The devil is in the detail, and this detail tells a very important story
Published in · 8 min read · Oct 13, 2022
--
A popular statistic that gets thrown around is that 80 percent of divorces are initiated by the woman. The figure appears to have come from Michael Rosenfeld’s study — Who wants the Breakup? Gender and Breakup in Heterosexual Couples — which the majority of those who use the figure link to as their source.
However, it should be noted that the study — which looks at a few thousand divorces in the US — actually found that in 69 percent of cases the woman was the one who did the petitioning for it, so it doesn’t actually show 80 percent.
In terms of where the 80 percent figure came from, my assumption is that perhaps people mistakenly took the 90 percent figure for college-educated women included in the study, and the 69 percent overall figure, and came to 80 percent, which would be wrong if they did; or perhaps they are just linking to the wrong study.
Who knows, but it does seem to be incorrect as it appears when it comes to the US, the research more consistently shows the numbers to be more 60 to 70 percent, with closer to 60 percent being the most consistent figure.
