The finding is from the Institute for Family Studies, which says about 40% of today's marriages will end in divorce. With a record-breaking rate of divorce in the 70s, there has been a steady decrease over the past decades.
Talking about this on Washington Watch, Carter Skeel, executive director of the Institute for Family Studies, said it's still higher than they would like but it's good news for people thinking about getting married.
"We're also seeing positive trends in non-marital childbearing, which peaked at 41% in 2009, and now has leveled off," says Skeel. "It's still at 40%, so a modest positive trend there, but if you also look at the share of children that are raised in married parent families, that bottomed out at 64% in 2012 and has since risen to 66%."
To put that in perspective, Skeel said "tens of thousands of kids" are now being raised in married parent families with a mother and father that love them and are biologically bonded to them.
Divorce often has negative consequences for the children involved. For example, a girl on TikTok uploaded a poem she wrote titled “One Gift” about how she can never tell her parents what she truly wants for her birthday or Christmas, which is them back together.
The report about divorce rates dropping is uplifting news to hear if one understands the toll a divorce takes on children.
"So, we're, obviously, cautiously optimistic about these trend lines, but even to see trend lines like these level off and, in some cases, modestly reverse is huge news and really the impetus for publishing the 'Why Marriage Survives' account in The Atlantic last week," said Skeel.
The article was written by Brad Wilcox, Future of Freedom Fellow and Director of the Get Married Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies.
