These days it is a common occurrence to read or hear in the media news about divorce rates, along with some of the most common factors contributing to it. But what is the actual truth. Are divorce rates really increasing, decreasing or maybe even fairly static, and what about these most common factors contributing to couples seeking a divorce?
Many people believe that divorce rates are not really as high as they seem because of the way they are reported in the media. In fact, some professors believe that since around 1980, the divorce rate has actually stabilized. However this is a difficult theory to prove, because since 1996, accurate statistical data on divorce rates has no longer been collected. Most of the information and statistics about divorce rates now actually comes from polls rather than the collation of accurate data.
As the information that comes from polls is based on a sample population, rather than being collated as accurate statistical data, it is somewhat difficult to extrapolate this and to be able to say for sure how or if divorce rates changing. Overall however, it is currently believed that the current rates are declining. This has to be good news for U.S. citizens at least, since we regularly feature in the top 10 worldwide countries listing of high divorce rates.
Following on from that fact, our next question logically must be as to why the U.S. continually experiences such high divorce rates. Well, again, nothing is certain, but some of the major contributory factors have been identified and are discussed below.
As we know, women’s wages began to increase some years ago and more women suddenly were able to go out to work rather than stay at home to look after the children. In many cases this would appear to have led their spouses to feel threatened, either because their wife was able to earn as much or even more than them, or simply because they couldn’t cope with having to share more of the household and child rearing chores as both partners were working outside of the home. For those who couldn’t cope with this new situation, their marriages often ended in divorce, and it would appear that this continues to be a key factor even in todays’ society.
Religion also appears to play a strong role in a percentage of divorces. Typically when one party in the marriage develops strong religious beliefs, either contradicting the beliefs of the other party, or perhaps become too overbearing in their approach to life to cope with, divorce results.
Obviously to a certain extent, changes in the divorce laws coupled with the fact that in some Christian religions it is now possible to marry again with Church Blessing, may also have helped to increase the divorce rates. Some time ago getting divorced had a certain amount of social stigma attached to it, and most people at that time would prefer either to separate quietly without actually going through divorce proceedings, or try to remain together to avoid this loss of social contact. However with the introduction of no-fault divorces combined with a drop in the social stigma attached to getting a divorce, the divorce rates have begun to rise.
It would seem that another key contributory factor to the high divorce rates in the U.S and other Western countries may be longevity. Due to the advances of modern medicine and science we are all living longer, which naturally results in a potentially longer marriage relationship. It is possible that with what possibly seems like a potential eternity of continued unhappiness ahead of them, people are making the decision to divorce.
As a whole, there are many potentially contributory factors to divorce rates. Having said that, as it now appears that divorce rates are decreasing, we can take that to mean that we are nowadays doing something better in our society than we were maybe ten years ago.