I concur with the statements made above. The statistics on divorce listed on the OP's link does not take into account the underlying demographics of either the 50% of those marriages that end up in divorce, or in the re-marriages that also ultimately end up in divorce. If you control for a number of variables (age, income level, number of children, etc.) there would be consistent differences that could arise in the success rates of marriages.First off, let's take a look at the " statistics " .. There is no categorical breakdown of the 50% of first timer's breakdown. What are the rates for those married earlier than 25 years old? Earlier than 25 years old with kids, without kids? What are the stats for married at over 3o years old, with kids? Oh, and when you look at the Canadian stats, watch the rates drop if you exclude Quebec ( no, I'm not kidding ). Last time I checked, the failure rate of marriages where both were over thirty, with kids, was around twenty per cent.
Second and third marriages have a statistically higher failure rate, true, but once again, if the stats are broken down further, you'll see a significant differrence when you look at seconds and thirds where one or both sides already have kids. More kids, higher divorce rate. How many people do you know that got re-married, and their kids didn't like the "new" Mom or Dad, that ended in divorce? Stuffing an unwanted parent or sibling down a kid's throat is a receipe for disaster.
If it cost 100 K to get married and $50.00 to get divorced, what would that do to the stats?
•More than 100,000 children each year are affected by divorce and separation. (Conway, John, Children of Divorce/Canadian Family in Crisis,1993)
•37.7% (70,155) of Canadian marriages end in divorce. (Stats Can 2002)
•41% of children with single mothers have one or more emotional, behavioural, academic or social problems - a rate 1½ to 2 times that of children in two-parent families. (Stats Can 1996)
•Divorce is a direct cause of poverty for a large proportion of women and their children.
•65.8 % of children in single-mother families lived in poverty. (Vanier Institute Study, 1994)
•56,000 Canadian grandparents (or 1% of the total) are raising their grandchildren. (Stats Can 2002)
•Children who experience a parent's death or divorce are more likely to leave home earlier, are less likely to finish school and are more likely to rely on income assistance as adults.(Ambert, Dr. Ann-Marie, Divorce: Facts, Figures and Consequences 1998)
•From 50% to 80% of patients treated by Canadian mental health clinics are from separated families. (Fine, Stuart, Children in Divorce, Custody and Access Situations, CCIC)
•Parental loss was the single most powerful predictor of adult psychopathology. (Brier et al, CCIC)
What would be more interesting to me is to look at the following: (1) are there significant differences in various social factors between those marriages that are still "successful" (i.e. still married) after 10 years vs those that are divorced/separated; (2) are there differences between those marriages that end in divorce say after 5 years vs 10 or 25 years; (3) are there significant differences in social factors between divorces after re-marriage vs first time divorces (suggested by the quote above); and (4) among the "successful" marriages, what percentage of these marriages can be identified as "satisfied" or "happy" (these can be assessed with surveys) and determine any psychological characteristics of those "successful" marriages that are identified as "happy".