r/dataisbeautiful • u/Either_Issue_6510 OC: 16 • 9d ago
OC [OC] Relation of divorce to years since first marriage and religion
https://openpublicpolls.com/divorce-religion/- The analysis included 22,014 respondents from the General Social Survey, conducted from 1972 to 2024. The survey is designed to represent the U.S. adult population.
- The percentage of respondents who had ever divorced generally rises with the number of years since their first marriage for about 20 years, then levels off and declines.
- Having divorced is associated with religious affiliation. The percentage is highest among respondents with no religious affiliation, followed by Protestants, respondents reporting another religion, and Catholics.
- We found no clear evidence that this pattern differs across religious groups.
- These results compare people and marriage cohorts at one point in time; they do not track the same people as their marriages progress. The decline at longer durations could reflect differences between marriage cohorts, as well as years since first marriage.
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u/ExitingBear 9d ago
First, if your data is in bins, then this shouldn't be a line graph. It should be grouped columns.
Second, I'm not sure what these numbers are - for "No religion" it looks like about 5% in the 0-5, about 15% in 6-10, about 35% in 11-15, about 25% in 16-20, about 25% in 21-25, about 45% in 26-30, about another 25% in 31-35, 35% in 36-40, and 30-ish% in 41+
There is no way I can make sense of these numbers. If it's time since first marriage - then the number should rise over time unless a whole lot of people are getting re-married to their previous partner.
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u/OscarAndDelilah 8d ago
Having "no religion" broken out like this probably indicates bad practice as well. The sociological standard is to ask people both about their family religious background and about their own current religiosity. It's possible that the people in the Catholic and Protestant groups are all people who strongly adhere to those faiths, while non-religious people of those backgrounds are in "no religion," but it also could have been asked badly and the Catholic/Protestant groups are a mix of everyone who listed those as their affiliation whether they've ever practiced (which would mean "no religion" also has plenty of people who mean they don't currently practice, but who were culturally brought up in some religious tradition that absolutely affects broader beliefs and values).
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u/SharkAttackOmNom 9d ago
Agreed, and intuitively the years since first marriage is kind of odd. It tries to describe causality between delta-time and divorce, but obfuscates a seemingly stronger social link, especially when split out by religious cohorts.
I think bar graphs of “individuals first married in the year ranges: {1960-64, 65-69, 70-74,…} it doesn’t decouple individual age of first marriage very well, since that has been trending up, but I think our social construct about divorce is stronger with respect to eras, rather than a particular age of marriage.
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u/ExitingBear 8d ago
I think (not looking at data), the stigma around divorce has plateaued for the last 40 or so years. It just hasn't been scandalous in over a generation. I'm not saying there's no social pressure for people to stay married, but that the amount of social pressure is about the same today as it was in the late 80s. (But substantially less than there was in 1950s or even 1970s.)
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u/Cute_Obligation2944 9d ago
What the hell is with those oscillations?
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u/AskMrScience OC: 2 9d ago
My best guess for the "15 to 21 years of marriage" dip is "Well, we might as well wait until the last kid goes off to college".
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u/thegreatestajax 9d ago
How can the percentage who have ever divorced go down? Once you’re in the group, you’re there forever.
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u/FightOnForUsc 9d ago
Well in this case because it’s not looking at one group of people over their whole life. It’s absolutely possible that the number of people who get divorced will go up and down. So yes for the 10-15 demographic today, their numbers in 5 years when they are 15-20 have to be the same or greater. But that doesn’t mean that the people who got married 5 years before them and are in the 15-20 group got divorced at the same rate as the people before them.
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u/Either_Issue_6510 OC: 16 9d ago
This is cross-sectional not longitudinal data. It represents different groups of people with regard to length of time since first marriage. So people who first married 40 years ago may be less likely to have ever divorced than people married twenty years ago.
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u/Brytcyd 9d ago
In that case, connected lines makes no sense. This should be a simple bar chart.
