The Wall Street Journal Blows It
There is no credible evidence that divorce is making a "comeback"
by David Blankenhorn, January 15, 2002

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal ran a feature article by Jeffrey Zaslow entitled "Divorce Makes a Comeback."  To back up the dramatic conclusion that divorce is making "a comeback" in the U.S., the story announces that "tense times" are prompting more couples to split up, that divorces are becoming more contentious, and that as a result "pessimism has returned to the divorce arena." But the story offers little evidence to support these claims, and ignores much evidence to the contrary.  Also, the story's general statements about U.S. divorce rates are confused and misleading.  

Divorce rates peaked in the U.S. in about 1979, when the crude divorce rate (divorces per 1,000 persons) reached 5.7 and the refined divorce rate (divorces per 1,000 married women) reached 22.  Since then, the crude rate has fallen by about 25 percent and the refined rate has fallen by about 10 percent. Therefore, the story's statement that divorce rates have "remained steady" since the early 1980s is inaccurate. The story's curious definition of the divorce rate as "the proportion of splits to marriages in any given year," along with a chart purporting to put that number at 50 for the year 1998, make no sense and only adds to the confusion.

No current scholarly evidence suggests that divorce is making a "comeback." A few claims from divorce lawyers that their caseloads since 9/11 are holding steady or slightly increasing are all but meaningless when it comes to measuring divorce rates. Similarly, some random claims from local court officers that divorce or domestic violence cases have increased slightly since 9/11 does not even begin to prove that divorce rates are increasing.  And to demonstrate that divorces are becoming more contentious, Mr. Zaslow will have to do better than asking divorce lawyers whether their clients are angry with each other -- a methodology which, among its many flaws, excludes from consideration the many divorcing couples today who opt for mediation, not litigation.  

In general, the story's attempts to link 9/11 to changes in the divorce rate are unserious and smack of sensationalism. For example, Mr. Zaslow writes that there is no evidence that 9/11 has contributed directly to a reduction in divorce, which is true, but then goes on to suggest that worries about terrorism are contributing to an increase in divorce, a claim which he justifies by anecdotes. His suggestion that a possible war in Iraq will contribute to divorce making a "comeback" is equally speculative and unsubstantiated.

Finally, the notion that economic hard times are causing more couples to divorce appears in the story's sub-headline: "Poor Economy, Tense Times Prompt More Couples to Call It Quits." Yet the story itself says only that the poor economy is "having little ameliorative effect" on the divorce rate.  The Journal offers not a shred of evidence -- not even an anecdote -- to justify the claim that bad economic times are driving up the divorce rate.