Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Reducing Your Divorce Risk (a Lot)

The State of Our Unions 2009 has a wonderfully encouraging chart about how good your chances are of lifelong marriage if you are reading this blog. We all know that about half of marriages are projected to end in divorce. If you regularly read The Gruntled Center, you know that this is not quite true - the overall divorce rate is probably under 50%, most first marriages last, and, most importantly, this rate does not mean that each marriage - your marriage has only a 50/50 chance.

Wilcox and Marquardt quantify some factors that reduce the risk of divorce dramatically.

Factors That Decrease the Risk of Divorce: percent

Annual income over $50,000 (vs. under $25,000): -30

Having a baby seven months or more after marriage (vs. before marriage): -24

Marrying over 25 years of age (vs. under 18): -24

Own family of origin intact (vs. divorced parents): -14

Religious affiliation (vs. none): -14

Some college (vs. high-school dropout): -13

1 comment:

Brendan said...

I'd be interested to know how the divorce risk grows or shrinks for couples with intact married parents vs. other nondivorced parent sets (widowed, never-married biological, never-married adopted, etc).