If there’s one thing our country has, it’s an abundance of statistics. After all, governments track their citizens: what they do, how much they make, how much they spend, how often they use social welfare benefits, and of course, how often they marry and how soon they divorce.
We’re not entirely sure if we should rely 100% on divorce statistics, because while they reflect trends, these trends are, at best, a mirror of physical movement. By this, we mean that we can keep records of divorce filings through lawyers’ offices and courtrooms, and we can sketch out a rough picture of a person’s movements: their birth, university records, employment earnings, marriage, number of children, and when they file for divorce or joint custody. All these movements are recorded in a national registry, fed by data from tax reports and social insurance numbers.
However, divorce statistics don’t paint a full picture of divorcing couples. Some key details are inadvertently omitted. Sometimes, these details can be the very ones that provide a more accurate portrayal of an individual’s state of mind during and after a divorce.
And what about the children? What happens to them? Millions of articles have been written about the effects of divorce on children. Many of these are sad stories, and a few even end in tragedy. But for divorcing couples and their children, we can’t possibly weave a complete story of their lives or the destruction of their lives. Sure, we have newspaper accounts of deaths and suicides post-divorce, but unless we’ve been through a divorce ourselves, we can’t fully grasp the spectrum of human energies, motivations, and desperation. We only read about them.
Divorce Statistics: Canada
Dr. Anne-Marie Ambert wrote a 24-page report published in the Vanier Institute’s Family’s Contemporary Trends series. Her first caveat is that we tend to depend on media reports that speak about the American landscape, and then apply those numbers to the Canadian situation.
The first issue Dr. Ambert addresses is the divorce rate. The American divorce rate is 50%, whereas Canada’s stands at 44%. She argues that when statistics like these are released, the media often reports the numbers out of context, without fully understanding the factors that influence those rates.
Still, Canadian couples have a high divorce rate. Note that there are about 37 million Canadians versus 300 million Americans. So, the question is: Is 44% really lower, considering our smaller population?
A study by Frederick and Hamel (also cited by Dr. Ambert) reveals that 31% of Canadians who married in 1991 will head for divorce courts, assuming the 1991 divorce rate holds.
Why 1991? No specific reason was given. But from the evidence, it seems Canadians are progressively divorcing.
Here are some statistics (figures from Statistics Canada, as reported by Dr. Ambert):
| Year | Number of Divorces |
|---|---|
| 1961 | 6,563 |
| 1981 | 67,671 |
| 1987 | 96,200 |
| 1995 | 77,636 |
Statistics Canada reports that the peak year for the number of divorces was 1987, but that number has since stabilized. Whether the rates will increase again depends on changing Canadian lifestyle habits and value systems.
Next question: When do Canadian couples divorce? According to Statistics Canada, the highest rate of divorce occurs during the fifth year of marriage. By age 60, divorce becomes a rare statistic. The most susceptible age group for divorce is people in their late twenties.
Canadian remarriage rates are also eye-opening. These numbers explain why:
| Sex | Remarriage Rate |
|---|---|
| Males | 75% |
| Females | 65% |
- Males, 35-50 years old: 61%
- Females, 35-50 years old: 48%
- Males, 25-35 years old: 80%
- Females, 25-35 years old: 66%
What do these numbers tell us? Age is a significant factor when it comes to remarriage. For women who are divorced, the older they are, the fewer their chances of remarrying. This is not the case for men.
Divorce Statistics: USA
In an earlier article, Can A Marriage Work These Days?, we provided statistics on American divorce rates. Here’s a quick recap of the more relevant numbers:
- Number of married couples in 2000: 56.4 million
- Number of people who were divorced in 2000:
- Males: 8.5 million
- Females: 11.3 million
- Number of people who were separated in 2000:
- Males: 1.8 million
- Females: 2.6 million
We’d like to deviate from the standard quantitative reporting approach and take a more qualitative view of divorce. Divorce Magazine (US) conducted a poll on the subject of divorce. While the number of votes received doesn’t provide a representative sample of the population (since not many people answered the survey), it does give us an idea of the “forces” at play during and shortly after divorce.
Here’s a breakdown of the 2000 survey responses:
- Who initiated the divorce:
- Women: 106 votes
- Men: 80 votes
- Was the divorce ugly, friendly, or just OK:
- Ugly: 134 votes
- OK: 101 votes
- Friendly: 33 votes
- Would respondents still have gone ahead with the divorce after experiencing it?:
- Female, it was the right decision: 115 votes
- Female, it was the wrong decision: 29 votes
- Male, it was the right decision: 60 votes
- Male, it was the wrong decision: 44 votes
- What specific area of divorce law needs to be changed?:
- Child custody: 86 votes
- Grounds for divorce: 78 votes
- Child support: 67 votes
- Spousal support: 46 votes
- Distribution of property: 32 votes
- What was the most negative aspect of being divorced or separated?:
- Loneliness: Majority of responses
- Other common answers included financial insecurity, loss of self-esteem, and decreased contact with children. Surprisingly, the category “Nothing’s negative—it’s great to be single again” received zero votes.
Initially, we thought money problems were the #1 reason for divorce, but the survey revealed that infidelity ranked #1, followed by communication problems, incompatibility, emotional and physical abuse, money issues, and alcoholism.
Divorce Statistics – How NOT to Be Part of Them!
We can thank our lucky stars for the innovative and creative thinkers who devised clever ways for people in shaky marriages to avoid divorce courts as much as possible. Whoever came up with the ideas of marriage retreats, counseling, therapy, and religious guidance deserves credit for saving not just marriages but also the lives of individuals and their children.
Many people still believe in the “for life” notion of marriage—”till death do us part.” What God has put together, let no man put asunder. We have to take our hats off to the couples who give their marriage one last shot, no matter how bitter their fights. When individuals are willing to try, that’s when miracles happen.
A saved marriage is a beautiful miracle—perhaps the best on earth. When two people decide to save their marriage, it means they haven’t lost faith in themselves or in society. “The ties that bind” is one of the most eloquent phrases in the English language.
Po Bronson, a writer who frequently travels to find answers to life’s biggest questions, has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and authored five books and two novels. In his book Why Do I Love These People? (Random House, 2005), he shares a story about how one family weathers a crisis divorce. It’s intriguing how it often takes a crisis to discover who we are inside. Life’s ironies.
Bronson writes:
“There’s a phase where it feels like they are all trapped in a school bus without any brakes, careening down a windy road. They seek professional help. They seek religious guidance. They try some brutal honesty to get things out. Then there’s a phase where small moments of jeopardy are rescued by random kindness, which feels like the universe is looking out for you. The family tries some constructive behavior modification (they hold their tongues). They start to see the problem from one another’s perspectives, which leads to a first attempt at forgiveness… One day, they will be grateful for how this crisis has made them better people.” (p. 281)
