6 ms·

So what's the actual number? The article doesn't say. It's kinda rambling.

Ntrails 12y ago
Nobody knows, because no one even agrees how to calculate it. Divorces/Marriages in a given year is worthless. Divorces (of people married in 1970) / Marriages (of people married in 1970) gives you a number for that "cohort" but isn't exactly true - there are many years left for them to divorce, and that is generations ago. Personally I'd say it would be useful to look at divorce rates and marriage rates in terms of overall population and growth and argue whether (Divorces / total people married) was increasing compared to (Marriages / total people unmarried) (I'm sure a statistician can tell me I'm wrong)
- throwawayaway 12y ago
  marriage ends in either death or divorce, surely they can combine the stats!
- geocar 12y ago
  Except someone can be married and divorced multiple times (even within a single year). Counting the marriages or the divorces is a mistake. You need to count the people over time, but also not consider people who never get married.
- cousin_it 12y ago
  I think the main meaningful number is the chance of divorce for marriages starting today. There are probably many ways to estimate it indirectly.
- nodata 12y ago
  > Nobody knows, because no one even agrees how to calculate it. What's wrong with "percentage of marriages that end in divorce"?
  - privong 12y ago
    That can be skewed by people who marry and divorce multiple times, making "percentage of marriages that end in divorce" somewhat disconnected from the probability of any one marriage surviving.
    - nodata 12y ago
      But if people do marry and divorce multiple times, wouldn't we want the divorce rate to change with it?
      - privong 12y ago
        It depends on what one wants the "divorce rate" to mean.
    - coldtea 12y ago
      Those are still marriages and divorces. I don't see any skewing. Whether you were married once and divorced once or married 6 times and divorced 6 times, all the times should be counted. The important factor is marriages/divorces not people/divorces.
      - jiggy2011 12y ago
        That depends on why you are interested in measuring divorce rates.
        coldtea 12y ago
        Is it though? I think the idea is to see how stable marriages are. And if some people have some "social dicease" that makes them marry and divorce more than others, I'd expect them to be outliers and statistical noise, compared to people that legitimate try to make it work and fail.
        jiggy2011 12y ago
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  I'd be interested in the "survival rate" of marriages that end in divorce, like they calculate for chronic diseases. What's the 5-year survival rate for a marriage across the population? What's the 10-year rate, or 20-year rate? You could segment such data pretty easily by other factors, like region, ethnicity, age at wedding, etc.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    There are a number of studies that gather that kind of data, e.g. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divorce-patterns-by-gender-race-and-educational-attainment.htm http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divorc...
jmckib 12y ago
The best they had was divorce rate per person (including children and unmarried adults). However, I did find some information in one of the links from the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/health/19divo.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/health/19divo.html?_r=0 It mentions numbers from 16 percent (those married between 1990 and 1994) to 41% (men who were then between the ages of 50 to 59 [in 2001]). They agree that the divorce rate has been declining, particularly among college grads.
the_mitsuhiko 12y ago
The divorce to marriage rate is about 50% in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_demography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_demography
- cowsandmilk 12y ago
  As discussed in the article, that's a horrible number. If you dig into it, most of the divorces are people 50-59 who married when the marriage rate was much higher. The marriage rate has gone down over time because more people are choosing not to marry. You can think of it as either a depressed marriage rate or an inflated divorce rate, but large number of people getting divorced who were married 30 years ago is unrelated to the number of people being married today.

Nobody knows, because no one even agrees how to calculate it. Divorces/Marriages in a given year is worthless. Divorces (of people married in 1970) / Marriages (of people married in 1970) gives you a number for that "cohort" but isn't exactly true - there are many years left for them to divorce, and that is generations ago. Personally I'd say it would be useful to look at divorce rates and marriage rates in terms of overall population and growth and argue whether (Divorces / total people married) was increasing compared to (Marriages / total people unmarried) (I'm sure a statistician can tell me I'm wrong)

throwawayaway 12y ago
marriage ends in either death or divorce, surely they can combine the stats!
geocar 12y ago
Except someone can be married and divorced multiple times (even within a single year). Counting the marriages or the divorces is a mistake. You need to count the people over time, but also not consider people who never get married.
cousin_it 12y ago
I think the main meaningful number is the chance of divorce for marriages starting today. There are probably many ways to estimate it indirectly.
nodata 12y ago
> Nobody knows, because no one even agrees how to calculate it. What's wrong with "percentage of marriages that end in divorce"?
- privong 12y ago
  That can be skewed by people who marry and divorce multiple times, making "percentage of marriages that end in divorce" somewhat disconnected from the probability of any one marriage surviving.
  - nodata 12y ago
    But if people do marry and divorce multiple times, wouldn't we want the divorce rate to change with it?
    - privong 12y ago
      It depends on what one wants the "divorce rate" to mean.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    Those are still marriages and divorces. I don't see any skewing. Whether you were married once and divorced once or married 6 times and divorced 6 times, all the times should be counted. The important factor is marriages/divorces not people/divorces.
    - jiggy2011 12y ago
      That depends on why you are interested in measuring divorce rates.
      - coldtea 12y ago
        Is it though? I think the idea is to see how stable marriages are. And if some people have some "social dicease" that makes them marry and divorce more than others, I'd expect them to be outliers and statistical noise, compared to people that legitimate try to make it work and fail.
        jiggy2011 12y ago
snowwrestler 12y ago
I'd be interested in the "survival rate" of marriages that end in divorce, like they calculate for chronic diseases. What's the 5-year survival rate for a marriage across the population? What's the 10-year rate, or 20-year rate? You could segment such data pretty easily by other factors, like region, ethnicity, age at wedding, etc.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  There are a number of studies that gather that kind of data, e.g. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divorce-patterns-by-gender-race-and-educational-attainment.htm http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divorc...

jmckib 12y ago

The best they had was divorce rate per person (including children and unmarried adults). However, I did find some information in one of the links from the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/health/19divo.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/health/19divo.html?_r=0 It mentions numbers from 16 percent (those married between 1990 and 1994) to 41% (men who were then between the ages of 50 to 59 [in 2001]). They agree that the divorce rate has been declining, particularly among college grads.

the_mitsuhiko 12y ago

The divorce to marriage rate is about 50% in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_demography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_demography

cowsandmilk 12y ago
As discussed in the article, that's a horrible number. If you dig into it, most of the divorces are people 50-59 who married when the marriage rate was much higher. The marriage rate has gone down over time because more people are choosing not to marry. You can think of it as either a depressed marriage rate or an inflated divorce rate, but large number of people getting divorced who were married 30 years ago is unrelated to the number of people being married today.