{"id":2490,"date":"2010-02-16T07:56:06","date_gmt":"2010-02-16T15:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=2490"},"modified":"2010-02-16T07:56:06","modified_gmt":"2010-02-16T15:56:06","slug":"half-of-all-marriages-do-not-end-in-divorce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2010\/02\/16\/half-of-all-marriages-do-not-end-in-divorce","title":{"rendered":"Half of All Marriages Do NOT End In Divorce"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_9474\"<\/a>Recent\u00adly I heard it again<\/a>, \u201cHalf of all mar\u00adriages end in divorce.\u201d<\/p>\n

I want\u00aded to take my lap\u00adtop and hurl it through a win\u00addow. It\u2019s hard to be sure what the divorce rate in Amer\u00adi\u00adca is, but it\u2019s not 50%.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how the mis\u00adlead\u00ading notion came about: one year some\u00adone noticed that there had been 1,200,000 divorces and 2,400,000 mar\u00adriages. Not think\u00ading clear\u00adly, this per\u00adson con\u00adclud\u00aded that 50% of all mar\u00adriages end in divorce. And not think\u00ading clear\u00adly, our whole cul\u00adture agreed.<\/p>\n

The error is hard to see, so per\u00adhaps an exam\u00adple will help. Imag\u00adine that there were 100,000 births and 50,000 deaths in one year. Would you con\u00adclude that half of all peo\u00adple die?<\/p>\n

Clear\u00adly not. And that high\u00adlights the prob\u00adlem: although it seems like you\u2019re com\u00adpar\u00ading apples and apples, you\u2019re real\u00adly com\u00adpar\u00ading apples and apple wedges. The real ques\u00adtion is: if 10,000 peo\u00adple get mar\u00adried in 2010, how many will remain mar\u00adried until part\u00aded by death? And the answer is: we won\u2019t know until 5,000 peo\u00adple are dead.<\/p>\n

For a bet\u00adter per\u00adspec\u00adtive on this, see the 2005 NY Times arti\u00adcle Divorce Rate: It\u2019s Not As High As You Think<\/a>. For a con\u00adtrary view, see the nor\u00admal\u00adly reli\u00adable Straight Dope which main\u00adtains that the 50% fig\u00adure is rea\u00adson\u00adable<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll give you a thought exper\u00adi\u00adment just to mess with your mind: sup\u00adpose I pull in $10,000 a month and that my expens\u00ades are $5,000 a month. Half of all my income ends up divorced from my wal\u00adlet. Am I in good finan\u00adcial shape or bad finan\u00adcial shape? Why is your reac\u00adtion to this sto\u00adry dif\u00adfer\u00adent than your reac\u00adtion to a sto\u00adry claim\u00ading there are 100,000 mar\u00adriages in a month and 50,000 divorces in a month? And why do we pre\u00adfer to say that half of all mar\u00adriages end in divorce rather than observ\u00ading that twice as many peo\u00adple are get\u00adting mar\u00adried as are get\u00adting divorced?<\/p>\n

Any\u00adway, that\u2019s what I have to say about that. I have lit\u00adtle doubt that Amer\u00adi\u00adcan mar\u00adriages are fac\u00ading great pres\u00adsure and that for a num\u00adber of rea\u00adsons the divorce rate is dis\u00adturbing\u00adly high \u2014 but it\u2019s not 50%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recent\u00adly I heard it again, \u201cHalf of all mar\u00adriages end in divorce.\u201d I want\u00aded to take my lap\u00adtop and hurl it through a win\u00addow. It\u2019s hard to be sure what the divorce rate in Amer\u00adi\u00adca is, but it\u2019s not 50%. Here\u2019s how the mis\u00adlead\u00ading notion came about: one year some\u00adone noticed that there had been \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cHalf of All Mar\u00adriages Do NOT End In Divorce\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants-opinions-and-general-contrariness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-Ea","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2490"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2498,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490\/revisions\/2498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}