According to that article, being a twin makes me responsible for my parents divorce. Couldn't have been because my father was an abusive alcoholic. Nosiree.

Yeah, I'd be interested to see how much "being an asshole" raises the probability of divorce by. 

It's interesting if it's true that same-sex couples get divorced more often (at least, in Norway and Sweden, where this study was conducted)!  I can think of a few explanations.  The most probable is that most gay couples don't have children.  According to the same study that produced the 167% statistic, only 5% of male couples and 22% of female couples in the U.S. adopt children -- while 43% of straight married couples have kids in the household, according to the Census Bureau.*  No children means that partners who want to split up don't feel obliged to stay together for the sake of their family.  Divorce is a lot less complicated without children involved.

Another possibility: gay marriage is a much younger institution than straight marriage.  Possibly opposite-sex partners are more likely to go into marriage with similar expectations for the relationship than gay partners.  Gay marriages might be more unstable because there aren't centuries of cultural precedent for how they work.

Another possibility: gays tend to err on the liberal side of the political spectrum, partly because the conservative side won't have them.  All else (income, age, etc.) being equal, liberals are less likely than conservatives to think marriage is an especially sacred institution, and may be more willing to dissolve it.  This is a tricky hypothesis to test; red states actually see more divorces than blue states, but that could be because marriages in red states tend to be between poorer and younger couples.

Just throwing ideas out there. 

* I calculated this number by dividing the number of two-parent households with their own children under eighteen by the total number of married-couple households.

Last edited by satyreyes (05-20-2010 09:13:00 PM)

chrisb wrote:

2. If you live in a red state, you're 27 percent more likely to get divorced than if you live in a blue state.

??? Don't Republicans basically preach the "sanctity" of marriage?

This one's easy, actually.

The top state for divorce in the U.S. is Nevada, because... well, because it's Nevada.  The next ten states are Arkansas, Alabama, Wyoming, Idaho, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, Mississippi, and Arizona.  These ten are all red states, except for Florida, which is purple.  Apart from Florida and possibly Arizona, they are also ten of the poorest, least educated, and most rural states in the country.  Culturally, they cling more closely to the old ideal that women should marry young, poop out babies, and become stay-at-home mothers, a model that no longer seems to work very well for many families, particularly with job security having gone the way of the Sega Genesis.  The South also has a large share of African-Americans, while Florida and Arizona have lots of Latinos; in both cases, the minority culture is traditionally disempowered, and their communities are prone to instability for a host of reasons (none of which, of course, have to do with genetics).  For all these reasons and then some, these states see a lot of child abuse, spousal abuse, and substance abuse.  Hence the high divorce rates.

Yeah, Republican thought-leaders -- politicians, religious demagogues, FOX commentators -- preach the sanctity of marriage a lot.  But actual red-state residents have severe demographic challenges and can't afford to practice what their (much richer and better-educated, and still multiply-divorced) leaders are preaching.

satyreyes wrote:

particularly with job security having gone the way of the Sega Genesis

H-hey! I like the Sega Genesis. Random funny note: I put up with rampant, explicit sexual harassment in the name of job security.

satyreyes wrote:

Apart from Florida and possibly Arizona, they are also ten of the poorest, least educated, and most rural states in the country.  Culturally, they cling more closely to the old ideal that women should marry young, poop out babies, and become stay-at-home mothers, a model that no longer seems to work very well for many families, particularly with job security having gone the way of the Sega Genesis.  The South also has a large share of African-Americans, while Florida and Arizona have lots of Latinos; in both cases, the minority culture is traditionally disempowered, and their communities are prone to instability for a host of reasons (none of which, of course, have to do with genetics).  For all these reasons and then some, these states see a lot of child abuse, spousal abuse, and substance abuse.  Hence the high divorce rates.

I would also add that literate groups are less likely to divorce strictly for practical reasons, above and beyond children. I've run into, a few times, an interesting practice among the rich--the functional divorce, where the actual legalization of the divorce would disrupt finances, living arrangements, etc, etc, too much to be worth the assault on two very busy careers. So they basically live together (or apart) and do as they like, but legally stay married for tax, financial, etc, reasons. I wouldn't assume this is statistically significant, but it's worth noting for the commentary there on how marriage is used in different cultural/class groups.

