# What's the straight dope on the divorce rate?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-the-divorce-rate/256438>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 23, 2004, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-the-divorce-rate/256438 "2004-07-23T00:33:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Wolfian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7ea924/32.png) [@Wolfian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolfian)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-the-divorce-rate/256438/1 "2004-07-23T00:33:51Z")

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Most of us Americans have heard at one point or another that 50% of all marriages end in divorce. Is that true? How is that calculated?

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**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-the-divorce-rate/256438/2 "2004-07-23T02:30:05Z")

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Here

[US Divorce Rates](http://www.divorcereform.org/rates.html)

It’s not a made up factoid. Overall it is around 50%.

> [@](#):
>
> Here is an excerpt from the Census Bureau report, with a link to the full report:
> 
> "The National Center for Health Statistics recently released a report which found that 43 percent of first marriages end in separation or divorce within 15 years. The study is based on the National Survey of Family Growth, a nationally representative sample of women age 15 to 44 in 1995. Bramlett, Matthew and William Mosher. “First marriage dissolution, divorce, and remariage: United States,” Advance Data From Vital and Health Statistics; No .323. Hyattsville MD: National Center for Health Statistics: 2 1.
> 
> "Data in the Census report were collected from both men and women, age 15 and over, and a different methodology was used than in the NCHS report."About 50% of first marriages for men under age 45 may end in divorce, and between 44 and 52% of women’s first marriages may end in divorce for these age groups. The likelihood of a divorce is lowest for men and women age 60, for whom 36 % of men and 32 percent of women may divorce from their first marriage by the end of their lives. A similar statistical exercise was performed in 1975 using marital history data from the Current Population Survey (CPS). Projections based on those data implied that about one-third of married persons who were 25 to 35 years old in 1975 would end their first marriage in divorce.
> 
> “This cohort of people, who in 1996 were about 45 to 55 years old, had already exceeded these projections as about 40% of men and women in these ages had divorced from their first marriage. Current projections now indicate that the proportion could be as high as 50% for persons now in their early forties.”

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**Author:** ![UncleBill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d26b3c/32.png) [@UncleBill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBill)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-the-divorce-rate/256438/3 "2004-07-23T02:51:38Z")

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I am 37, and 50% of my marriages have ended in divorce.

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**Author:** ![Loopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loopus/32/15343_2.png) [@Loopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopus)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-straight-dope-on-the-divorce-rate/256438/4 "2004-07-23T03:30:28Z")

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Cecil’s column on the subject: [Is it true half of all marriages end in divorce?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030124.html)