The 50% Marriage Failure Rate Myth

  When topics of marriage and commitment come up in conversation, a common phrase that often flows into the discussion is the comment that "half of all marriages end in divorce." While I have heard this phrase hundreds of times, I was never sure of its accuracy or whether or not there was research to support it. However, until taking this course, I had not sat down and addressed these concerns. So, when the topic came up during our first day of assigned readings for Family Relations, I immediately knew what I wanted to talk about in my post this week. And as I studied and learned more about this topic, I realized how complicated it was and just how oversimplified the "half of all marriages" argument is, and I would like to share with you what I learned:

First, it is challenging to calculate a marriage failure rate. When calculating a figure from year to year, researchers have several groups they can feature in their data, including newly married and divorced couples, and whether or not to include individuals who divorced in past years or those who have remained married for more than one year. Another research-related issue arises from a lack of consideration for social differences, such as age, socioeconomic status, and religion, which affect divorce rates.

While doing my assigned readings for this past week for class, I was particularly interested in the effects generational differences can have on divorce rates. In particular, I was interested in the fact that it is difficult to lump all of the U.S.'s divorce figures from decade to decade into one marriage failure rate because that would ignore decade-specific marriage differences. For example, it would not be logical to lump divorce rates in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s altogether because one's likelihood of divorce increased dramatically in the United States from the 1950s to the 1960s and 70s. In looking at another example, it would also be unfair to generalize marriage failure from the 70s to the 90s, as divorce rates fell in the 1980s, and, while they rose again in the 90s, they were still lower than the 1970s peak (Ortiz-Ospina and Roser 2020). In general, by combining data without considering cohort effects and variations, we do not allow ourselves to see American marriage failure (or success) in an accurate light. 

So why is all of this information important? In large part, it is because our words hold great power. When we casually throw around information, such as the 50% failure myth, we can completely change someone's understanding of marriage and lead them to fear their chances of building the family life that they desire. In summary, our words lead to actions that have consequences that can be more than we imagined or intended. In addition, this information is important because it reminds us that marriage is more complex than a set of data. Just like how we can't generalize the experiences of different generations with marriage, we cannot generalize our own experiences with marriage, comparing it to those around us. Just because we grew up in a less than ideal family situation or have observed others' marriages falling apart doesn't mean the same thing has to happen in our own lives. We may not be able to control the social conditions that we grew up in, but we can control our responses to them (whether they be positive or negative). While it can be easy to focus on the negative in the world and in our lives, especially as reports from the media become more and more saddening and discouraging, we can still find joy. As this semester continues, my hope is to focus on the joy that family and marriage can bring into one's life and how to make sense of the challenges society has presented in us finding that joy.

Reference Article:

https://ourworldindata.org/marriages-and-divorces#citation