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YOU ARE NOT ALONE: Some Interesting Facts & Figures About Marriage & Divorce

Some Interesting Facts & Figures About Marriage & Divorce


The following are some interesting marriage and divorce statistics.

  • 78% of adult Americans have been married at one point in their life.
  • 50% of all first marriages end in divorce
  • 64%of all second marriages end in divorce
  • 74%of all third marriages end in divorce
  • The United States has the highest incidence of divorce in the free world
  • Couples with children have only a slightly lower rate of divorce
  • There no longer seems to be much of a stigma attached to divorce;rather, people view divorce as just another rite of passage.

Most interesting fact...Many young adults make the assumption that most people will marry several times seeking a different partner for each phase of their  life.


Glenn Wolff, LCSW December 27, 2012 at 03:03 am
Hi,
Can you please share the source(s) of these statistics? Thank you. Glenn Wolff, LCSW
PTCHFAN December 31, 2012 at 01:08 am
I find those statistics to be very sad! I have been happily married for 23 years to my 1st and hopefully, only husband. While marriage takes a lot work, we always go back to our vows. I consider myself very lucky since the statistics are not on my side. I too would like to know the source of the stats that you quote in your blog. Thanks. Susan
Heron January 1, 2013 at 05:12 pm
These statistics seem to come from Jennifer Baker at the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology. When you go to their website, it doesn't have a link to a study or an explanation of what these statistics are based on. It's very mysterious. I think that to get true divorce statistics, you would have to follow a sample of people over their entire lifetime since someone could get divorced after 30 years of marriage. I've always heard that these divorce stats are somewhat controversial.
See: http://www.divorcestatistics.org/
DivorceInformationNow.com January 2, 2013 at 01:39 pm
The statistics come from a variety of sources including the National Institutes of Health. All statistics are controversial and can be manipulated to present a particular point of view. Divorce Information NOW presented the statistics in order to make people who are divorcing ( and their families ) aware that their circumstances are not theirs alone. There is comfort in numbers, and that alone was our intention.
Mark Schultz January 3, 2013 at 11:16 pm
This is a fact?: "Many young adults make the assumption that most people will marry several times seeking a different partner for each phase of their life." Where did you get this fact? This offends me.
DivorceInformationNow.com January 4, 2013 at 01:56 pm
Divorce Information Now serves as a clearing house of information. This "fact" was noted by sociologists as a paradigm shift in the way some young adults are thinking about marriage. We only passed along that data.
Heron January 4, 2013 at 03:17 pm
This link has a report on First Marriages that contains the 50% of first marriages end in divorce statistic:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/divorce.htm I haven't been able however to find the report that contains the stats of second and third marriages. I think if someone is interested they should call Jennifer Baker and ask her what study these stats are based on. You say that "all statistics are controversial" but if you can't provide a source and link to an actual study, it makes the statistics and statements you make even more controversial .

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