Newly published divorce research presents interesting findings

So, is the divorce rate in Illinois and nationally going up or down?

Although that is certainly a straightforward and simple enough question to ask, a definitive and unequivocal answer has long seemed to be more than a bit elusive.

A professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign readily weighs in on the subject.

In addition to his classroom duties, that academic, Robert Hughes, Jr., also contributes media pieces on divorce-related topics. In an article he recently penned for the Huffington Post, Hughes cites recent research that challenges what he states have long been “common findings” that are flatly erroneous.

What those findings centrally posit, he says, is this: The divorce rate nationally topped out about three and a half decades ago and has been steadily waning since that time.

“This seems to be wrong,” he writes.

Instead, Hughes points to recently published research that he states is comparatively superior to past efforts. He supports its central conclusion, namely, that the divorce rate across the country “has been steadily increasing for the past 30 years.”

The research that has grabbed Hughes’ attention was conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota. Hughes says that their work has revealed quality-related problems in data collection and reporting in earlier studies.

That alone, he notes, is a key contribution to greater accuracy in divorce-related information. The recent findings are further buttressed, though, by their reliance on divorce data that has now been supplied for several years by respondents to the United States Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Hughes says that the information that can be readily culled is “generally the best scientific assessment” of divorce trends in the country.

Hughes also states that the Minnesota research is valuable for its consideration of the divorce patterns existing among different age demographics. Among other things, the findings readily reveal that older Americans — including baby boomers well into their 60s — are seeking divorces more often than they were in previous decades.

The American divorce landscape is always complex and evolving. Persons with questions regarding divorce-related issues can contact an experienced divorce attorney for candid and confidential advice.

Source: Huffington Post, “Is the US divorce rate going up rather than going down?” Robert Hughes, Jr., March 6, 2014