payments for a former spouse without the tax benefits.
  • toyg 6y ago
    To produce children. A stable family producing (and being responsible for) a well-educated and well-balanced offspring is one of the aims of any national government. Now, you might argue that children can be born and raised outside of marriage, and that is true. However, until very recently that was considered extremely bad. Current consensus is still that children benefit significantly from two stable parental figures.
  • lotsofpulp 6y ago
    A family can be viewed as a business, and a marriage a financial and legal contract (among others) between two people. Based on the existence of this contract in almost every culture around the world, it seems like it is useful for society to have a template for what to do with assets and children in the event the parties want to dissolve the relationship.
• dangus 6y ago
  It can’t be understated how much the traditional family structure led to unwise or straight up unwanted marriages in the American mid-century and prior. Many of us have had grandparents or parents pressure us, suggesting we hurry up and propose, hurry up and find a significant other, and things like that. Crank that up to 11 and you’ve got what it was like to be young 70 years ago. People were getting married right out of high school because that’s what they had to do. If you think about how at one time a woman would need to have a husband to do something simple like get a loan from a bank, how could she go through adult life without getting married? That dynamic is a recipe for bad marriages and divorce.
• jeffbee 6y ago
  An interesting aspect of this process is that divorce was just huge with american baby boomers. As they age, they big bubble of high divorce rate has aged with them. For example the divorce rate for ages 50+ doubled in the 25 years to 2015. But as they die off, the overall effect is diminished. Big question remains why boomers are so prone to divorce, considering that they lived in the easiest economic times.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • vulcan01 6y ago
    > Big question remains why boomers are so prone to divorce, considering that they lived in the easiest economic times. Theory: Couples who do not go through hardship together (whether economic or otherwise) do not bond as closely as those who have, and therefore are more prone to divorce. I have no evidence to support this...
    • jkhdigital 6y ago
      It’s probably similar to PTSD versus PTG—some people are traumatized by a hardship and some grow from it. Same with relationships, I suspect.
    • watwut 6y ago
      Statistically, financial stress or problems with kids break marriages. Also, couples that got together under stressful conditions break under normal non-stressful conditions. So I do not think so.
  • toyg 6y ago
    Maybe because they lived in easy economic times? When you're not worried about surviving on your own, you can afford to be "terminally irritated" by your partner's defects.
    • randomdata 6y ago
      The 1980s, when the divorce rate peaked, brought high unemployment (11%) and absurdly high interest rates (22%). I am not sure that is what I would call easy. Those financial stressors perhaps, in many cases, lead to divorce. What the boomers did luck into was the value of assets being deflated due to those 22% interest rates. As the interest rates came down, allowing people to pay more for those assets, those who were able to service the debt saw their wealth balloon to heights never before seen. That's more meaningful today than in the 1980s, though. Until recent events, the younger generations have had a relatively stable job market and low interest rates, reducing financial stress. It will be interesting to see if COVID-19 pushes the divorce rate back up.
• standardUser 6y ago
  Now that we've solved the age old problem of people getting married way, way, way too young, we need to start on the problem of people clinging to monogamy as some sort of universal truth.
  • PIKAL 6y ago
    The only problem is people who think monogamy is universally bad. These people invariably demonize jealousy which is a normal, natural emotional reaction. If you want to demonize innate human desires and behaviors then you’re no better than the Catholic Church.
    • xwdv 6y ago
      Anger and desires to kill and maim innocents are sometimes normal human reactions, but they should be demonized. So should jealousy, as it is basically a form of anger.
      • PIKAL 6y ago
        Burying anger is not healthy emotionally. When you demonize emotions that a person naturally feels you demonize the person and they only internalize the pain. Do what works for you but don’t be a nuisance to everyone around you by making them guilty for things they can’t help.
        • xwdv 6y ago
          I've buried a lot of anger over the years and I'm fine.
  • lotsofpulp 6y ago
    There is nothing stopping two people from being married and polyamorous.
    • xwdv 6y ago
      The problem is because society has not adopted non-monogamy as being acceptable in relationships, many people do not even consider it, which generates a smaller pool of partners to find who may be compatible with non-monogamy. You have to find increasingly niche people, who are often abnormal in other ways that you wish they'd just be normal.
