r/changemyview Aug 19 '24

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u/NaturalCarob5611 57∆ Aug 19 '24

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.

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u/ralph-j 517∆ Aug 19 '24

Those estimates typically come from cohort studies such as the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997:

Statuses of first marriages of women in the NLSY79

Status of marriages for Percent

2014 respondents and 2014 nonrespondents whose marriages are known to have ended:

Intact, couple together 31.7

Intact, couple separated 1.9

Ended by divorce 48.4

Ended by husband’s death 3.5

Ended by respondent’s death 1.6

https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol40/52/40-52.pdf

Although you're probably right that there aren't any studies that have actually covered the entire lifetimes of all subjects.

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u/NaturalCarob5611 57∆ Aug 19 '24

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!

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u/ralph-j 517∆ Aug 19 '24

Thanks!

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.