Red states see higher divorce rate, research shows

Fox 25 OKC ^ | 1-21-14 | By: Rebecca Schleicher

[Oliviaforever]

Divorce hits red states harder than blue states, according to new research out of the University of Texas and University of Iowa.

The research, published in the American Journal of Sociology, looks at religion and divorce and found the more conservative an area, the higher the divorce rate.

[South40]

People in blue states don’t get married in the first place.

They do where the perverted behavior of queer "marriage" is recognized as being a marriage.

[ully2]

Blue states probably have higher income inequality too for same reason.

[Oliviaforever]

That would be a huge factor in this data as conservative women in Red States do not have abortions.

[heye2monn]

<> True. But unfortunately lower class whites -- otherwise conservative -- are losing their morals too. The white out-of-wedlock birth rate is catching up with the abysmal black illegitimate rate. Blue collar whites are leaving churches and going on Social Security disability.

[wac3rd]

How many single moms on welfare in blue states?

Huh?

Huh?

Didn’t think you wanted facts.

[NEWwoman]

People in blue states don’t get married in the first place.

Bingo!

[zencycler]

Now read this very carefully to see if YOU can recognize the misleading methodology (not surprising) employed by this survey, in order to get the result that they wanted:

"...Alabama and Arkansas have the second and third highest divorce rates in the U.S., at 13 per 1000 people per year while New Jersey and Massachusetts, more liberal states, are two of the lowest at 6 and 7 per 1000 people per year."

Okay, did you spot it? If not, here is a hint:

at 13 per 1000 people
at 6 and 7 per 1000 people

That's right, they are measuring the divorce rate by taking the number of divorces per the number of PEOPLE in the population. Any good scientist knows that to reach conclusions from from a data set like this, you need to remove all the "variables". Clearly, in reaching the conclusion (that they wanted to reach) about conservatives they did not take into account that people in conservative states are far more likely go get married. More marriages, mean more divorces!

In other words, in these fractions 13/1000 vs. 6/1000 or 7/1000, the denominator should not be PEOPLE (1000) they should be MARRIAGES!

I am almost willing to bet that if this survey was done correctly, than the result would be something like 13/300 in the red state vs. 6/100 in the blue state, (or something like that). But of course, since that would shoe (correctly) the higher actual divorce rate in the blue states, they opted to use the flawed method to get the result that they wanted.

[Bogey78O]

Also it’s harder for non-smokers to quit smoking than smokers.

People who immerse themselves in water are more likely to drown than people who don’t.

[jch10]

I was going to say the same thing.

[zencycler]

Wish I could edit AFTER posting: "that would shoe (correctly) = "that would show (correctly)

[docbnj]

This is also working with lumped data: by states.

Actually, there are many states designated red or blue which have large minorities of the “wrong” political color. There are actually a fair number of conservative people in New Jersey, and they tend to stay married. The others get married at a low rate, and when they finally do, they don’t have very many years left in which to get divorced. There are many variables here, which is why working my whole states is not very useful.

One also must consider the population structure of each state.

It is also the case that people who marry more than once are often great believers in marriage: they will keep trying. People who don’t believe in marriage will simply cohabit, move on, and forget about it.

I have always wondered: if marriage is such a nuisance, why are gays so eager to have it? Do they see it as such a great success among normal people?

They claim that there are benefits. I think that really the motive is that they want social approval.

Well, not all normal (heterosexual) marriages are good. Sometimes the couple is mismatched, or too young, or two immature, or one or both are just not equipped for what marriage requires. I know many marriages which were disasters, mainly because one of the pair was dishonest, or somewhat unstable mentally.

One of my friends who suffered a bad marriage summed it up by asking, why can’t the good people marry each other, and the bad people stick together and mess up each other’s lives? Why do they have to marry good people and bring them grief? It’s a good point.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Ha! Ha! So desparate.

[MSF BU]

If the analysis were done county by county (or town in the case of New England) I am sure the results would be very different. There are very, very liberal voting counties in Alabama.

[zencycler]

Another good point!

[Gumdrop]

You beat me to it!

[elpadre]

I seriously doubt their research.

You don’t have to worry about the divorce rate in the blue states since they probably have large numbers who live together with out marriage. Only homosexuals want to get married in those places.

[Laserman]

“People in blue states don’t get married in the first place.”

Exactly!!

[Charles Henrickson]

As many have already said, the libs are so far gone, they don’t even bother to get married anymore, so of course their divorce rate is going to be lower.

[Marathoner]

People in blue states don’t get married in the first place.

Yep. Here in the People's Democratic Socialist Republic of Illinois it seems like virtually all the 20 somethings just cohabit (in my day it was called shacking up).

[TurboZamboni]

Is this my old college statistics prof?
(good catch)