5 ms·

Fewer people are getting married, therefore fewer marriages are ending. Not surprising.

by geocrasher 6y ago

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.
  - frockington1 6y ago
    If the result is less divorces, that should be a good trend. The concerning piece is the class differences. The poor are experiencing a higher divorce rate
- tux1968 6y ago
  Yes, but only people who are more suited to be married may actually be getting married now. When the social norm pushed most people into getting married, many more people who are not well adapted to such a relationship would end up in one regardless.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  You can both be correct, if the reduced rate of marriage preferentially selects for more durable marriages.
- lisper 6y ago
  That does not necessarily invalidate geocrasher's point. People could still be self-selecting against those who are likely to get divorced.
- tzs 6y ago
  They aren't independent. There are important long term changes that lower the marriage rate that also tend to lower the divorce rate. One is that it has become much more acceptable for couples to live together before getting married. 50 years ago, doing so was seen as somewhat scandalous by a large fraction of the population. In many circles, even sex before marriage was still frowned upon. That would lead to couple getting married, then moving in together for the first time and perhaps even having sex together for the first time. Those are huge changes in the nature of the relationship. It is not too hard to find that you get alone great with someone when you do not live with them and/or do not have sex with them but that you do not when living with them and/or having sex with them. Thus, I'd expect with living together and premarital sex much more accepted for many couples that in the past would have found out they should not be married until after they got married to find that out nowadays during the "living together" stage. That couple nowadays becomes a "never married" couple rather than a "divorced after a short marriage" couple. This contributes to lowering both the marriage rate and the divorce rate. I'd expect a similar effect from the growing acceptance of having amd raising a child as a single parent. Many couples that never wanted to get married in the first place used to do so if they had a birth control failure while dating. I'd expect that too led to eventually divorces that would not happen in similar circumstances today.
giantg2 6y ago
I'm not sure how they measure it, but I would think the divorce rate would be divorces in a year / total number of active marriages. So the divorce rate should not be directly impacted by the number of new marriages, right?
- mstipetic 6y ago
  Sure but it would be impacted by the profile of people getting married. If only well off people are getting married, which generally tend to stay married, and poorer people are not, that will lower the rate of divorces
  - giantg2 6y ago
    I saw the part about the well off staying together. Did they have numbers to support the decrease in marriages for the average and poorer people?

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.
- frockington1 6y ago
  If the result is less divorces, that should be a good trend. The concerning piece is the class differences. The poor are experiencing a higher divorce rate
tux1968 6y ago
Yes, but only people who are more suited to be married may actually be getting married now. When the social norm pushed most people into getting married, many more people who are not well adapted to such a relationship would end up in one regardless.
jeffbee 6y ago
You can both be correct, if the reduced rate of marriage preferentially selects for more durable marriages.
lisper 6y ago
That does not necessarily invalidate geocrasher's point. People could still be self-selecting against those who are likely to get divorced.
tzs 6y ago
They aren't independent. There are important long term changes that lower the marriage rate that also tend to lower the divorce rate. One is that it has become much more acceptable for couples to live together before getting married. 50 years ago, doing so was seen as somewhat scandalous by a large fraction of the population. In many circles, even sex before marriage was still frowned upon. That would lead to couple getting married, then moving in together for the first time and perhaps even having sex together for the first time. Those are huge changes in the nature of the relationship. It is not too hard to find that you get alone great with someone when you do not live with them and/or do not have sex with them but that you do not when living with them and/or having sex with them. Thus, I'd expect with living together and premarital sex much more accepted for many couples that in the past would have found out they should not be married until after they got married to find that out nowadays during the "living together" stage. That couple nowadays becomes a "never married" couple rather than a "divorced after a short marriage" couple. This contributes to lowering both the marriage rate and the divorce rate. I'd expect a similar effect from the growing acceptance of having amd raising a child as a single parent. Many couples that never wanted to get married in the first place used to do so if they had a birth control failure while dating. I'd expect that too led to eventually divorces that would not happen in similar circumstances today.

giantg2 6y ago

I'm not sure how they measure it, but I would think the divorce rate would be divorces in a year / total number of active marriages. So the divorce rate should not be directly impacted by the number of new marriages, right?

mstipetic 6y ago
Sure but it would be impacted by the profile of people getting married. If only well off people are getting married, which generally tend to stay married, and poorer people are not, that will lower the rate of divorces
- giantg2 6y ago
  I saw the part about the well off staying together. Did they have numbers to support the decrease in marriages for the average and poorer people?