What is the Actual Divorce Rate?

There’s a great deal of confusion among people about what the actual divorce rate in the United States is today.

Some say it’s around 50%. Others contend it’s nowhere close. Some simply hold that this statistic stems from a terrible misunderstanding of the data. No one but a small handful of family scholars really seems sure just what the current rate of divorce is. But it doesn’t need to be this way.

It is important to know the actual divorce rate so that we have a sober understanding of how bad the story is regarding marital longevity. Or is the story not really that bad? Is there reason for hope?

The true divorce rate is both a good and bad news story. And in some important regards, there is some remarkably good news that is unknown to most people, but should be part of the discussion. Getting a complete picture of what the divorce rate actually is requires recognizing four different ways leading family scholars measure the prevalence of divorce.

Three primary measurements are used, as well as a fourth, not as commonly utilized, method. They are referred to below using the same terms and definitions that scholars do…

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