25 Divorce Rate Demographics

Many people like to throw out the statistic that half of all marriages today are going to end in divorce. This generalized statistic fails to show how strong marriage rates happen to be in some population demographics. It also makes people think that half of the marriages that exist right now will fail this year and that just isn’t true.

The U.S. Census Bureau has found that divorce rates for most age groups have been dropping since 1996.

Divorce Rate Facts

Where divorce rates do tend to struggle is with second or third marriages. The highest number of divorces come from a third marriage, which have a 3 in 4 chance of failing. First marriages actually have the highest success rates, with 60% of first marriages able to last for a lifetime. Although some of the divorce statistics may seem high, there is also room for some hope to be found.

• In the United States, there are approximately 876k divorces that occur every year. That’s about 1 divorce every 36 seconds.
• The average length of marriage that ends in a divorce is about 8 years.
• Women [27.6%] are more likely to experience their first divorce before the age of 20 than men [11.7%].
• The most common age for a man to get divorced is between the ages of 20-24, accounting for 38.8% of divorces.
• People wait an average of about 3 years before getting married again after experiencing a divorce.
• 30. That’s the average age of a person who is going through a divorce in the United States.
• If a marriage has children, mothers are 4x more likely to get support awards if they are the primary custodian when compared to men.
• In any given year, only about 2% of current marriages will file for a divorce.
• The percentage of same-sex marriages that will file for a divorce in any given year: 1%.
• The US marriage rate is at an all-time low with just 51% of American adults being married according to 2011 US census data.

100% of marriages expect that they will be able to beat the odds, but about half of them just aren’t going to make it. This can happen for a number of different reasons, but the fact remains that every age demographic experiences a divorce. Sometimes people might stick it out for the kids and be miserable, but that still counts as a viable marriage. It doesn’t matter what your religious beliefs happen to be, what kind of job you have, or how many kids you have. People can even just grow separate from each other and wind up divorced. It happens because life happens.

Does Religion Influence Divorce Rates?

• Catholics who are actively practicing in their parishes are 31% less likely to get divorced than non-religious people.
• 1 out of every 4 adults today has experienced at least one divorce.
• Divorce rates for conservative Christians are significantly higher than divorce rates of atheists and agnostics.
• 34% of non-denominational Christians self-report that they have been divorced at least once. Baptists take up second place with a 29% divorce rate.
• Jewish couples have the highest divorce rates amongst the major religions, with 30% of couples experiencing a divorce.

Although there are a lot of claims about how religion helps couples, the fact is that the statistics of this demographic prove those claims are not true. One claim even says that couples who pray together and attend church regularly have a 1 in 39,000 chance of a divorce. The reality is that the divorce rates for those who consider themselves to be faithful is about as high as the general population. Even more remarkable is that those who adamantly question or deny the existence of a supernatural being have lower divorce rates, despite what is being taught from the pulpit. It just goes to show that a marriage takes work and if people aren’t willing to put that work in, then that marriage isn’t going to last.

What Changes The Dynamics for Divorce?

• Couples that have parents who have remained happily married are more likely to stay married as well.
• People who wait to marry until they are over the age of 25 are 24% less likely to get divorced.
• Cohabiting may increase the chances of divorce happening by up to 40% in some marriage demographics.
• 13%. That’s the reduction of risk that occurs when just one spouse has attended at least some college in their life.
• States that tend to vote for Republicans more often have higher divorce rates than states that tend to vote for Democrats more often.
• Couples who have children are 40% less likely to get a divorce than couples who don’t have children.
• The percentage of children who have divorced parents and are living beneath the poverty line: 28%.
• 8% of adults who are getting married this year will be getting married for at least the third time.
• Multiple marriages are the most common amongst Caucasians [10%] and least common amongst the Asian demographics [2%].

What changes the dynamics of a marriage? The environment of an upbringing helps to create a foundation for a stronger marriage, but so does the fact that a couple is less likely to divorce if they feel like other people will suffer losses from their decision. Some of the people who are contributing to these divorce statistics are having multiple divorces as well, which tends to skew the data just a little bit. Yet after a divorce, a majority of women say that they don’t want to ever get married again. About 1 in 2 people who have a divorce will wind up getting married once again and more than half of them will get a divorce, or about 25% of people getting married today.