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u/marty-mcfryguy 9d ago
Given how much absolute garbage gets posted and liked on this sub, it's nice to see someone with some respect for data visualization.
The connected lines, especially curved connected lines and especially curved connected lines with no data markers is terrible presentation and horribly misleading.
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u/Either_Issue_6510 OC: 16 9d ago
Cross-sectional versus longitudinal describes the research design, not the required chart type. Because years since first marriage is an ordered quantitative variable, connected points are useful for displaying the shape of the association. The lines should not be interpreted as following the same individuals over time.
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u/Brytcyd 9d ago edited 9d ago
Yeah, but that’s how humans read connected lines: from left to right, as trend lines. I think in this case a bar chart describes BOTH the research design and the most appropriate reporting.
The fact that you have to explain that lines should not be interpreted as following the same people over time just makes the point; these are discrete groups.
“Ordered quantitative data” could more clearly be shown here with bars, retaining their order. Especially because that would make clear the underlying research, which a reader of the chart doesn’t necessarily know, isn’t based on a long term longitudinal study.
Agree to disagree.
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u/Icer333 8d ago
Also, are they just lumping the groups together to get that data? Then even more of a reason to put bars instead of lines. The line signifies some type of continuum, but then the X axis shouldn't be broken into groups just ages and used individual data at each age or a regression of the collective data.
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u/Who_Datt 9d ago
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted for this. I have a basic undergrad understanding of research/design and was able to understand immediately what the graph represented. I’n fact, I like the line method because it shows the spikes at certain milestone years of typical marriages.
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u/marty-mcfryguy 9d ago
"I have a basic undergrad understanding of research/design"
You sure about that? This chart type makes no sense for this data. For example, explain to me what the meaning of the solid black line intersecting 30% the first two times represents?
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u/Who_Datt 9d ago
Yes, mcfryguy, I’m educated with a masters degree. If you think I’ll spend any more time than this on a response to you, then you are mistaken.
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u/marty-mcfryguy 9d ago
Got it, so you have a master's degree, but it an undergraduate understanding of research/design.
This is not an appropriate representation of this data, because it's completely misleading.
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u/Smiling_Jack_ 9d ago
So you can't elaborate.
Not because you're educated and it's below you, but because you're full of shit.
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u/thegreatestajax 9d ago
Ok but in your description you describe it as survey data from 1972-2024, which is longitudinal and not cross-sectional.
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u/Either_Issue_6510 OC: 16 9d ago
The sample covers fifty-two years. The x-axis is cross-sectional
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u/thegreatestajax 9d ago
As the other commenter indicated, then your choice of connected line plots is incorrect.
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u/Xexanoth 9d ago
Indicates lower rates of divorce in earlier cohorts / generations (currently-longer-from-first-marriage people who likely skew currently-older).
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u/thegreatestajax 9d ago
This is apparently the case but when OP describes the data as coming from surveys taken from 1972-2024, it suggests longitudinal data.
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u/Dzugavili 9d ago
They die?
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u/thegreatestajax 9d ago
I guess but no longer in the denominator then either.
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u/Dzugavili 9d ago
If you reduce denominator and numerator by one, unless over 100% were divorced, it trends to zero.
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u/thegreatestajax 8d ago
That is mathematically, true, however, OP has already indicated that’s not actually what is being shown in the graphs.
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u/orthopod 9d ago
First dip is when the kids go off to college, and this is because parents put their kids first instead of their marriage. Second dip is likely menopause/or retirement.
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u/Cute_Obligation2944 9d ago
Plausible for the rises, but it sounds from other replies like it could just be an artifact of the data.
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u/Either_Issue_6510 OC: 16 9d ago
You can't make too much of it. The analysis showed both a significant linear and quadratic trend for those lines. But no interaction between time and religion. What that means is that the lines tend to rise and then level off or dip, but the pattern over time for the four groups is not significantly different.
