Divorce in America and Illinois remains a complicated subject. Experts often look at trends to get insight on marriages and divorce to see what this says about changing patterns in society.
One broad trend is that both marriages and divorces continue to decline in the past ten years. A few other statistics shine a light on divorce patterns.
States with the highest and lowest divorce rates
U.S. News & World Report recently looked at how states’ divorce rates compare. Data shows that some states have divorce rates that are statistically different than other states and that regional differences also exist. For example, Western states tend to have more divorces than Northeastern states. The top five states in 2019 for divorces per 1,000 married women are as follows:
- Arkansas at 10.70%
- Oklahoma at 10.40%
- Nevada at 10.20%
- New Mexico at 10.20%
- Kentucky at 10.10%
On the other end of the spectrum, Illinois had a divorce rate of 6.20% in 2019. Only five states reported a lower divorce rate in that year.
Divorce rates among other groups
A few years ago, the Washington Post broke down the frequency of divorce by race, education, employment status and gender. The data showed a continuing trend to fewer divorces, perhaps leading to less than 33% of marriages ending in divorce in the near future. Data also clearly showed that some groups experience higher divorce rates.
For example, about 39% of men with a high school education or less undergo at least one divorce in their lifetimes (for women in this group, the rate is 37%). For men and women with a bachelor’s degree, the numbers fall to 28% for men and 29% for women.
