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Home > Researchers and Evaluators > Divorce Statistics
Divorce Statistics
You always hear about the 50% divorce rate. There are lots of statistics out there for interpretation. It can be difficult to find exactly what you need or understand what the data represents. This section provides statistics such as the national divorce rate, average years of marriage at divorce, percent of Americans that have been divorced, and the percent of divorces that involve minor children. We also provide information on divorce related trends and information commonly used by researchers to calculate various divorce statistics.
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Divorce Data Use
Marriage and divorce data are used not only track, analyze, explain and interpret social changes but to predict the future course of events. Researchers and policymakers use this data to support policy development, program planning, implementation and evaluation strategies. Data is used to determine if specific community programs are effective and to develop community programs which provide services to maternal and child health services, newly married couples, families, divorced parents, and children of divorced parents. Because public policymakers and researchers respond to trends, these and other stakeholders need to have accurate estimates of marriage- and divorce-related events. Please see the “Featured Links” section below for additional statistical resources on the web.
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Data Types
- Vital statistics data capture an event (i.e., a divorce) as opposed to a status (e.g., currently divorced). Researchers use event data to calculate rates and are able to track events over time to determine if they are occurring more or less frequently. Vital statistics data can also be used to construct life tables, which estimate the proportion of individuals who will marry and divorce over their lifetimes. (Life tables can be constructed from survey data as well.)
- Strengths - Additionally, event data provides total counts of divorces at the state level. This data can be used to calculate trends at sub-national levels. Other strengths of the system include: event data based on vital statistics provides a more complete count and therefore can be used as a cross check to ensure that survey estimates are valid and the vital statistics system is more timely than surveys for monitoring trends/surveillance since survey data may have a substantial time lag.
- Limitations - The primary limitation of vital statistics data is that the federal government, through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) National Center for Health Statistics, collects only counts of marriages and divorces. Although many states collect substantial demographic information about divorcing couples, this data is not reported to the federal government. A 2002 study for the DHHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) summarized state marriage and divorce data collection efforts (see link below). This information will be updated for a current project for ASPE and the Administration for Children and Families. Other limitations include lack of information on cohabitation and separation. Because these are not legal events, they are not captured in vital statistics systems. Finally, divorce data collection systems are often paper-based, making information difficult to analyze.
- Survey data can provide estimates on couple status at a point in time, transitions in and out of marital and cohabiting relationships, and the marital and relationship histories of individuals (depending on the type of survey). Many surveys offer nationally representative estimates of (one or more of) these outcomes, although information at the state and community level is more limited. Even surveys that are not broadly representative can be useful for examining these outcomes for specific population sub-groups (e.g., a single birth cohort or new parents). In addition, survey datasets can provide information on the consequences of marriage, divorce, and cohabitation.
Characteristics - These four types of survey data vary in their ability to provide reliable information on current relationship status, relationship transitions, and relationship histories. In general, cross-sectional surveys that do not ask about relationship histories can capture marital and cohabitation status at a point in time, but provide no information on changes in marital status (i.e., transitions). Without information on marital status changes, marriage and divorce rates (i.e., percentage of people who get married or divorced in a particular year) cannot be calculated. In contrast, cross-sectional surveys that specifically ask about past marriages and divorces provide information on both current marital status and changes in status, allowing marriage and divorce rates to be calculated.
Longitudinal data without retrospective information can capture current relationship status as well as changes that occur during the time survey respondents are tracked. This data, however, provides only a limited window of time in which transitions can occur (i.e., the duration of the panel). Finally, longitudinal data with retrospective information capture current status as well as past and present changes in relationship status.
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Featured Links
National Center for Health Statistics - Divorce Statistics National Survey of Family Growth - NSFG gathers information on family life, marriage and divorce, pregnancy, infertility, use of contraception, and men's and women's health. The survey results are used by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and others to plan health services and health education programs, and to do statistical studies of families, fertility, and health. Links to some of those studies are included on this web site, under "Reports" and "Publications". U.S. Bureau of the Census - Marital Status and Living Arrangements data are collected annually in the March Current Population Survey (CPS) for the Nation, with limited detail for states and some metropolitan areas. More data on marital status and living arrangements for states, metropolitan areas, and other geographic locations are shown from the decennial census. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation - State Policies to Promote Marriage. This report for ASPE, by The Lewin Group, inventories state policies directly focused on promoting or supporting marriage. One section focuses on the types of divorce data collected in state vital statistics systems. Council on Contemporary Families  - Tricky Business of Estimating Divorce. What is meant by the often-cited statistic that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce?
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