Although definitely, kids are probably the deciding factor in the statistics here. Kids make a divorce prohibitively messy for some families. Others do it anyway when they really shouldn't.

Trench Kamen wrote:

satyreyes wrote:

Apart from Florida and possibly Arizona, they are also ten of the poorest, least educated, and most rural states in the country.

The Phoenix area is very cosmopolitan. The rest of Arizona has quite a bit of rural poverty, poor education, etc. And, Mormons. Lots of Mormons everywhere. Except they don't get divorced. Colorado City is half in Arizona.

Mmm hmm, Phoenix is why I said "possibly"   Phoenicians live in one of the biggest cities in the country.  The rest of Arizona, though, as you say... not so much!

chrisb wrote:

11. If you're of "below average" intelligence, you're 50 percent more likely to be divorced than those of "above average" intelligence.

This is why I have a strong antipathy for journalists and non-scientific journalism. This is such a crazy oversimplification, and so fuzzy, it gives the lay reader a completely inaccurate impression of the world. Putting "below average" and "above average" in quotes is also unbelievably inane, as if intelligence is a pretense with no scientific or neurological grounding. Bollocks!

Let me explain: someone with an IQ of 97 is one point below the American average in intelligence; someone with an IQ of 99 is one point above. It doesn't therefore follow that the former is 50% more likely to get divorced than the latter. IQ fluctuates during a person's lifetime, not wildly, but enough that someone could be above and below the average within a decade. Too, about 2/3 of the population lies within one standard deviation of the average, with other 1/3 being either really bright or really stupid. A more conscientious reporter would break this down and try to show how a low IQ increases the divorce rate, and whether the IQ-divorce probability relationship is constant throughout the bell curve.

Of course it's possible that the author wrote something like this, the editor took one look at it, said "What is this, Turkish?" and watered it down into the pablum that is that article.

Apologies for being slightly off topic, but statistical malfeasance is a huge pet peeve of mine.

Last edited by minervana (05-26-2010 09:18:23 PM)

I spent about five minutes trying to figure out how more lesbians could get divorced than were married, before I actually looked at the top post and realized it was as compared to heterosexual couples.

Well it makes sense that lower intelligence couples have higher rates of divorce. Seems like they would be less willing to try and understand the other partner and work things out.

Now that is strange about the lesbian divorce figure. During one of my sociology classes (can't remember which one) I read that lesbians are actually more likley to stick to one partner and stay with them longer than gay and heterosexual couples. I wish I could find a refernce to back this claim up but my book for that class is burried in storage.

Holy shit, well, apparently my parents have a 414% chance of divorce if you add those together. And it didn't even have anything to do with being an OMG alcoholic.


Of course, I'm fairly certain my parents wouldn't ever divorce no matter how they'd hate eachother, cause their families have wanted that forever, and they'd probably make themselves miserable to make their families miserable.



but how many of these people get back together and find love again? It makes it sound like OUR KIDS WILL HAVE NO PARENTS, IN THE FUTURE EVERYONE WILL BE DIVORCED.



...Now I'm deathly curious as to the REAL statistics of Nevada. Like, the normal people and all. I mean, there have to be some there.


[edit:] What IS the Mensa eligible IQ?
...Of course, I'd never join, cause, in Spanish, I think mensa means idiot. At least, my girlfriend would call people that instead of idiot, and LOTS of other people do. And I'd just get made fun of too much.

Last edited by allegoriest (05-31-2010 03:07:56 PM)

Maybe they're in all these intelligence groups and argue WELL I'M HIGHER THAN YOU, and it leads to divorces around them.


Really? That's not that high. I was invited a few years back, and I declined, since I wouldn't be caught dead in a group called 'mensa.' I haven't taken an IQ test in a few years though, so I'm unsure of mine now. :\