Divorce Statistics

Divorce Statistics:

Social scientists measure statistics regarding divorce issues, by considering number of married people, who subsequently get divorced. However, it is not an accurate method, since it considers a particular year and it is not necessary that people will marry and divorce in the same year.

The National Vital Statistics Reports (NVSR) publishes detailed reports regarding marriage and divorce issues at the local and state levels. The U.S. Census Bureau and the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) are other sources to obtain divorce and marriage related information.

Vital Divorce Statistics in the USA:

USA displays the highest number of divorce issues than any other nation. Every single couple out of two in the U.S. seems to have undergone divorce formalities. However, statistics in this regard reveal that divorce rates in the U.S. have never exceeded the mark of 41%.

Divorce rates in the U.S. subsequently decreased after the year 1970. The highest reported divorce rate after 1970 was 5.3 in 1981, while the lowest was 3.6 in the year 2005. Percentage of divorced population increased from 6% in 1980, to 8% in 1990. In 2002, this percentage rose to almost 10%.

The National Center of Health Statistics (NCHS) compared the annual marriage rate per annual divorce rate to get accurate divorce statistics. Thus, according to the NCHS reports, there were 7.5 marriage and 3.8 divorce issues per 1,000 people, in the year 2003.

Further, in 2004, Nevada in USA was the state with highest recorded divorce rate (6.4 per 1,000). The second highest state was Arkansas with a divorce rate of 6.3. On the other hand, in Columbia, rate of divorce issues was 1.7, which was recorded as the lowest divorce rate. Second lowest state was Massachusetts with a divorce rate of 2.2.

Statistics in the year of 2002 revealed that median age of males at the time of their first divorce is 30.5 years while that of females is 29 years. On a similar basis of analysis, median age of males dealing second time with divorce issues is 39.3 years and that of females is 37 years.

Divorce Statistics in New York State:

In 1994, the number of divorce issues registered in New York was 59,195 with a divorce rate of 3.3. Given below are the figures of divorce issues by county of occurrence and legal grounds in the New York State for subsequent years.

  • Year 2005 - 58,922
  • Year 2004 - 58,851
  • Year 2003 - 60,682
  • Year 2002 - 64,925
  • Year 2001 - 66,377
  • Year 2000 - 59,864
  • Year 1999 - 60,200
  • Year 1998 - 56,768