The myth of the 50 percent divorce rate persists

One of the most bleak statistics that infects our society is that 50 percent of all the marriages in this country end in divorce. It is quoted by sociologists and appears all time in books, magazines and newspapers. That includes The Sun News, which reported on page 1C on Nov. 25 that “more than half of us” get divorced.

That 50 percent figure is a myth and it is utterly false.

The actual U.S. divorce rate, according to the National Center for Family and Marriage Research, is really much lower -- 19.4 percent. Indeed, pollster Louis Harris has written that “the idea that half of American marriages are doomed is one of the most specious pieces of statistical nonsense ever perpetrated in modem times.”

So reducing the U.S. divorce rate can be simply a matter of recognizing that it is 19.4 percent, not 50 percent.

How has the fictitious 50 percent figure been inflicted on us? It’s thanks largely to some fuzzy math. There are about 2.4 million marriages and 1.2 million divorces each year in this country. So it’s claimed that makes the divorce rate 50 percent. But it doesn’t because the people getting married in a single year are not the same ones getting divorced. The divorce rate has to be a percent of the entire matrimonial population.

“No serious demographer ever looked at the approximately 2.4 million marriages a year and the 1.2 million divorces to arrive at the 50 percent number,” says Scott M. Stanley of the University of Denver. “That is a misunderstanding that began early in the debate about what the divorce rate really is — a misunderstanding that is, unfortunately, widely perpetuated.”

Does it matter that the 50 percent myth is so widely repeated? It may. For one thing, couples don’t need to feel doomed by this scary statistic. It also might give some couples on the cusp of divorce one more reason to split because they’ve been told it’s so common.

Our government is no help. I recently phoned the Bureau of the Census, the source of marriage/divorce statistics, to ask about the divorce rate. They gave me the annual marriage and divorce totals and said the divorce rate, therefore, was 50 percent. I tried to point out their faulty math. But they didn’t want to know about that and insisted on the 50 percent figure. I’d hoped for more responsible feedback from our government

Happily, the outlook is good for a continuing decline in divorces. Data indicates that marriages are lasting longer in the 21st century than they did in the 1990s. Among other things, couples are becoming older when they wed, and that enhances the chances that a marriage will be a success.

The writer lives in Murrells Inlet.

This story was originally published December 17, 2016 at 2:47 PM with the headline "The myth of the 50 percent divorce rate persists."