EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT DIVORCE – FACTS,
STATISTICS, AND RATES
If you spend enough time perusing the internet, you’ll find
no shortage of studies, statistics, and facts about divorce.
There seems to be a study looking into almost every possible
factor that might affect marriages and lead to divorce. These studies have yielded
some extremely interesting and – in some cases – downright shocking information
about divorce in both the United
States and the rest of the world.
Just in case you don’t have 20 hours to spare (it may or may
not have taken this long to compile this list), we have compiled a nearly
exhaustive list with every divorce statistic, study, and fact that we could
find. As we move through 2016 towards 2017, here is everything you need
to know – and quite possibly more- about divorce.
1. As of 2016, both marriage rates AND divorce rates in the US are
decreasing.
2. The marriage rate in the United States is currently 6.8 per
1,000 total populations.
3. The divorce rate in the U.S. is 3.2 per 1,000
population (as of 2014 the latest year of data from the CDC. (With 44 states
and D.C. reporting) This is known as the “crude divorce rate”. Although useful
for describing changes in divorce rates over time, the crude divorce rate does
not provide accurate information on the percentage of first marriages that end
in divorce.
4. Currently, the divorce rate per 1000 married women
is 16.9. Many experts feel that this is a much more accurate measure
of true divorce rate than the crude rate.
5. The divorce rate per 1000 married women is nearly
double that of 1960, but down from the all time high of 22.6 in the early
1980s.
6. Almost 50 percent of all marriages in the United States
will end in divorce or separation.
7. Researchers estimate that 41 percent of all first
marriages end in divorce.
8. 60 percent of second marriages end in divorce.
9. 73 percent of all third marriages end in divorce.
HOW OFTEN DIVORCE TAKES
PLACE IN THE U.S.
11. Every 13 seconds, there is one divorce in America.
12. That equates to 277 divorces per hour, 6,646 divorces
per day, 46,523 divorces per week, and 2,419,196 divorces per year. That means:
13. There are 9 divorces in the time it takes for a couple
to recite their wedding vows (2 minutes).
14. More than 554 divorces occur during your typical
romantic comedy movie (2 hours).
15. 1,385 divorces happen during the average wedding
reception (5 hours).
16. There are 19,353,568 divorces over the course of an
average first marriage that ends in divorce (8 years).
17. Over a 40 year period, 67 percent of first marriages
terminate.
18. Among all Americans 18 years of age or older, whether
they have been married or not, 25 percent have gone through a marital split.
19. 15 percent of adult women in the United States
are divorced or separated today, compared with less than one percent in 1920.
Median duration of first marriages that end in divorce:
Males: 7.8 years
Females: 7.9 years
