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Some Common Myths Thought to be True - Myth 119
Myth 119: Half of All Marriages End in Divorce
Let me say it straightforwardly: Fifty percent of American marriages are not
ending in divorce. It's fiction. A humor12-myth. A tragically discouraging urban legend.
If there's no credible evidence that half of American marriages will end up in
divorce court, where did that belief originate?
Demographers say there was increased focus on divorce rates during the 1970s
when the number of divorces rose, partly as a result of no-fault divorce.
Divorces peaked in 1979 and articles started appearing that claimed 50 percent
of American marriages were ending in divorce.
A spokesperson for the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics told me that
the rumor appears to have originated from a misreading of the facts. It was
true, he said, if you looked at all the marriages and divorces within a single
year, you'd find that there were twice as many marriages as divorces. In 1981,
for example, there were 2.4 million marriages and 1.2 million divorces. At
first glance, that would seem like a 50-percent divorce rate.
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Virtually none of those divorces were among the people who had married during
that year, however, and the statistic failed to take into account the 54
million marriages that already existed, the majority of which would not see
divorce.
Another source for the 50-percent figure could be those who were trying to
predict the future of divorce. Based on known divorce records, they projected
that 50 percent of newly married young people would divorce. University of
Chicago sociologist and researcher Linda Waite told USA Today that the
50-percent divorce stats were based more on assumptions than facts.
Some researchers have relied on surveys rather than government statistics. In
his book Inside America in 1984, pollster Louis Harris said that only about 11
or 12 percent of people who had ever been married had ever been divorced.
Researcher George Barna's most recent survey of Americans in 2001 estimates
that 34 percent of those who have ever been married have ever been divorced.
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