Stevenson, who studies marriage and divorce statistics, recently used the statistics to develop the
Marriage Calculator, which allows users to examine their risk of divorce compared to others who married about the same age, have the same education level and have been married for about as long.
It also uses historical census data to predict a user's risk of divorce in the next five years. Keeping in mind that anything more than 7 percent is a high risk, the Marriage Calculator, predicts that "The Hills" stars Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt have a combined average of 12 percent of divorcing within the next five years.
"No one has done this before," Stevenson said. "People can use this tool to think about hypotheticals."
Though most Americans think the divorce rate is high at 50 percent, the good news is that the number of divorces has fallen since 1979. Stevenson, who also studied
"Trends in Marital Stability" with Wolfers, said couples who marry today are less likely to divorce than couples in previous generations.
Today's statistics show that a little more than 40 percent of Americans divorce each year. But the risk for divorce can depend on the circumstances, said Stevenson, who studied divorce rates in "Marriage
and Divorce: Changes and their Driving Forces," research co-authored with Justin Wolfers. "Different types of people face different divorce rates historically," Stevenson said.
David Popenoe, co-director of the
National Marriage Project, said the age of first marriages has increased since the 1950s, when women married at age 19. That's climbed from 23 for men and 21 for women in 1970 to 27.5 for men and 25.5 for women in 2006, said William A. Galston of The Brookings Institution, a non-profit public policy organization.
That's about the age of approval for most parents, according to an as yet unpublished study by Jason Carroll, an associate professor at Brigham Young University. Carroll recently told USA TODAY that college students from 18-25 suggested 25 was the best age to get married, while their parents suggested they should wait another year – until they were 26 – to give themselves a better shot at making it work.
New York Attorney
Bernard Rothman, author of "Loving & Leaving: Winning at the Business of Divorce" said couples tend to divorce after only a few years of marriage. "...Today, people approach marriage differently. Their philosophy is, 'If it isn't smooth, we'll just get out," he said.
MARRYING YOUNG AN ISSUE
If marrying later helps, marrying earlier doesn't, statistics show. First marriages with women under the age of 18 are more likely to end in divorce, according to
Brette Sember,a retired attorney, author of "The Divorce Organizer and Planner." "The divorce rates are quite high for this group."
Kay Moffett, author of "
Not Your Mother's Divorce: A Practical, Girlfriend-to-Girlfriend Guide to Surviving the End of a Young Marriage," said young couples usually get married for the wrong reasons: "They're simply too excited about their relationship, about being married, having accomplished what they feel they've been pressured to do, often by their peers." Older couples are more willing to compromise: "Couples who have dated more are not so shocked, they tend to see their partner in a more realistic light," Moffett said.
A 2001 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that 48 percent of those who married before 18 were more likely to divorce within 10 years. "…The brains of teens and those in their early 20s are not fully mature, so to expect someone to make a lifelong commitment and be able to stick to it at this age is just not realistic," Sember explained.
Sociology instructor Caroline Schacht of East Carolina University agreed, saying it's not that tough to tell when you're ready for marriage. "At some point, most adults reach a level of stability in their self-concepts, values and priorities so that there is not a drastic change over a five-year period. A good rule of thumb is that if a person can look back over the last five years and feel that they are essentially the same person as they are today (in terms of self-concept, values, and priorities), then they are ready for a marital commitment," she said.
Whether you agree with the statistics or not, waiting until later in life to get married is a good idea, according to Lori Gorshow, the owner and president of Dating Made Simple, at
www.makedatingsimple.com, a dating coach service. "As you gain more real-world experience, you gain wisdom," Gorshow said. "And with wisdom, you can apply that to your relationship."
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