• kory 6y ago
  I remember hearing from those in my parents' (boomer) generation about marriages that just didn't work out. Divorce wasn't widely "accepted," but it was more common than one might think. Perhaps this was because of a culture of encouraging marriage to make fulfilling needs (sexual, relationships) "acceptable", and boomers had financial freedom to take the risk that it wouldn't work out. Marriage is a success multiplier. Successful people generally marry other successful people. Your monetary, behavioral, and intellectual capital double just by signing a piece of paper, given you find the right person. Plus you get significant tax benefits (on ~$300k combined income, you can save $20k-$30k per year). But there's a huge downside, too. If you get divorced, you (give or take) lose half your assets on top of attorney & emotional costs. Younger generations are getting married later because they weren't given the stability that Boomers had, and therefore can't take the same risk their parents did. A divorce didn't mean a financial end for many boomers (or, at least, they probably weren't aware that's what could happen). With the rise of the internet, young people are aware of the risks and how susceptible they are to those risks. Since younger generations also no longer feel the same level of stigma for fulfilling sexual and emotional needs from partners outside of marriage, it follows that marriage rates would fall. It also makes sense that divorce rates would fall. Older generations' marriages that have lasted this long will probably last until death. Younger generations that choose to marry will likely have found and married another successful, responsible person. My guess is these marriages are (on average) more stable than those of previous generations.
  • throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >Younger generations are getting married later because they weren't given the stability that Boomers had And their situation isn't crap enough to put up with less than ideal marriages for the financial security as was the case for the generations prior to the boomers.
  • sjg007 6y ago
    There wasn't much stability in boomer or even older generations either. I think that is a red herring. There was probably more social pressure to marry in the absence of going to college.
• subsubzero 6y ago
  I wonder if its due to the fact that dating apps are a prevalent way for couples to meet. Alot of these apps do a good job of matching personality traits/interests/beliefs so people get along more. This vs. the old ways where most people either met their future spouse in school/college or at a bar and alot of people married young which led to rocky issues down the road.
• hnlurker 6y ago
  In line with the data we have for divorces, we see dramatically increased rate of out of wedlock childbearing over the same time periods being discussed: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr48/nvs48_16.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr48/nvs48_16.pdf This suggests to me that couples are still coupling, just not inviting Uncle Sam to the party. Given that other users have shown a wealth divide for marriage, it would seem that poor couples are opting out of marriage in order to obtain/keep local/state/federal resources, e.g. SNAP, Medicaid, etc, which almost always have income caps for eligibility.
  • lotsofpulp 6y ago
    I wonder what the data from the last 21 years says since your link ends at 1999. There has been a marked improvement in women’s contraception since then. As well as access to women’s healthcare via Affordable Care Act.
• mlang23 6y ago
  Could it be that the social norm changing and divorces usually being a pretty one sided thing when it comes to financial loss, that marriage has become less attractive to those who are supposed to provide the main income and also pay after the divorce? I suppose 40 years ago, the typical male didn't think much about the possible consequences of getting married. These days, that has changed. Getting married can cost you a lot of money if you happen to choose the wrong spouse.
• triangleman 6y ago
  Note that this article is mostly based on data through 2019 and it's a little too early in the "new normal" to say whether the low rates of divorce will continue. I'm hopeful though!
• daviddaviddavid 6y ago
  "...and their children will be more likely to grow up with two married parents, which provides them the best chance for success later in life." It seems odd to make such a blanket claim without any citations or clarifications regarding: - Must the parents be married to each other? - Must the parents be happily married? I suspect that many people divorce specifically because they don't want their children reared in a house where the parents are merely tolerating each other if not being outright hostile toward each other.
  • dfxm12 6y ago
    It seems odd to make such a blanket claim without any citations or clarifications Consider the source. It is a conservative think tank. https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Family_Studies https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Family_S...
    • rbecker 6y ago
      It seems what you consider odd enough to require a citation depends on your political orientation. Citations for the original claim: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0e3d/640709c889472858054c8fe3df01cca051d8.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0e3d/640709c889472858054c8f... https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/are-children-raised-with-absent-fathers-worse-off/ https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/are-children-raised-with-... https://www.apa.org/topics/single-parent https://www.apa.org/topics/single-parent https://www.bbc.com/news/education-47057787 https://www.bbc.com/news/education-47057787
      • dfxm12 6y ago
        For the record, these citations reference outcomes related to single parent families or two parent families. Also, the Brookings link is an opinion piece. You understand that two-parent families are not exclusively married families, or that it's disingenuous to posit that if a family isn't single parent, it must be a married family, right?
