Hi Jim, thanks for the response, well spotted, that should not read divorce rate, it should read the number of divorces each year. I have fixed the sentence now!

Just to clarify, the point being made is that the absolute number of divorces have been coming down of late, but not because marriages have been more successful, but because there have been fewer marriages.

Though just a point, as it is a common misconception, the divorce rate data doesn’t actually show the number of marriages that end in divorce. The divorce rate is created on a yearly basis based on the number of marriages versus the number of divorces that take place in a year. It’s a rather convoluted way of doing it, but it is the norm.

For example, this is why places like Portugal and Italy have such crazy high divorce rates, pushing 80/90 percent, it’s not because marriages are 80/90 percent likely to end in divorce, it’s because marriages are becoming ridiculously less common, which is making the data look ridiculous.

That means rather crazily, if there are no marriages in a year, as long as there are divorces, there will be a divorce rate that year, it would just read a ridiculous 100 percent. Equally as crazy, if one year there was one marriage, but no divorces, the divorce rate would be zero percent.

But anyway, yeah, the divorce rate is completely different data to marriage success rates. Divorce rates are up to date and created yearly, marriage success rates use historical data to judge what happens over the entirety of people’s lifetimes.

Hope this helps, and thanks again for pointing out the typo, very much appreciated!