Money and Divorce Statistics

Too much has been made about money and divorce statistics, and one of these reasons had to do with the massive recession the United States of America has been facing since the year 2008, and is only now showing signs of recovery, a full four years after Wall Street crumbled and the recession hit us with the severity of a mass destructive ice storm. But is it true that the current financial depression is really affecting breakup rates in the country by a huge margin? Or is the effect of the nationwide money crunch on marital relationship failure overstated by the social media outlets? We have all the important information regarding money based split-up rates in the country, below:

Divorce Rates By Annual Salary Incomes
In the results of the most recent US Census Bureau survey, the following patterns were observed when it came to annual salary packages of individuals and the rate at which they opted to separate:
The highest percentage for any group which split-up based on a financial bracket in 2009 was that of men in the annual income range of $ 75,000 and above, at a whooping 32.6 percent. This also includes divorce statistics by reason.
The financial bracket with the highest percentage of split-up women in 2009 was in the comparatively lower $ 25,000 to $ 40,000 income range, at just 29.9 percent.
Incidentally, for women who earned an annual income of $ 75,000 and higher, the percentage was lower at 23.4 percent.

In short, it was seen that men with a higher income had a higher breakup rate while the converse was true for women. A higher annual income meant a healthy relation, busting the popular myth that the more successful a woman is in her professional life, the more vulnerable her marital relationship is to failure. The factor of divorce statistics by age was also considered during the research.

The Relationship Between Marital Stability and the Couple's Financial Attitude

In 2009, the University of Virginia conducted a thorough research titled "Marriage and Money", whose main objective was to observe a pattern between the stability of marital relationships and the attitude of the couple towards their shared and fixed assets. The following observations were made by Utah State University's Jeffrey Dew, in his study titled "Bank On It: Thrifty Couples are the Happiest"-
Apparently, there is some truth to the fact that in Recession Era America, financial woes are a major reason for marriage failures. For it is found by Dew in his study that couples with joint assets of $ 100,000 and more had smaller break-off percentages than couples who earned a lesser annual income.
If a couple had a disagreement or argument related to their finances more than once a week on a consistent basis, the percentage of them divorcing was 30% more likely than those couples who claimed to have disagreements over their finances only a few times a month.
It seems that an unplanned, over budgeted and debt heavy big wedding may lead the married couple on the path to divorce right from the start of their marital life, as rising and piling consumer debts and loans in the duration of a couple's married life played a huge role in the unraveling of the relationship.

With the Bad News Comes the Good News, But With Strings Attached
One sliver of good news among all the depressing news in the Recession Era was that the breakup rate in America has definitely seen a drop in the past few years, as discussed on the other pages of this site. For example, at a steady GDP growth of 3% in the population, it was observed that the percentage in 2008 was only 3.5% per 1000 individuals, which was considerably lower than the 4.95% for 1000 individuals in 2004.

Out of that 3.5% of divorced American citizens in 2008, financial expert Suze Orman claimed that monetary stresses were the number one reason for break ups, giving more fuel to the belief that marriages are more vulnerable during the recession. However, there seem to be many people who are aware of the financial demands of a marital relationship and how hard it would be to fulfill during a recession, and hence have decided to put off their marriage until they face better financial times. Which probably explains the fall in marriage percentages in the last few years. Which in turn explains the drop in the rates despite the fall of the American economy. It was observed that couples who waited for better and higher paying jobs before deciding to tie the knot had much better chances of handling a healthy and successful marital life.

So at the end of our segment on money and divorce statistics, turns out it pays (no pun intended) to plan ahead when it comes to marriage and finances!