Posted on 01/30/2014 5:17:18 AM PST by xzins
Divorce rate is higher among religiously conservative Protestants, and even among those living around them, finds a new study that examined all counties in the United States where divorces occurred and looked at what the characteristics of those counties were.
Demographers Jennifer Glass at the University of Texas and Philip Levchak at the University of Iowa looked at the entire map of the United States, and found that a key factor predicting divorce rates is the concentration of conservative Protestants in a county.
To be published in the American Journal of Sociology next month, the study notes that religiously conservative states 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 annually.
The researchers attribute it to the earlier ages at first marriage and first birth, and the lower educational attainment and lower incomes among conservative Protestant youth.
"Restricting sexual activity to marriage and encouraging large families seem to make young people start families earlier in life, even though that may not be best for the long-term survival of those marriages," the non-profit Council on Contemporary Families, where Glass is a senior scholar, quotes the researcher as saying.
In their study titled, "Red States, Blue States, and Divorce: Understanding Regional Variation in Divorce Rates," Glass and Levchak also say that people who simply live in counties with high proportions of religious conservatives are also more likely to divorce than their counterparts elsewhere.
The researchers say this is due to a cultural climate where most people expect to marry young and there is little support from schools or community institutions for young people to get more education and postpone marriage and children.
"Pharmacies might not give out emergency contraception. Schools might only teach abstinence education," Los Angeles Times quotes Glass as saying. "If you live in a marriage market where everybody marries young, you postpone marriage at your own risk. The best catches … are going to go first."
W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia is surprised. "In some contexts in America today, religion is a buffer against divorce. But in the conservative Protestant context, this paper is showing us that it's not," he tells the Times, adding that the study also showed that more "secularism" was also linked to higher rates of divorce.
Good Point!
It would be interesting to see the statistics of how many people are in a "committed-relationship" per state, and what percentage of those people are married, shacked up, etc. I imagine that would not be too hard to figure out, and the fact that this study does not address this obvious point at all points to an agenda.
Their birth control argument is stupid. I didn’t consider that even for a second. I do think there’s some merit to the idea that some feel pressured to get married and some don’t. If pressured to get married, then a lot of uncommitted people would get married who shouldn’t.
Overall, though, I think we’ve seriously cheapened the notion of martial commitment around the country. I do think that many Christians don’t have high standards for marriage anymore.
:: Their birth control argument is stupid ::
I agree but...that was the reason behind “commissioning” of this study.
A pre-determined outcome.
Well, we’ve seen “studies” that show we conservatives are fat, stupid, violent, more likely to beat our wives and now we are more likely to get divorced. I guess these “studies” prove we are just inferior to liberal counties and we should all just listen to them.
you are the lucky one
Yep, I think that’s the gist of it.
They’d actually like to be able to punish us for not recognizing their superiority, but shutting up and not opposing them would be a start.
it’ ssatan breaking them up
now I know Protestants don’e believe in the devil or evil any more
but they should
they also should call to the carpet members of their congregation who are adulterers
they also should refuse to do second marriages
Loyalty to the Pope is unAmerican.
I spend a lot of time trying to tell these morons that want a dee vorce that they are supposed to self sacrifice for their family and put their kids first.
but most are putting their genitals first
Divorce rates are always going to be higher among people who actually marry.
Don’t know if it is any way related, but on my trips to several towns in the Bible Belt, I could not help but notice that they seemed to contain more nudie bars than I’ve seen in Pennsylvania and Ohio combined.
To be honest, I did not read the piece, but my reaction to the headline is
Perhaps there is a higher divorce rate among these Protestant conservatives because they are more likely to marry instead of just shacking up the way so many are doing these days.
Only God can judge the heart.The multiples of factors that weigh into such personal decisions cannot be reduced to mere declaration of religious affiliation in a State/community. The assumption made in the introduction to this post is fallacious in that it presumes the Protestant affiliation of a community reflects on the individual choice. which is subjective and not inspected. I grew up in Colorado where the State decided to experiment with No fault divorce —when I was still too young to think of “marriage”or divorce. While in public school I witnessed the demographics of the classroom change from one where most of my peers had both a father and a mother —to one where most of the class came from “broken” homes. I was affected by the community standards that if my marriage didn’t work out the way I wanted it to I could “always get divorced” no consequences. So when the trials came instead of working at the “marriage” we got divorced. I claimed to be a Christian when we “married” and when we divorced— but I did not understand the Christian faith until many years later.so the study is an intellectual exercise but irrelevant.
Of course, but these counties had higher divorce rates for everybody regardless of the couple being a conservative protestant or not.
It raise the questions: (1) why do conservative counties have more who marry?, and (2) why do people who say they reject divorce go ahead and divorce anyway
Oh brother! So now being Protestant is a predictor of education?
I have a professional degree.
My wife has an advanced degree.
My oldest is applying to grad school.
My middle daughter is in college.
My youngest takes AP courses and is doing the college search thing.
Take my family out of any discussion and anyone can see this article is clearly a hit piece.
I don’t know about the methodology here but I’ll offer an anecdote:
My husband plays in our local church softball league (men only). Our Catholic church team is made up of families. Dads play while moms talk and kids play around. Most of the Protestant churches have baby mamas and boyfriends. Boyfriends play while their girlfriends talk and illegitimate kids play around. It seems the churches we play love the sinner and the sin. This is the tristate area of the Ohio Valley.
Please, this is anecdotal only! I’m sure everyone can claim an experience just the opposite!
Your denomination was not one considered Conservative Protestant in the study. Presbies would be considered mainline protestant.
Go to link at post #53 and then to the end of the paper
Probably because suburbia is full of people in the business world ... working 70-80 hours per week to buy the next big thing ... and those usually areas tend to be republican protestant strongholds.
Sorry, but when you put making money over everything else, marriages suffer.
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