Divorce Rates Falling
Back in the 1970s, before we met Dr. Phil; ate, prayed, and loved; and saw a British prince arrange his own marriage, it seemed like the institution of wedlock was doomed.
"The divorce rate was going up at an incredible rate. One of the things people were thinking at that time was, 'Wow, does this mean the end to marriage?' " remembers Kelly Raley, who studies marriage and family demographics as a professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin.
After divorce laws became more lenient in the late '70s, divorce numbers peaked around 1980 and began to level off.
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But a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau finds divorce rates for most age groups have been dropping since 1996 by an average of about 5 percentage points.