        • 6y ago
• scop 6y ago
  To any readers contemplating a divorce in a marriage with children: please, PLEASE reconsider. Divorce has multi-generational effects that reverberate far beyond the relationship of you and your spouse. I am in a marriage with four kids and my in-laws are divorced. MY marriage and family life is exponentially more difficult because of my in-laws' divorce. E.g. think holidays are hard? Just wait until you have to simultaneously manage holidays with kids while not insulting your in-laws with who gets time when. Don't @ me with "but what about the wife-beater junkie?!" Yes, safety and sanity of course require separation in cases. But barring safety and the extremes, remember that any "other spouse" out there likewise has flaws and will also change with the passage of time. Also, you are likely very flawed and suck in many ways that only relationships will bring to surface. There is no such thing as a perfect spouse because there is a common weakness that will be brought to each relationship: YOU. Lastly, lest you think of marriage as just a relationship with two people, have some bloody perspective on our species and society and realize that the stability of society will come from each new generation. Stability is not built into human civilization; it is won by blood, sweat, and tears. One of the greatest indicators of success in a child, in the future who you depend on, is a stable two-parent household. EDIT: I'm not advocating that people stay in abusive relationships. I am aware of how common abuse can be. I am also not advocating that you just "stick it out" while fighting like dogs for decades. What I am advocating for is for spouses in a strained relationship not to consider divorce a solution that removes a problem from their life. Put in the work (which may a long time!) to see if you can make it work. What can happen very often is that divorce removes the problem from the spouses and places the burden of the problem onto the children.And then, of course, the children cannot complain about it because it is the child's fault that they have issues with their parents divorce (which is always very friendly and amicable).
  • snarf21 6y ago
    You are entitled to your opinion but everyone has one life and are free to live it how they choose in the pursuit of happiness.
    • scop 6y ago
      Everyone has one life plus other lives which are dependent on your life. Don't lose sight of their happiness in the pursuit of your own.
• 734129837261 6y ago
  In the time my parents got married they could buy a nice family home based on only my father making minimum wage right out of high school. They even got a subsidy from the government for it. Back then, their house cost a total of $20,000 USD. Today, that house is for sale for a little over $400,000 USD. Marriage was a largely stress-free happening of little consequence, except for your pastor and direct family. It served as a somewhat trivial proof of love and dedication, or something. Divorce was rare because you'd be judged by society for it. Nobody wants grandma to judge you for it, especially if grandma is only 45 years old and will live to whine about it for another 45. Fast forward to the past decade (or two) and today. Out of high school we can't really (very rarely) find valuable career employment, we need a university degree. Depending on where you live in the world (ahem, USA) you go into a lot of debt studying for what is hopefully a marketable degree. Then you start with an income of $30,000 USD per year if you're lucky. That house you would like to start a family in apparently costs $400k nowadays, and you can't possibly get a mortgage for it. Also, you're still $30k (US average) in educational debts. Honestly, you can't even afford to date and eat out (food, perv), you can barely afford a car to get to work. So you live at home until you're in your 30s. If you're lucky you can stick around in some seedy apartment with a bunch of roommates. Your career is growing strong, your responsibilities are growing stronger, dating-apps make it easier to find a new partner, you don't have the energy to deal with all the difficulties a relationship brings along with it, and you're still paying off your university degree (and car). You're in your early to mid thirties now, moving into your first own place. A small apartment still, but it's your own. At $300k it is laughably expensive for such a small and old apartment, though... it's yours! Finally, your own tiny slice of heaven! You finally find that one parter that you feel safe and comfortable around, you love them. You even consider children and marriage. But by now you've learned to do the math first. You open your Google Sheets document and tally up your expenses and incomes. Well, let's find out how much a child costs. If you're in the USA, just birthing a child in a hospital sets you back $15,000 USD. You'll need a bigger apartment in due time to give the child their own bedroom. You need a car that's safe for a child. Clothing, medical care, insurances, food, toys, schoolbooks, and so much more. And since both you and your partner (need to) work, you also need to figure out how expensive daycare is. Well, you can't afford to have a child just yet. How about marriage? HOLY SH-- I mean, obviously diamonds are a De Beers monopoly and their prices are inflated nonsense. But a decent ring will set you back quite a hefty price for the both of you. What's that, an ENGAGEMENT RING? Is that different from a marriage ring? On average that will set you back 1 month worth of salary in total, and nobody will be impressed by what you came up with. Gosh. Okay, what's next. Wedding party. On average that will set you back $23,000 USD. Well, you know what? Let's wait a few years. That's only smart. We can save up for all of this. Then you're celebrating your 40th birthday. Your debts are mostly paid off, except your mortgage and cars of course, and it's getting a bit late to have children. You and your partner may have decided against it entirely by now. That leaves marriage. Those elderly family members who were always asking and pressuring you about it have all died by now, or suffer dementia. You know what? Let's skip it.