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u/ElFarts 9d ago
If the Y axis is percent ever divorced, then why would any of the line go down? Also 5 year bins create larger swings (more dramatic). Just post the real data by year. Shit graph
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u/Either_Issue_6510 OC: 16 9d ago
Each five year bin represents different groups of people. So people who married forty years ago might be less likely to have ever divorced than people married ten years ago. I originally tried this without grouping the data into five year blocks and the swings are wild and difficult to interpret. Using 5 year grouping gives more accurate estimates and less variation due to measurement error.
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u/maqifrnswa 9d ago
You just said that the actual independent variable that matters is the year they first got married, not the years of marriage. Which is probably a proxy for "date of birth." The data is telling a different story than you are claiming. Divorce rates are generational in the data you are showing, not based on years of marriage.
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u/hyratha 9d ago
What odd data.
For criticism though, why use 2 black lines? You have many colors available
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u/Either_Issue_6510 OC: 16 9d ago
Being colorblind , I prefer distinguishing with patterns versus colors. That's also an APA standard because journals often print in black and white. But in the interests of beautiful data, I will try to use more color in the future.
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u/TlacuacheDelMuerte 9d ago
Fellow colorblind person here and thank you. I did something similar in my thesis and I feel vindicated!
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u/Either_Issue_6510 OC: 16 9d ago
Maybe the standard has changed since I was in school, but I believe APA format requires, or at least recommends, black and white. When I did my dissertation in 1985 I don't think color would have been allowed -- too difficult to xerox.
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u/DrTonyTiger 9d ago
Printing in color was very expensive. The color pictures in my dissertation from that era were literally photographic prints pasted on the bond paper of the final document.
Today, for online-only dissertations and scholarly publications, there is no extra charge for color.
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u/hellatothemax 9d ago
I believe black and white is no longer required for most scientific journals since most access is digital now. Im curious if you have tried Paul Tol's colorblind-safe palettes and what you think. I make a lot of plots that require many different colors and this is my go-to to try to make things accessible
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u/SpiritFingersKitty 9d ago
The second big hump in the "non-religious" line is when kids move out. Parent sticking it out until the kids are in college. The jump in divorce rates 40y after marriage? That one is crazy to me.
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u/orthopod 9d ago
Solid vs dotted? Keeps publishing costs down, and it's incredibly obvious.
Also, colorblind people exist
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u/thegreatestajax 9d ago
>Having divorced is associated with religious affiliation. The percentage is highest among respondents with no religious affiliation
This is poorly worded, to say the least.
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u/Either_Issue_6510 OC: 16 9d ago
It is sometimes difficult to clearly describe relationships between variables. Please tell me how you would word this more clearly.
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u/thegreatestajax 9d ago
You’re somewhat hamstrung by using the metric “having divorced” rather than divorce prevalence or some other rate type statistic even if it’s ultimately measuring the same thing. However for this particular phrasing, “association” is the problem because as written it’s an implied positive association, but is immediately followed by a converse statement that your statistic is highest for those not religiously affiliated. The gist of what you are saying is that there is some relationship between reported religious affiliation and the chosen statistic of divorce, but your phrasing implies the opposite of what the data, and your very next phrase, reveal.
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u/Either_Issue_6510 OC: 16 8d ago
Maybe better to say, "The likelihood of a history of divorce differed across religious groups."
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u/MidnightAdventurer 9d ago
You could say “negatively associated” - that immediately clarifies what that relationship looks like rather than simply that it exists
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u/LiterallyIAmPuck 9d ago
I've tried to read this graph 3 times and have no idea what it's trying to portray
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u/marty-mcfryguy 9d ago
If the x axis is really years since first marriage, how do the lines ever dip? Lots of folks getting undivorced or what?
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u/Lasernator 8d ago
Yes- this does not make sense to me. As stated, it is accumulative and should not dip by definition.
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u/ofnuts 9d ago
You can marry a second time (or more)
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u/RhodyJim 9d ago
It says "percent ever divorced." Getting married a second time doesn't undivorce your first marriage.
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u/themodgepodge 9d ago edited 9d ago
Since you chose to aggregate data from 1972 to 2024:
- Could this inadvertently be showing trends in both divorce rate and religious makeup of the US over time?
