Divorce Rates

Regularly in the media you hear news about divorce rates, along with the most common items that contribute to divorce. But what is the actual truth. Are the divorce rates increasing or decreasing, and what are the most common factors contributing to divorce?

Many people believe that divorce rates are not as high as that communicated by the media. In fact, some professors believe that since around 1980, the divorce rate has in fact stabilized. However this is difficult to prove as since 1996, accurate statistical data stopped being collected. In fact most of the information and statistics about divorce rates now comes from polls rather than accurate data.

As the information comes from polls rather than accurate statistical data, it is somewhat hard to say for sure whether divorce rates are rising or declining. But it is believed that the rates are now declining. Which has to be good news for U.S. citizens since we regularly feature in the top 10 worldwide countries listing of high divorce rates.

So I guess the next question has to be why the U.S. has continually such high divorce rates. Well, nothing is sure. But there are some main contributory factors that have been identified.

When women�s wages began to increase some years ago and more women started going out to work rather than staying at home looking after the children, their spouse began to feel threatened. For those who couldn�t cope with this new situation, their marriages resulted in divorce, and this continues to be a key factor today.

Religion also plays a strong role in divorce. When one party in the marriage develops strong religious beliefs that either contradict with the other party or become too overbearing to cope with, divorce results.

Changes in the divorce laws have also helped to increase the divorce rates. It used to be that getting divorced had a stigma attached and most people would prefer either to separate without going through divorce proceedings, or try and remain together to avoid loss of face. However with the introduction of no-fault divorces combined with a drop in the stigma attached with getting a divorce, the divorce rates began rising.

Another key contributory factor to the high divorce rates in the U.S and other Western countries is longevity. Due to the advances of medicine and science we are all living longer, which results in a longer marriage relationship, thereby increasing the chance of divorce.

As a whole, there are many contributory factors to the high divorce rates. Having said that, if it now appears that divorce rates are decreasing, that has to be good news and means that we are doing something better in our society today than previously.