Jeff Landers, a family law author and frequent contributor to Forbes magazine on divorce-related articles, weighed in recently with some interesting information and statistics on what has been trending in the area of divorce in recent years.
In starting with the fact that about 45 percent of American marriages end in divorce, Landers notes that the divorce rate has actually been in a bit of a decline nationally over the past three decades. A main catalyst for that has been a downtick on the number of marriages during the same period, as cohabitation outside of marriage has become less of a taboo for many families than it was in previous generations.
Another point noted by Landers is that it is women far more often than men who are filing for divorce, for myriad reasons. In fact, women initiate divorce in about two-thirds of all cases.
The main reason for that often owes to the rising economic independence of many women in recent years. As increasingly more women attain higher education levels and rise progressively in the workforce, the financial freedom attaching to that dissuades many of them from putting up with bad marriages that they might formerly have felt unable to terminate.
Another quite noticeable trend — and one this blog has noted in select prior posts — is so-called “grey divorce,” that is, the increasing number of divorces among older couples. Again, that often owes these days to women’s increased financial independence.
The marriage- and divorce-related demographics in the United States are obviously in flux. Given that, Landers notes that the many emerging and even unique considerations that play out in divorce render it essential that a proven attorney be on board to help a divorcing party navigate the terrain and obtain what is in her or his best interests.
Source: Forbes, “Not your mother’s divorce: three 21st century trends,” Jeff Landers, June 20, 2013
