Some interesting stats on divorce
I've always joked "Nobody in my family gets married, only divorced" when I used to confess I'd never been to a wedding until I think I was 24. Being in my late 20's now, I've certainly been to plenty of weddings in the past few years, but as each year passes that I remain single I still wonder how much of that is me, bad luck, bad timing, related to my extended family's checkered history with marriage, or some combination of each. In this Sunday's Globe Magazine, Lindsay Tucker wrote an essay titled "Am I doomed to divorce" that definitely touched on many things I've thought about myself. I was very interested in some facts she quotes from divorcerate.org (see chart below) which shows a 50% improvement on divorce rate for men who wed after the age of 30 (compared to 25-29). That's good news for me seeing as I sure as hell won't be married before age 30.
Age at marriage for those who divorce in America
| Age | Women | Men |
| Under 20 years old | 27.6% | 11.7% |
| 20 to 24 years old | 36.6% | 38.8% |
| 25 to 29 years old | 16.4% | 22.3% |
| 30 to 34 years old | 8.5% | 11.6% |
| 35 to 39 years old | 5.1% | 6.5% |
Digging into the facts a little more (divorcerate.org seemed like a really questionable source since most of the site looked to be paid advertisements and no sources were given), I came across some US Census #'s which do show that the 50% divorce rate over time is more or less true. See table 131 at this link which shows only 60% of men reaching their 40th wedding anniversary and 50% of woman doing so. Census Study published in 2011 found here.
It's also interesting to learn that the generally more conservative Southern and Western states have the highest divorce rates (likely because of marrying earlier and having less education on average). I would love to do a Red State/Blue State mashup of this data. My home state of Massachusetts had the lowest rate in the country at 1.8% -- score a 2nd point for my future prospects.
Top 10 state divorce rates:
Source (Wall Street Journal)
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Nevada
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6.6
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Arkansas
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5.6
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Wyoming
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5.2
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West Virginia
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5.0
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Idaho
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5.0
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Oklahoma
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4.6
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Kentucky
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4.6
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Alaska
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4.4
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Maine
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4.3
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Florida
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4.3
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