The National Center for Family & Marriage Research of Bowling Green State University recently released new statistics regarding divorce trends over several years, which has found that this year divorce rates are the lowest since 1976.
According to the data, annual rates of divorce have been declining steadily for the past three years. In 2014, for example, the divorce rate was 17.6 divorces per 1,000 married women, and in 2015 the rate of divorce was 16.9 per 1,000 married women. Furthermore, it appears that geography plays a major role in the rate of divorce as the study also shows that Washington D.C. had the highest rates of divorce at 30 divorces per 1,000 marriages, while Hawaii had the lowest rate of divorce at a rate of 11 per 1,000.
Other related data is that marriage rates were also on a rise this year, at a rate of 32.2 marriages per 1,000 unmarried women aged 15 or older. However, the overall rate of divorce still remains just above 50 percent, according to University of Maryland professor, Philip Cohen. It is uncertain what may be leading to the decrease in divorces in recent years, or even if the rates of marriage and divorce are correlated.
More Interesting Data Regarding the Study
- The US ranks 6th in the highest rates of divorce and marriage within one year in the world.
- The year with the highest rate of divorce was 1980, at a rate of 22.6 married women out of 1,000.
- Washington DC has consistently been among the top five states for divorce for the past three years, while New Jersey and Hawaii had among the lowest.
- 30 states had a lower rate of divorce between 2014 and 2015.
