How common is divorce?

According to the large numbers, there was a slight increase in the American divorce rate after the Second World War, then a decline, and then an increase in the 1960’s, that was followed by a larger increase in the 1970’s, a leveling off in the 1980’s, and a decline ever since. However, there are some facts that make this data somewhat misleading:

Many American young adults now live together for a while as a sort of trial marriage, before entering into the real thing. Most of these relationships are not lasting ones. In earlier times, these couples would have been married and divorced, leading to a higher divorce rate.

Couples are now entering into their first marriages older than they did in earlier generations.

Many committed couples have chosen to live in a common-law relationship instead of going down the wedding aisle. This is very common among the senior citizen population, who would have their government support payments reduced if they got married.

At the present time, the media tells us that 50% of all American marriages will end in divorce. This data has been supported by a number of research studies. So, if you think of a room full of 100 people, 50 of them will have their marriages end in divorce.

A particularly interesting statistic comes from the divorce rate for Christian couples. Proponents of the religious right claim that families that are Christian, attend church on a regular basis, sit down together for prayer, only have a divorce rate of about 2%. The Southern Baptist Convention presented a report from their Council on the Family claiming that Christian couples that have a marriage in the church after counseling, and then decide to go to church regularly and pray together every day, will only go through divorce once in 39,000 families, for a rate of 0.00256%.

Independent research, however, shows that this estimate is highly dubious. The Barna Research Group published their divorce survey on December 21, 1999. Their sample included 3,854 adults from the United States, and the error margin was 2 percentage points. They found the following information:

11% of the American adult population was divorced at that time.

25% of all American adults have gone through at least one divorce.

Conservative Christians have divorce rates that are much higher than those of the mainline Christian denominations, as well as agnostics and atheists.

One reason for the higher divorce rates among conservative Christians, of course, may be the fact that they marry younger rather than have the trial relationships of living together first. They may also go into the relationship having higher expectations of their spouses, based on the religious training they have received, and thus go into the relationship setting themselves up for disappointment. Whatever the reason, though, Barna’s poll found that 34% of couples in evangelical, nondenominational churches get divorced. 29% of Baptist couples end up divorced. The more liberal, mainline denominations only show a divorce rate of 25%. Agnostics and atheists had the lowest rates, but, again, that may result from cohabitation without marriage and common-law status.

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