Map shows US marriage and divorce rates

The Pew Research Center has an interactive map that shows marriage and divorce rates in the United States. The adjacent report, released this weekend, has some interesting statistics for trivia-hounds; for example, the District of Columbia has the highest percentage of single men (72%) as well as the highest median age of women at the time of their first marriage (30). Interactive map — the state of marriage and divorce

I'm a contributing editor here at Boing Boing. I also have a blog (TokyoMango), a book (Urawaza), and I freelance for Wired, Make, the NY Times Magazine, PRI's Studio360, etc. I'm @tokyomango on Twitter.

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airshowfan

It might be fun to try and spot correlations between that map and this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Samesex_marriage_in_USA.svg

I was hoping that the places with more divorce (i.e. where the supposed sanctity of marriage is least respected) would, ironically, be the ones against same-sex marriage. I don’t really see a strong correlation, though.
frederga

for example, the District of Columbia has the highest percentage of single men (72%) as well as the highest median age of women at the time of their first marriage (30).

Any set of statistics applied to the 50 states AND DC is going to show DC as being the most of a lot of things. It says precious little about DC compared to other places, because DC is the only city being considered as just a downtown area without all the surrounding suburbs, countryside, etc.

Let’s see a map with percentages of the population that live in cities. I bet DC is really high on that one!
Manooshi

I just saw a dude on Twitter link to this and basically blame the higher divorce rates on the coasts on the “coastal women”. Right. Just blame the bitch. *Le sigh*
Joe

Notice that the Bible Belt is the land of “married three or more times”. They believe in marriage so much down there that they do it again and again.
Joe

Manooshi: the divorce rate is lower on the coasts, and highest in the deep south (Mass. has the lowest divorce rate). The total currently divorced isn’t that different, but in places like Arkansas and Mississippi, a lot of folks have been married and divorced again and again.
blammorina

Note Arkansas “share married 3 or more times” is 10%. Wow.
Anonymous

A figure for “Cohabiting, not married” would be helpful here for perspective. Higher marriage rates (and remarriage rates) might reflect a stigma against shacking up.

That is what I would guess too. I think people have a certain instinct to … shall we say, ‘mate.’ When in cultures where that is only accepted through marriage, that is what they do. When not in such cultures, they may or may not.

Of course this is just idle, mildly-anti-religious speculation. But what are these discussions for!
Manooshi

Joe: Thanks for the clarification. It’s really unfortunate how often statistics are warped and manipulated to rationalize a narrow paradigm and/or agenda.

Qualitative analysis of quantitative data is a messy business.
mdh

this goes against all my anecdotal evidence, it must be made up.
Brainspore

I guess Hollywood is just going to have to try harder if they want to succeed in destroying marriage. How do they expect to complete their secret socialist zionist agenda to undermine family values if they can’t even get it together in their own state?
benher

@Tensegrity No! You totally beat me to it! Now how am I going to start my morning with a smile?
SamSam

Agree that this is misleading. A casual look would lead one to say that divorce rates are pretty equal thoughout the country, because of that second chart. But as the last chart shows, divorce rate is actually much higher in ther center.

Why doesn’t this site just show a “divorce rate” chart? Heck, we still don’t know which states have a higher divorce rate from these charts: the center states could just have more people who marry three times, but for all we know, the coastal states could have more people who remarry once. (I don’t think this is the case, though, if recollection serves).

Anyway, I think the strongest correlation these charts show is age of first marriage vs. multiple-divorce rate. I would think it fairly unquestionable that this is either causality or both created by the same cause.
Tensegrity

See, prop 8 worked! This map proves that marriage was successfully protected in California!
Tensegrity

Also, “married 3 or more times” in Utah means a different thing than it does in California.
Gilgongo

Is this also an example of how religion is pretty much powerless to affect modern social patterns? I mean, if you go to “immoral” CA, the divorce rate is lower than that of God-fearing Kansas. A similar situation might be seen in, say, Peru – where most people pray to God all the time, yet life appears pretty cheap, and corruption is everywhere.
Cicada

A figure for “Cohabiting, not married” would be helpful here for perspective. Higher marriage rates (and remarriage rates) might reflect a stigma against shacking up.
Anonymous

I would rather see it broken down by counties. That would probably tell a more true account of the rates, similar to the whole red state/blue state fallacy. Broken down by counties, nearly every state was red, except for the major cities, where people traditionally rely more on government services.
Bill Albertson

You know, it’s stats like this that encourage people to try and outlaw divorce in California…

/s