066 RECENT DECLINE IN DIVORCE RATE MAY BE DUE TO AGING POPULATION

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Lisa L. Rollins, 615-898-2919 or lrollins@mtsu.edu

RECENT DECLINE IN DIVORCE RATE MAY BE DUE TO AGING POPULATION
Baby Boomers Also Less Likely to Remarry After Children are Grown, Prof Says

(MURFREESBORO, Tenn.)—Thanks to a seemingly unending barrage of studies and related media reports, most are familiar with the widely touted statistic that one in two marriages end in divorce.
More recent data, however, suggests that the widely touted 50/50 ratio is leaning more in favor of marital success than it once did. Although exactly why the numbers are shifting in favor of marriage is not something most researchers can precisely pin down, most seem to agree that after more than 100 years of rising divorce rates in the United States, that number dramatically decreased around 1980.
Dr. Janet Belsky, an expert on lifespan development and professor of psychology at MTSU, said that one thing to consider when surmising why the divorce rate seems to be slowing considerably is the overall age of the population.
“As food for thought, perhaps a good deal of decline in the divorce rate is just due to the aging of the population,” she observed. “People tend to get divorced when they are younger, so naturally, you would have less divorce happening if a higher percentage of people are in their older years.”
According to one reported cited in The New York Times, researchers have said that about 60 percent of all divorces ultimately come to an end during the first decade of marriage. However, per the same study, when it comes to college graduates, the divorce rate for this group during the first 10 years of marriage has dropped to just 16 percent for those who married between 1990 and ’94; that’s down from 27 percent of those who wed between 1970 and ’75.
Belsky is among those who are not surprised by the possible correlation between more education and the decline in divorce numbers.
“As a lifespan teacher, I always take a poll to see what percentage of my (college) students have had parents who divorced, or have grown up in a single-parent family, because it’s typically about 50 percent,” she said. “(My students) are well aware of the depressing divorce statistics and they’re vitally interested in how can they choose the right person? How can they make marriage last?
“One big change I see is that students now feel that it’s not appropriate to get married at a young age,” she continued. “I see college students expressing that you need to put off marriage until you are well-established in your career. In other words, today marriage actually comes last as an adult transition, and sometimes even well after a baby has arrived.
“When you elevate marriage as something to do after you ‘get your life together,’” Belsky said, “I believe you actually make it more important. It’s then something that’s been carefully considered. You just don't rush into having a wedding for a weddings' sake.”
Consequently, reasoned Belsky, having “a thoughtful approach” toward marriage helps make one “more likely to ‘stay the course’ and usually results in being
committed to staying married”—never minding, of course, that “the research also shows
this results in a lower chance of getting divorced.”
Nonetheless, per one twice-divorced single mom, the lack of a college education had nothing to do with her divorces, she said, but prolonged bitterness, repeated physical and emotional abuse, and cheating did.
Now 42, Lorie Mitchell admittedly married young when she left high school for California, where she wed her first husband, David, then 20 and in the military, only a month after she turned 18.
“We went to a month of counseling classes before we got married to make sure we were wanting the same things in life, that we didn’t have different agendas,” she said. “It really was helpful and it made us think, and if you’re open to it—and we both really were—it helped us be able to go home and really talk about things. We knew (marriage) wasn’t going to be easy from the beginning, but we both wanted it.”
In spite of their youth, Mitchell said, both she and her husband initially were “very committed to the marriage.” Looking back now, though, she said she was “too idealistic and too willing to forgive things I shouldn’t forgive over and over and over again.”
After the couple had children, Mitchell was torn between preserving the marriage for the sake of their two young sons or living with behaviors she found difficult to endure.
“We did bring up the idea of marriage counseling again, but by the time we did, it was too late then. There was too much water under the bridge, we’d said too many nasty things,” she recalled, “You can’t take that stuff back, but I think if we had gone (to counseling again) sooner, before the bitterness set in so deeply, it would have made a big difference.”
In her mid-20s, Mitchell married again and had another son during that marriage, but unfortunately, it was a far more tumultuous union than her first. In fact, if not for a rapid rescue by her oldest brother John, who is now a sheriff’s deputy, Mitchell is adamant that she most likely would have lost her life as a result of the extreme abuse she suffered.
“I won’t forgive endlessly now, but when I was young, I put up with more,” Mitchell said. “Having children made me more forgiving, because I wanted my children to have a father, but at the same time, after I had children, my sights were set higher in regard to relationships and who I would want around my children.”
A single parent for the past 10 years, Mitchell’s youngest son graduated early, at 17, in May. And it’s only quite recently, she said, that she’s begun to steal time away from parenting to date again.
“I’m older now, and I’d be just as committed to a romantic relationship today as when I was younger, but my heart is harder,” she conceded. Additionally, not unlike many single women her age, Mitchell isn’t so sure marriage is something she’d ever do again.
“I’ve been married twice and it didn’t work in spite of my dedication to it, so my view now is the paper, the marriage license, doesn’t make a difference,” she said. “Plus, I expect more now, because I’ve accepted some really bad behaviors in the past. … I even did individual marriage counseling—counseling on my own when my husband wouldn’t do it—but I really don’t see a need in marriage for me anymore.
“I am still a big believer in counseling,” she added, “and you have to be totally honest to do any kind of counseling, and I believe in marriage, but for me, I don’t see a need.
“If my kids were younger and still needed a significant male in their lives, then I’d consider it, but they are already grown,” she reasoned. “I’m not looking for a father and for a mate, I am looking only for me at this point. My children will be friends with someone I chose to have a relationship with, but he would not be their father.”
With two failed marriages and three grown children added to her life experiences, Mitchell—as well as many others—“are more practical and knowledgeable” when it comes to weighing the pros and cons of marriage these days, Belsky said.
“For instance,” the professor observed, “while my students still want to find their passionate soul mate, they really understand that passion wanes after the first few years. They also understand that you have to marry someone who shares your values, and it’s important to find a person who is together and knows how to love. Plus, when you get married in your late 20s or 30s, you are more likely to stay with a partner simply because you have had ample time to have those horrible dating experiences—you don't have a fantasy about who or what is waiting out there in terms of the single life.
Today’s 20somethings, Belsky said, realize “ that just being carried away by romance is a total no-no. And don't neglect the role here of peer pressure. After all, your friends will think you are an idiot for making that irresponsible choice.”
Still, Belsky suggested, “In the long run, there may be fewer divorces because people are more reluctant to get married in the first place; they don't feel they ‘have to get married’ just to be married. Today, there are so many alternatives such as living together, so people put the bar much higher for entering that (marital) state.”
Baby boomers especially, she said, may be reluctant to wed if they’ve already “been there, done that” and have children.
“Getting married in your 50s, and particularly for women, really doesn't make all that much sense to some. You are either used to the single life or, for both men and women, it makes much more sense to just live together,” she said, “because there is no reason—such as children—to actually get married at all.”


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