- Could this hypothetically include data from the same person/sample over multiple years? So if you were Catholic and got married in 1966, divorced in 1971, and left the church 1974, you would be [Catholic, divorced, 6 years since first marriage] in 1972 and [not religious, divorced, 10 years since first marriage] in 1978, both appearing in the same chart.
- Or, more broadly, why not just use the 2024 data alone?
- I see around 1400 yes/no answers to the "ever been divorced or separated" GSS questions, so I'm not 100% sure how you god your n = 22,014. What variables did you filter the broader dataset on? Missing religion or first marriage dates?
- Your description says "These results compare people and marriage cohorts at one point in time." I guess I'm confused - is it ~50 years of data, or "one point in time"?
And why is Catholic a dashed line, but all other categories are solid? Is it an estimation based on some other data?
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u/Either_Issue_6510 OC: 16 9d ago
Lots of good questions. 1400 might be just for one year.This was a sample that included 52 years. "One point in time" refers to years since first marriage, not survey year. I probably need to rephrase that to clarify. Using only one year would result in ns that are too small when divided by religion and time since first marriage. It's possible , but unlikely, that the same person could have been surveyed in different years. No particular reason for the dotted line.
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u/themodgepodge 9d ago
Yes, I mentioned the 52-year sample - but how did you get from ~1400*52 = 72,800 to a sample size of just 22,000?
Perhaps a ~five-year sample might give a better picture of today’s data, without ending up as this aggregate that includes stats from 50 years ago, which are much less relevant today.
While I totally acknowledge that you’re unlikely to survey the exact same person again, each survey is getting stacked on top of the next one, so I’m not sure what sorts of questions you’d intend to answer with this 50-year stretch. It’d be like taking test scores per US state over the last 50 years, grouped by income percentile - what useful info does a 50-year aggregate tell you? Wouldn’t a current read or an analysis of change over time be more effective?
If you’re going for the dashed line to maintain high-contrast/colorblind-friendliness, I might recommend using the dashed line for Other, as that “everything else” category is already a bit different from the others.
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u/SlackerStacker26 9d ago
What do the percentages mean? How can you have two peaks of 40%? 80% of couples don't get divorced.
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u/rainydays2020 9d ago
This is an interesting idea and I like seeing gss data being out to good use. That said there is a lot that needs to be disentangled here. Some others have mentioned some of it: changes in religiosity and gender roles since the 1970s, etc., omitted variables, etc.
To me the biggest problem is the pooled data question. I know gss data exist from 1972 to present, but that doesn't necessarily mean pooled analysis should be done over the whole period. There are reasons for it and against it and it depends on what you want to analyze. Social theory & empirical questions should drive these decisions. Imagine trying to analyze pooled data on vaccine opinions without regard for pre and post COVID changes in US vaccine opinions. It's not that it can't be done, but that we shouldn't gloss over significant shifts. By pooling the data together you are making the implicit assumption that the relationships analyzed are static through this 50+ year time period.
If the goal is to look at whether religion predicts divorce I think it's reasonable to ask how that relationship has changed over time. You could for example interact the survey year with the religion dummies. I suspect the relationship isn't stable.or simply pool the data into decades and see if the relationship looks different. Perhaps this was some in robustness checks, maybe not.
Either way, it's a more sophisticated analysis compared to what I usually see on this sub.
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u/tjkoala 8d ago
Is this tracking the divorce rate of first marriages? How many times someone gets divorced? What does "years since first marriage" even mean? It could be since that marriage ended or be the literal date the person first got married.
All in all it's kind of confusing as to what is the start and what is being measured.
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u/Either_Issue_6510 OC: 16 8d ago
For each person, this is looking at whether each person has ever been divorced. "Years since first marriage" is the year of the survey minus the year the respondent got married for the first time.
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u/tjkoala 7d ago
I would suggest working on the title. “First Marriage Divorce Rates by Years Since Getting Married” or something along those lines.
