Remember last month when the media noted that the divorce rates in supposedly conservative “red” states was higher than in purportedly liberal “blue” states? That seemed peculiar to Mark Richardson—an Australian!—so he took a closer look at the data:
So I went back to the original source. And to my surprise I found that the divorce statistics had been misrepresented in most of the mainstream media. It turns out that what was being compared was the number of divorces per 1000 people in each state rather than the number of divorces per 1000 married couples:
Rates throughout this report count the marital events reported in the past 12 months per 1,000 men or women in the population 15 and older. (p.2)
That wouldn’t be significant if roughly the same number of people got married in each US state. But that’s not the case. There is a much lower rate of marriage in the liberal north-east of the US:
…the states with the lowest marriage rates for men in 2009 tended to be in the Northeast. Maine and New Jersey were among the states with low marriage rates with 13.5 and 14.8 marriages per 1,000 men. Maine and New Jersey also had low marriage rates per 1,000 women, with 12.2 and 13.3 marriages, respectively. (p.4)
…Twelve of the thirteen states where men had marriage rates below the U.S. average were located east of the Mississippi River. (p.5)
In comparison, a state like Wyoming had a marriage rate of 28.7 – that’s more than double the rate in Maine.
So you might expect states with a higher rate of marriage to also have a higher rate of divorce. And that’s how a representative of the Census Bureau explained the statistics:
Divorce rates tend to be higher in the South because marriage rates are also higher in the South,” said Diana Elliott, a family demographer at the Census Bureau. “In contrast, in the Northeast, first marriages tend to be delayed and the marriage rates are lower, meaning there are also fewer divorces.”
That is the key quote. The demographer responsible for the statistics is explaining in the plainest of English why the divorce rate is lower in the north-east. It is because in the liberal north-east people are less likely to be married in the first place.
September 26th, 2011 | 3:31 pm
This is quite bizarre if true. Why exactly would anyone think “divorce rate per 1000 people” meant ANYTHING?
September 26th, 2011 | 5:22 pm
If you google “divorce rate,” you’ll find that it is generally given as the number of divorces per 1000 people. It may be of limited usefulness, but that’s generally how the divorce rate is measured.
See this from an old Ross Douthat column:
There are limitless ways to spin statistics.
September 26th, 2011 | 6:20 pm
Does anyone know what are the stats for “divorces per 1000 married couples”?
September 26th, 2011 | 7:27 pm
Ray: I haven’t found a specific answer to your question, but: (a) from the linked article, 28% of those divorced identified as conservative, 33% as moderate and 37% as liberal; and (b) from the PDF linked to from the linked article, age-adjusted durations of current marriagesf for women are highest in red states, by far — both first and second marriages. For example, first marriages tend to last 22.5 years in MS, 19.8 years in CA, 19.5 years in MA, and 12.8 years in DC (fill in your own joke about Congress). It would make sense to infer that if their marriages last longer, then they have fewer divorces per 1000 married people.
I’m just looking at a graphic & a table for this information, & not thinking too hard about it, so it’s quite possible that I have inferred too much.
September 27th, 2011 | 5:01 am
[...] HT: Joe Carter [...]
September 27th, 2011 | 7:55 am
“12.8 years in DC (fill in your own joke about Congress)”
It might be Congress. Or it could be the war on drugs. Or the greater odds that a black man will die of violence.
I suspect that what really troubles some is shooting holes in the notion that conservatives are more moral than liberals. We can rest assured they are not, and move to the next discussion on sex from there.
September 27th, 2011 | 8:51 am
[...] Red State/Blue State and divorce rates. [...]
September 27th, 2011 | 10:26 am
I had written: For example, first marriages tend to last 22.5 years in MS, 19.8 years in CA, 19.5 years in MA, and 12.8 years in DC (fill in your own joke about Congress). It would make sense to infer that if their marriages last longer, then they have fewer divorces per 1000 married people.
The difference in duration of marriage could also be due to people in MS marrying 3 years earlier than in CA, on average. I doubt that’s the sole reason, but I reckon it has something to do with it.
And, yes, the remark about Congress was merely a joke, though I doubt the homicide rate in DC is so high that it would bring the duration of marriages down to 12.8 years. That would have to be something akin to a war zone. A shorter life expectancy might contribute, though.
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