Religion Leads to More Divorce, Study Finds

[IhartU]

Religion Leads to More Divorce, Study Finds

By Allison Geller, Mon, January 20, 2014

A new study found that divorce rates are significantly higher in conservative states, and lower in liberal ones—and that religion is the main factor of the difference.

“Red States, Blue States, and Divorce: Understanding Regional Variation in Divorce Rates,” due for publication in the American Journal of Sociology, found that that conservative Alabama and Arkansas have close to the highest divorce rates (13 per 1000 people per year), while more liberal New Jersey and Massachusetts have some of the lowest (6 or 7 per 1000 people per year). Why the difference?

“Restricting sexual activity to marriage and encouraging large families seem to make young people start families earlier in life, even though that may not be best for the long-term survival of those marriages,” says Jennifer Glass, a demographer from the University of Texas and one of the study’s authors.

Glass and Phillip Levchak, from the University of Iowa, examined divorce rates and conservatism county by county throughout the United States. They found that while poverty in rural and Southern counties does contribute to higher divorce rates, it didn’t completely explain them.

The same goes for the argument that those counties have higher rates of marriage, since religious couples are much less likely to live together before they decide to marry, and thus the rate of marriages is higher than in more liberal counties. Glass and Levchak found no connection between cohabitating before marriage and lower divorce rates.

The authors also found that even young people who aren’t religious are influenced by the culture around them. The culture of many conservative counties reinforces the expectation that young people should get married and have kids before establishing their careers, with little support from the community.

That’s further reinforced by abstinence-only education, restricted access to birth control and abortion, and the assumption that marriage should be the result of an unplanned pregnancy. Where religion replaces higher education or a good job in importance, marriage tends to as well. And that leads to more divorce.

Sources: Council on Contemporary Families

[SallyMJ]

This is dumb. If you have more marriages, you have more divorces.

Religious people marry more often than non-religious people.

I notice they didn't count overall relationship breakups.

That would be a more fair number to compare - and non-religious people have many more breakups than married.

Sort of the reason for getting married in the first place.

Garbage in, garbage out.

As Mark Twain said: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."  

[-Celestial-]

Yep. Then their guilted and threatened to be excommunicated by the church to stay in a loveless, abusive marriage..

[jllcali]

I think marrying at a young age would be more of a factor. As well as marrying for the wrong reason in the first place.

[Sisteract]

Quoting jllcali: I think marrying at a young age would be more of a factor. As well as marrying for the wrong reason in the first place.

Yep-

For appropriately sanctioned sex? And then the couple finds out they are not compatible.

[jllcali]

I wasn't thinking about that but it's a possible reason.

Quoting Sisteract:

Quoting jllcali: I think marrying at a young age would be more of a factor. As well as marrying for the wrong reason in the first place.

Yep-

For appropriately sanctioned sex? And then the couple finds out they are not compatible.

[redheadstar]

I hate when labels get pinned on, LOL..  Divorce is more rampant today than it were when my Grandparents were alive.

[vic270]

 is this all you could think of to say?

Quoting -Celestial-: Yep. Then their guilted and threatened to be excommunicated by the church to stay in a loveless, abusive marriage..

 

[mcginnisc]

I have to say this does not seem like a balanced bit of research. 

We are religious, married young, are educated, live in GA, and did not have kids until our 30's...we've been married 18 years and together for 22 years...

It would be nice if more marriages were analyzed and the reasons WHY they divorced...not just assume it is due to religion...

[snookyfritz]

So people who seek sex outside of marriage have lower divorce rates.  What a ridiculously silly study

[AdrianneHill]

Well, it makes sense. That six year relationship that would have just been a nasty break up in most of America is a divorce in those states.
I know multiple people who have been married multiple times and most of them were religious and raised by religious parents. In many of the families, everyone was married by twenty and divorced by thirty if not earlier. Some could marry the or four times by the time they hit their sixties.