Divorce Rates By State: Which States Have The Highest?

The following states have the highest divorce rates in the nation, based on data from the latest National Vital Statistics Report and U.S. Census crunched by the Wall Street Journal. Each rate was calculated using the number of divorces and annulments by state, then dividing that number by the state population.

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The birthplace of the drive-through marriage is also home to the highest divorce rate—6.6 per 1000 people. Photo via Flickr: http2007

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The birthplace of the drive-through marriage is also home to the highest divorce rate—6.6 per 1000 people.

Photo via Flickr: http2007

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Comments

[edgeninja]

02:20 PM on 12/01/2010

No surprise. Almost all of them are red states. So much for traditional "family values".

[HowdyDoody]

02:41 PM on 12/01/2010

Im a psychotherapist who does couples therapy on occasion. In my experience I have noticed that people often wind up divorced because they married too early. In "traditional" conservative places, people often don't go on to higher education or plan for a really good career prior to getting married. They see marriage as the #1 priority. And divorce is pervasive among conservative Christians.

[Courtney Ford]

11:22 PM on 11/14/2010

I can't believe the ignorance of liberals. Red states tend to have higher percentages of hispanics, blacks, and Native Americans overall, while blue states tend to be elitist and white. White people who live in states with high populations of minorities aren't going to support government handouts and welfare. If you break the statistics down by county, you find that in each of these Red States with "high domestic violence rates, highschool dropout rates etc...." that you liberals love to harp on, you find that it is the counties with large numbers of blacks, hispanics, and Native Americans that have the problems, and these are all people who tend to vote Democrat. You liberals sure are pathetic. You enjoy turning every issue into "white Red State hicks are dumb and EVERYONE else is intelligent". Think again.

[yosoyeldecider]

10:24 AM on 11/18/2010

Talk about ignant. You mispelled "librul".

[hbwell04]

11:44 AM on 11/18/2010

Willfully ignorant racist white American chicks tend to be the most pathetic creatures on this planet.

[mongolmax]

06:34 PM on 11/12/2010

This list can't be right! California didn't even make the Top 10, let alone place at #1? That's just not believable.

[Mandles99]

11:45 PM on 11/11/2010

Is it any surprise that people who are intolerant about people they don't know ( conservatives), can't keep a marriage together? It's not like they're going to be tolerant of people they do know...

[edgeninja]

02:23 PM on 12/01/2010

It's cause so many of them are shotgun marriages.

[Mik McAllister]

03:48 PM on 11/11/2010

Going by statistics, nearly 100% of divorces are caused by heterosexuality.

[HRH]

01:04 PM on 12/01/2010

Shocking!

[youngdeezy]

02:57 AM on 11/11/2010

seriously, who is shocked that blue states have the lowest rates? These marriage-bangers are hypocrites of the absolute highest order. Stay out of our bedrooms, and don't tell us how to live our lives. No one has the right to tread on these most personal decisions.

[gubblebumm]

07:46 PM on 11/10/2010

People often marry young so they can get out of their parents home, lack of education, wanting to have sex-none of which make for good marriages

[Mik McAllister]

03:45 PM on 11/11/2010

My eldest aunt supposedly married to get out of the house (according to her sisters, who each have at least two divorces each). She married my godfather, a firefighter, had 8 kids, and they were happily married until his death. He lived to see his three eldest kids married, and had 5 beautiful grandkids at the time.

Some marriages work, despite "indicators", and some don't. The leading indicator for a working marriage is devoting yourself to making sure it works.

[Silverwolf72]

03:48 PM on 11/10/2010

Isn't "till death do us part" part of the oath they made to GOD?
Oh wait I forgot that you get to choose the parts that you follow from the bible.

[phredralf]

03:06 PM on 11/10/2010

According to this random site, http://www.divorcerate.org/
The divorce rate in America for first marriage is 41%
The divorce rate in America for second marriage is 60%
The divorce rate in America for third marriage is 73%

I'm confused how the numbers/1000 relate to the (loose) figures above. 5/1000 doesn't seem anywhere near 40-70%, any insight?

[Mik McAllister]

03:46 PM on 11/11/2010

The "1000" is residents of the state, not married residents of the state.

[marind]

11:18 AM on 11/10/2010

Notice that almost all of these states are Red states. My beloved wacko California is not even on the list.

Take THAT, Bible Belt!!!

[pilotsknob]

01:38 PM on 11/10/2010

As a fello wacko San Franciscan, I'll second that!!!

[KarasudaJay]

10:45 AM on 11/10/2010

Without having the number of marriages, we really can't tell much without this data. A state with no marriages would have no divorces and a state with a high rate of marriage is likely to have a higher number of divorces as a result of the high number of marriages.

Before we analyze the numbers, let's jump to conclusions.

[roblicsw]

12:27 PM on 11/10/2010

Wrong....you don't understand "per capita" as a statistic. But, nice try at a defense of the fact that red states place ignorant ideology ("freedom") over outcomes

[KarasudaJay]

01:02 PM on 11/10/2010

I assure that I understand the concept of per-capita, but we have prerequisite conditions which must be met before one can file for divorce. This article declares numbers per capita of recently divorced people, from it we know that a higher per-capita of the population has been recently divorced. Knowing that a higher per-capita of the population is divorced is interesting, but a rate of failed marriages requires knowing the rate of marriage in each area.

In area with 800/1000 adults married and a 1% annual marriage failure rate would result in 16/1000 recently divorced residents. An area with 400/1000 adults married would need 2% annual marriage failure rate to have a recently divorced population of 16/1000. From this we can see an area of high marriages with a low divorce rate can easily have as many or more recently divorced people as an area with low marriage rates with a divorce rate where in both cases divorce rate is measured as a percentage of marriages rather than as a ratio with the general population.

I'm not arguing red or blue, I'm just arguing math and logic.

[Andres64]

08:28 PM on 11/09/2010

Red states are alo the highest consumers of p0rn.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16680-porn-in-the-usa-conservatives-are-biggest-consumers.html

[pilotsknob]

01:41 PM on 11/10/2010

Interesting fact.

[Lafhaus]

01:37 PM on 12/01/2010

Go to a supermarket in a red state. Bestiality would be better than a lot of what you see there pushing those carts /snark.

[julbar]

08:22 PM on 11/09/2010

Well, golleeegee. Una festa di stati rossi.

[FMC651]

10:47 AM on 11/09/2010

Mostly Red states I should say I see here.

[rktboy]

04:40 PM on 11/09/2010

Family values, the sanctity of marriage, ad nauseum.

[uniquindividual]

07:50 PM on 11/09/2010

Maybe that explains it, they're surounded by sin in their own communities.

[ExitZero]

09:54 AM on 11/09/2010

Another glorious red state statistic. Keep digging and you'll find they also have the highest rates of domestic violence, gun violence, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, high school dropouts, obesity, etc.

And yet THESE are the people holding themselves us as the morally superior family values crowd and lecturing the rest of us on how to live.

[Sita001]

09:09 PM on 11/09/2010

you forgot that they also have the highest use of pornography

[roblicsw]

12:32 PM on 11/10/2010

Actually they lecture us about "freedom" (pretending to superior scholarship about eh Consitution) and the lack of regulation or government input.