Half of Marriages End in Divorce?

 Posted on October 31, 2012 in Division of Property

The commonly accepted statistic that half of all American marriages end in divorce might be "divorced from reality," according to Time magazine. Jennifer Baker, director of the marriage and family therapy programs at Forest Institute, a postgraduate psychology school in Springfield, Mo., told Time that the statistic was "murky." This is because "not all states collect marital data, and the numbers change dramatically depending on the methods and sources that are used." Divorce rates are directly influenced by marriage trends, and throughout recent decades the marrying age has increased, one contributing factor to a recent drop in the divorce rate. Another is whether either or both members of the couple have a college degree.

Marrying age has always been an important factor in the success of a marriage. Time quotes a University of Pennsylvania Wharton School study from the 1980s, which reported that 81 percent of college graduates who were 26 or older when married were still married 20 years later. "Only 65 percent of college grads who said I do before their 26th birthday made it that far."

According to a vital statistics report from the Center for Disease Control, Illinois had the third lowest divorce rate in 2010, second only to Iowa and Massachusetts. In that year there were only 2.6 divorces for every 1,000 people in the state. The marriage rate for 2010 was 5.7 per 1,000 people in the state, meaning that the divorce rate does, in fact, fit the roughly 50 percent statistic.

Whether or not half of all marriages end in divorce, no one facing this difficult life event should go through a divorce without the aid of an experienced divorce attorney. If you or someone you know is facing divorce, contact an Illinois divorce attorney today.

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