I'm sticking-to-my-guns with the same old crass estimation method as before, where any deviation from the US average is assumed for the non-Mormon population of Utah.
US divorce rate: 3.4 per 1,000
Utah divorce rate: 3.6 per 1,000
Estimated Mormon divorce rate: 3.7
If accurate, the Mormon divorce rate would be 9% higher than the national average. This actually surprises me quite a bit! The previous estimations have definitely biased me in favor of the Mormon effect
One potentially viable explanation could be that it's a side effect of Mormon's getting married younger. The average age for a woman getting married in Utah is 23.3, the second lowest in the country. This is significantly lower than the national average of 27 for women (16% younger). If we apply our crass estimation method, the average age for Mormon women would be 21 (28% younger).
So Mormon women are married, on average 6 years younger then the general population. Also, it appears lower income is correlated to a higher divorce rate - and Mormons first get married when income is lowest for a family. So, when one considers the 28% younger average marriage age among Mormons women, the 9% higher divorce rate doesn't makes more sense.
Another way to look at it: if the median length of marriage in the US is 40 years, Mormons are, on average, aiming at 15% longer marriage than the average American couple, while also handling the stress of 40% more kids, the stress of lower initial family incomes, and only having a 9% higher divorce rate as a side effect. That's not too shabby!
Possible further analysis: We should probably account for shifting in cultural norms. While Mormons try prevent sex before marriage (hence the younger marriage age), society at large encourages sexual relations before marriage. If broad societal sexual practices were examined from a Mormon (or traditionally Christian) moral perspective (i.e. each ended sexual relationship as a "divorce"), the Mormon divorce rate might appear much lower than the national average.
What you said in the possible further analysis seems important to me.
ReplyDeleteDivorce rates for official marriages don't really mean much when a large % of people are living in common-law marriages, or not being married in a relevant sense of the term.
A better statistic might be average time of coupling, or some such thing.
It would be interesting to see divorce rates relative to how active the people are in the Mormon church, and compare that to other religions.
Somewhat similarly, divorce rates for people self-identifying as 'Catholic' doesn't mean much - what is more interesting when trying to gauge the effects of a religion is divorce rates among active Catholics, and whether the more active a Catholic is the less likely a divorce.
Thanks ajb, that's great advice. I also assume Mormons are more active in general than Catholics in general, but I'll have to see if the data is available. If Mormons are more active (% wise) is that another testament to its "benefits" or truth?
ReplyDeleteI've been attending Catholic churches for the last couple years. Unfortunately, the one I like most is almost entirely elderly people, with 75% or so of the pews empty.