Jennifer Lopez: “I’ve finished my marriage”
Jennifer Lopez has revealed that she has not planned to walk the aisle again for a long time, as she has been divorced four times.
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We’ve all heard of it: 50% of marriages end with divorce. After all, that’s not true.
Divorce has recently become a popular topic in recent conversations as it has changed the champions of certain state legislators, making it difficult to get a disability-free divorce.
People behind the push say that Norfault’s divorce threatens traditional family structures and contributes to rising divorce rates, but data shows that most marriages don’t end with divorce, and the rate has been steadily declining since the 1980s.
It’s all part of the great divorce myth.
“It’s like crime. People tend to assume they’re always going up. Or it’s part of modern life and it’s always worse than ever,” said Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland. “That’s not true. The divorce rate is declining.”
Marriages have also been steadily declining, but these marriages appear to be stronger than unions in the past decades, according to data from the National Center for Family Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University.
Susan Brown, co-director of the center, explains this in part by the fact that people are waiting longer for marriage.
“As people wait longer for marriage, they are safer than mature financially and emotionally, which helps to strengthen the stability of the couple,” she said.
“Marriage has become more unusual, but it’s even better.”
The US divorce rate has been declining since it peaked in 1980, according to NCFMR data. Marriage has also declined 54% since 1900.
At that height in 1920, the marriage rate was 92.3 per 1,000 unmarried women. According to NCFMR, it fell to 76.5 women in 1970 and another 31.3 women in 2022.
Research shows that those who are more likely to marry tend to be older, educated and wealthy. Experts say these married couples are unlikely to get divorced due to common stressors such as financial instability.
“Marriages have become more unusual, but better, so the divorce rate has dropped,” Cohen said.
“The Engine of Inequality”
Research shows that marriage is not getting better for everyone.
According to NCFMR, the data shows that the highest divorce rate for 2023 is among high school-level education men and college-educated women.
These groups also became less likely to marry in the first place. The highest first marriage rate was one of the highest educational attainment in 2023, while the lowest first marriage rate was between men and women who were under high school education.
Society places marriage on a “pedestal,” among other “very high expectations,” Brown said, where financial stability is a requirement for “the meaning of having a good marriage.” This partially encouraged the “increasing gap” between marriage and divorce rates.
“We were able to describe marriage in this modern era as an engine of inequality,” she said.
“Grey Divorce”
There is another exception to the trends in marriage and divorce: gray divorce.
Divorce rates have steadily declined in most age groups, but are increasing among men and women over the age of 45. According to NCFMR, the biggest increase in divorce rates is for women over the age of 65, nearly four times higher than 1.4 per 1,000 in 1990 to 5.6 in 2021.
This is the same generation that promoted divorce rates in the 1970s and ’80s, Cohen points out.
“The baby boomer generation has brought us a ‘gray divorce’,” he said. “The group was a real pioneer and brought us the highest divorce rate.”
Adrianna Rodriguez can visit adrodriguez@usatoday.com.
