Church going Christians have lower divorce rates

 http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2011/08/does-religion-protect-against-divorce/

According to this study, divorce rates weren’t lower for religious people — unless they attended services:

Frequency of divorce and separation among 15,714 adults from the British Social Attitudes data set for 1985-2005 peaked at around 50 years of age, and increased significantly over the period of study. Ratios of marital breakdown were compared between those of no religious affiliation and Christian affiliates with different levels of church attendance.  

Frequent Christian attendees were 1.5 times less likely to suffer marital breakdown than nonaffiliates, but there was no difference between nonattending Christian affiliates and those of no religion. Infrequent Christian attendees were 1.3 times less likely to suffer marital breakdown compared to nonaffiliates, suggesting that even infrequent church attendance might have some significance for predicting the persistence of marital solidarity.

Source: “Does Religion Make a Difference? Assessing the Effects of Christian Affiliation and Practice on Marital Solidarity and Divorce in Britain, 1985–2005″ from Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, Volume 51, Issue 6, 2010

This is similar to the research on happiness and religion; religion makes us happier but much of that increase is due to the social aspects of it.

Read More

Does living together before marriage increase or decrease the chance of divorce?

Via The New York Times:

In a nationwide survey conducted in 2001 by the National Marriage Project, then at Rutgers and now at the University of Virginia, nearly half of 20-somethings agreed with the statement, “You would only marry someone if he or she agreed to live together with you first, so that you could find out whether you really get along.” About two-thirds said they believed that moving in together before marriage was a good way to avoid divorce.

But that belief is contradicted by experience. Couples who cohabit before marriage (and especially before an engagement or an otherwise clear commitment) tend to be less satisfied with their marriages — and more likely to divorce — than couples who do not.

And:

She was talking about what researchers call “sliding, not deciding.” Moving from dating to sleeping over to sleeping over a lot to cohabitation can be a gradual slope, one not marked by rings or ceremonies or sometimes even a conversation. Couples bypass talking about why they want to live together and what it will mean.

Read More

Does a female breadwinner raise risk of divorce?

Yes, and substantially so:

"Using German panel data from 1984 to 2007, we analyze the impact of labor division between husband and wife on the risk of divorce.

Gary Becker’s theory of marriage predicts that specialization in domestic and market work, respectively, reduces the risk of separation. Traditionally, the breadwinner role is assigned to the husband, however, female labor force participation and their wages have risen substantially.

Our results suggest that there are gender-specific differences, e.g. female breadwinner-couples have a substantially higher risk of divorce than male breadwinner-couples.

In contrast, the equal division does not significantly alter the probability of separation."

Source: "Effect of Labor Division between Wife and Husband on the Risk of Divorce: Evidence from German Data" from IZA Discussion Paper No. 4515, October 2009

Read More