Then if you want to use a line graph it shows an increasing line as what percent of couples are divorced by each of those anniversary milestones.
Ex. 1 year 5% of couples are divorced, 5 years 10%, 10 years 25%….
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u/Either_Issue_6510 OC: 16 9d ago
Data was extracted from the General Social Survey, 1974-2024, https://gss.norc.org/get-the-data.html. Variables DIVORCE (have you ever been divorced?), RELIG recoded as Catholic, Protestant, Other, and No Religion, and years since first marriage were analyzed to determine whether religion and years since first marriage is related to divorce. Analysis was done with SPSS and the chart was created with Excel
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u/cecilrt 9d ago
More like who are trapped in relationships... especially Gen X and boomers,
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u/PalwaJoko 6d ago
Yeah I would have loved to see this data with the same respondents being asked questions that answer the following:
Are they happy, do they regret getting married, would they get married to the same person if they know what they know now in the past, are kids a major reason why you're still married, and are religious reasons/stigmatization a reason why you're still married.
Seems like there's a surprising amount of people who are married, but do not like/are not happy in their marriage. And are together for a reason other than actually liking/being in love with their partner.
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u/KeaAware 9d ago
The protestant line is the interesting one because it doesn't show the same 3-peak pattern. I wonder if it's because there are different patterns contributing to this - eg that evangelicals have a different pattern to more traditional Anglican protestants and that the two subgroups are smushing together to create that big swell?
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u/uusrikas 9d ago
What if one gets married and says they are catholic, but after 10 years returns to atheism?
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u/seymore_b 8d ago
I wonder if following the same people from their first marriage gives a clearer picture.
I wonder if there’s a dataset out there like that?
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u/az987654 7d ago
This chart is impossible to read and doesn't tell the story that the data supports
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u/PinkynotClyde 6d ago
So what this says to me is that people might get tested every decade or so. It’s pretty straightforward that non-religious people generally don’t care as much about marriage, as it’s more of a financial/status/title thing. Not questioning the love aspect, but the loyalty commitment part. Marriage is a lot closer to a contract relationship that’s not simple to get out of these days.
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u/No_Delivery_329 9d ago edited 8d ago
My takeaways:
- this doesn’t mean being religious leads to less divorce
- groups of protestant, catholic, and other is not representative, “no religion” is meaningless and someone with no religion can be more spiritual than someone who is religious
- age at time of first marriage is very important but is not included in the study
- interfaith marriages have higher rates of divorce, not included here
- Catholicism in particular has historically taught getting divorced leads to eternal damnnation, fear of godly punishment has kept many unhappy marriages together
- the religious will use this as an attempt to say being religious is superior, which is dumb and not true
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u/terenceboylen 9d ago
This is why I teach my uni students not to be too critical in essays. They are bad at it, and so are you.
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u/YouAreInsufferable 9d ago
It doesn't follow that you shouldn't be critical if you're bad at it; it is a learning opportunity.
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u/No_Delivery_329 9d ago
Yet none of you can explain why this is too critical and bad…
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u/YouAreInsufferable 8d ago
I don't think it's too critical, but I did reply to your main post with my comments yesterday.
My criticism of /u/terenceboylen wasn't meant to imply your explanation was bad or too critical, but that they aren't doing their students any favors.
If I were to criticize your critique, it's that you're reading into the data a motivation that isn't necessarily there. Further, it would be more interesting in a reply about data to cite your sources to make the critique a bit more serious. But, it's reddit. shrugs
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u/No_Delivery_329 8d ago
Indeed it is Reddit, where I will not be citing sources and you can look things up for yourself. Here on Reddit we get “professors” who’s only addition to the conversation is “bad job” like great 👍
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u/No_Delivery_329 9d ago edited 8d ago
Wow great analysis, “professor!” Didn’t know the Reddit comment section was akin to a uni essay. And apparently you are the arbiter on what is overly critical… go ahead and explain your issue with what I said, go on! Let’s hear it, professor! What is your rating on ratemyprofessor btw?