• abvdasker 6y ago
  > Given that “can’t afford a wedding” and “not having a stable job” ranked high on the reasons why today’s singles are not married, it is reasonable to predict that fewer singles will tie the knot amidst a pandemic when financial distress is high. Regardless of whether COVID-19 resolves quickly or not, further declines in marriage rates are all but guaranteed. Wealth and income inequality has gotten so bad in the US that it is now possible to make a compelling argument for progressive policies and a robust welfare state on the basis of goals previously considered conservative (goals like encouraging procreation and family cohesion). Individuals correctly identify the costs of marriage and having children and choose rationally to avoid incurring those costs, or are simply unable to incur those costs in the case of homeownership. As rents and other costs of living exacerbated by having a family continue to balloon, it's only a matter of time until the upper middle class begins to suffer the same effects. A progressive think tank called People's Policy Project has thought up the Family Fun Pack (https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/projects/family-fun-pack/ https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/projects/family-fun-pac...) to address exactly these problems, though currently its support among elected politicians is mostly nonexistent.
  • decebalus1 6y ago
    > Individuals correctly identify the costs of marriage and having children and choose rationally to avoid incurring those costs, or are simply unable to incur those costs in the case of homeownership. It's all fine, everything is going as planned. You don't want the next generation to be rational critical thinkers. And if the current generation refuses to reproduce, that's awesome! There are loads of others who don't look at this rationally and their offsprings will likely not. These are the voters you want!
    • neurostimulant 6y ago
      Weaken the very foundation of your own country so you can stay in power? Even as a conspiracy theory is just too absurd. But after seeing what politicians do these days, it might not be too far-fetched at all.
  • RestlessMind 6y ago
• mdavis6890 6y ago
  Sloppy language and charts: "% of ... per 1000" This is misleadingly wrong. It's NUMBER OF out of 1000, so the % will be 1/10 of what is shown. They do correctly say "For every 1,000 marriages in the last year, only 14.9 ended in divorce," in the text, but it's easy for someone to come away with the wrong impression of a very high overall divorce rate.
• georgianar 6y ago
  This spiritual helper restored my marriage few days ago and he also cured me from herpes virus robinson.buckler @ yahoo. com …..{{https://robinbuckler https://robinbuckler. com}} —————————————————————————————————
• hrktb 6y ago
  > can’t afford a wedding This reason is so sad. Marriage has a social meaning but it is not mandatory to make it a social event. If the ceremony is what’s stopping from making an otherwise desired alliance, skipping or strongly downsizing the ceremony should be a better accepted choice.
• hevelvarik 6y ago
  I didn’t see the actual study but wonder how much this actually speaks to the likelihood of a new marriage staying whole. The graph states that the figure is x divorces per thousand marriages so far so good. But they also say that the rate of marriages is also declining which seems to indicate that the proportion of old marriages to new marriages per thousand is rising in which case at least some of the divorce rate decline may be because a survivor bias embedded in the older marriages?
• jjones2 6y ago
  This is very good news. Other, shitty countries, will try to subvert Western nations by damaging their families and marriages.
• known 6y ago
  Pandemic forced every body to compromise :)
• catholicposter 6y ago
  This is because people the people who would have gotten divorced instead aren’t marrying at all. Think your typical joyless 35-year-old man-hating feminist.