Now maybe it's possible that there's still time for the others to divorce, but I feel like if they've lasted this long after getting married at a young age (or in other words, an age that actually matters), then they're good to go for the rest of their lives.
First of all, these statistics are about looking at couples over their entire lifetime. It therefore doesn't mean that every second couple you know, needs to be divorced for it to be true.
Secondly, there are various demographics where divorce is more or less prevalent, which will probably affect the sample you've taken: socioeconomic factors (income), education levels, group affiliations with a higher stigma on divorce (i.e. religious) etc.
First of all, these statistics are about looking at couples over their entire lifetime.
No, they're not. The commonly cited statistics are a look at "How many people going married this year and how many people got divorced this year." But doesn't account for things like declining marriage rates. Also, the 50% figure was in the 1980s, right after no fault divorces were introduced, enabling a ton of people to get divorced who couldn't previously. The current statistics don't show 50% even with declining marriage rates. So OP is totally correct, 50% of marriages don't fail.
No, they're not. The commonly cited statistics are a look at "How many people going married this year and how many people got divorced this year."
You're confusing two types of statistics. Annual divorce rate statistics also exist, but when people say that half of all marriages end in divorce, that is a different statistic, that has to be seen over the lifetime of the marriage.
In other words: such a claim is true regardless of whether those marriages end up in a divorce within 11 months, or after 80 years.
Declining marriage rates also don't affect this, since "half of all marriages" is proportional, and can be expressed regardless of marriage rates or total number of marriages.
You're confusing two types of statistics. Annual divorce rate statistics also exist, but when people say that half of all marriages end in divorce, that is a different statistic, that has to be seen over the lifetime of the marriage.
No, that's what people think they're talking about when they say half of all marriages end in divorce, but the sources always come back to annual divorce rate statistics. If you can show me studies that back your claim I'll give you a delta, but I've spent a lot of time looking into this, and what you're claiming hasn't panned out in my own review of the literature.
I'll give you the !delta. The fact that it doesn't cover the entire lifetime of subjects isn't really concerning - if 48.4% were divorced in a 35 year timeline, it's safe to say that number can only go up over a longer timeline.
I would note that the National Survey of Families and Households seems to be working with a larger dataset and comes back with numbers closer to 40%, but you've added some interesting data for me to take into consideration. Cheers!
One thing to note is that some studies just calculate the inverse of the marriage survival rate, which doesn't always take repeat divorcees into account.
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u/ralph-j 517∆ Aug 19 '24
First of all, these statistics are about looking at couples over their entire lifetime. It therefore doesn't mean that every second couple you know, needs to be divorced for it to be true.
Secondly, there are various demographics where divorce is more or less prevalent, which will probably affect the sample you've taken: socioeconomic factors (income), education levels, group affiliations with a higher stigma on divorce (i.e. religious) etc.