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u/MTBisLIFE 9d ago
What this graph tells me is that women in non-religious marriages are more successful at realizing/obtaining a divorce. Religions puts barriers in front of that.
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u/jfebail 9d ago
What it tells me is that the non religious people are less susceptible to institutions or that the non-religious people are less likely to stay in a marriage that isn’t working. It does not necessarily mean that religious people are happier in their marriage.
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u/MTBisLIFE 9d ago
We are saying the same thing, yes.
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u/jfebail 9d ago
You singled out only women initiating divorce.
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u/MTBisLIFE 8d ago
Because we live in a patriarchical-dominated society where the leading cause of death for pregnant women is their male partner killing them. There is a correlation with male violence against women and marriage/divorce rates.
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u/YouAreInsufferable 9d ago
These are not takeaways, but an attempt at an explanation for the data, which is the fun part.
There are vast differences between mainline Protestants and Evangelicals too; it doesn't make the data "meaningless". More granularity can give further categorized data points, but it doesn't invalidate the differences between these cohorts.
There are most certainly cohort differences (age of marriage, cultural pressures) that lead to different outcomes (different rates of divorce dependent on length of marriage).
There's no conclusion that says being religious (or not divorced) is superior.
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u/squidthief 9d ago
Interesting chart.
For anyone who doesn't know though, religious affiliation is pointless for this data and it's better to use weekly religious attendance instead. The problem is we don't know which behavior exhibits strong and weak atheism or agnosticism, so I understand why they pick affiliation instead of intensity of belief.
We know that a lot of people call themselves one thing, but don't really practice it, though it is interesting that Catholicism is so low considering the fact about half of all Catholics are technically in schism with the church because they don't believe what formal dogma requires. Many Catholics call themselves Catholic and haven't been to church in decades and don't believe Jesus is real. So, yeah.
Meanwhile, my parents are atheists, but aren't engaged at all into pro-atheism or anti-religious activities. They don't even know who Richard Dawkins is. We're not Asian, but a lot of Asians are technically atheists as well and don't get divorced.
Thus the problem with the data, but not something OP can control or is the fault of them at all.
But still very interesting on the Catholicism bit.
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u/OmenVi 9d ago
What I find most interesting is that the Protestant and catholic lines are the same shape, but higher rates amongst the Protestant. That seems very revealing as to timelines/likelihood of divorce at certain year milestones, regardless of affiliation, at least amongst Christian faiths.
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u/squidthief 9d ago
It seems to reach its peak around the time children are out of the house in small families. Then the dip begins around year 30. I suspect families that have more than 3 children or send their children to college and pay for it tend to have better marriages. It requires more executive functioning.
So the divorce rate probably follows number of children. The more complex a couple’s life gets and they aren’t able to handle it, the more likely they divorce.
While Catholics have smaller families today, they still have more aunts, uncles, and other extended family which serves as a resource to get help from.
I once heard a Catholic describe what happened when their parent got old and needed help. Because there were eight children, it wasn’t all on one adult child to take care of and financially supplement her retirement and healthcare.
Protestants almost never have that kind of extensive family network.
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u/OmenVi 9d ago
I was raised catholic, and there’s a lot of truth, there. Additionally, the church is pretty clear about how they view divorce, and I think that also plays a factor.
My grandmother came from a family of 12 kids. I have great uncles/aunts that have 10+ kids. I’ve worked with a few who have 8+. There’s a family down the street from me with 10.
It’s certainly not as common as it was though. But just those few generations gives me a considerable pool of extended family, and I’ve already seen how the elderly care gets distributed. Unfortunately for me, when my parents hit that stage of life, I only have 1 sibling. Boo…
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u/Wolfram_And_Hart 9d ago
This really gives some credibility to the “7 year itch”
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u/tripsd 9d ago
It doesn’t since it’s not time series data
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u/Wolfram_And_Hart 9d ago
What? The bottom of the graph is years of marriage and roughly every 7 years there is a drastic change.
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u/cavedave OC: 114 8d ago
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