[rickcecil]

The 50% number is actually horribly exaggerated. It is closer to 30%. I'll dig up sources later, but basically the divorce rate is calculated by dividing the number of new marriages with the number of divorces in a given year.

This doesn't account for repeat offenders (people on their second, third, or tenth divorce) or age or region or any number of factors that can affect your chances of remaining married.

[rickcecil]

After much digging, here is what I have found. It surprised me and I learned a lot in the process. Very excited to share.

The Divorce Rate is not a measure of the chances of your marriage ending in divorce, though many people use it like that.

The Divorce Rate calculation is a measure of the number of divorces in a given year compared to the number of new marriages. If we accept that at face-value, we're okay. I would like to see it broken down by first-time marriages to first-time divorces; second-time marriages to second-time divorces. I have not been able to find this data, but didn't look exceptionally long ... as I need to get back to work. ;)

There are a lot of blog posts about the myth of the 50% divorce rate. They are attacking this statistic as representing something that it does not. (Even though it is not far from the truth.)

Still, I think it would be worthwhile to evaluate the usefulness of this statistic. Sure, it's an easy number to track. But why? Especially when everyone assumes that this is revealing something that it is not.

Now, onto the chances a first-time marriage might actually end in divorce.

Your baseline chances for divorce in a first-time marriage are calculated using a Life Table and the chances vary depending on a variety of factors. Age, region, education, and I am sure there are others. And if you input all your data, you get the chance that a first-time marriage will end in divorce.

Here's a great, simple description of the Life Table: http://contemporaryfamilies.org/marriage-partnership-divorce...

Ultimately, the chance for divorce remains around 50-60% on average, but can be as low as 20%. According to this article

http://psychcentral.com/lib/2012/the-myth-of-the-high-rate-o...

"...a woman who is over 25, has a college degree, and an independent income has only a 20 percent probability of her marriage ending in divorce"

The article does not cite a source for this statistic, but it does cite various requisite factors in calculating a first-time marriage chances of ending in divorce.

More reading from the CDC about first-time marriages and divorce: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr049.pdf

[Intermernet]

Thankyou! Wow, that's some serious digging.

I managed to hunt down that the chance for divorce in Australia in 2007 was around 30%, down from a peak of around 50% in 2000. It was last around 30% in the early 80s.

I'm still hunting through some more recent papers on the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) site devoted to "Family Formation and Dissolution"[1] but haven't found anything solid yet. I found many sites with unreferenced figures, and the only referenced figures all came back to the ABS, so I figure that their census data matches the marriage and divorce registrars pretty closely.

[1]:http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/ViewContent?readform...

[Intermernet]

I may be basing my statistics on Australian figures (last I heard we were running at around 53%ish). I'll also confirm the general trend across "western" nations, and would really appreciate you sending me any links you manage to dig up!

Thanks