Even after two pandemic years, which would strain any marriage, a new report indicates that divorce rates are falling in Florida. This isn’t the case for much of the U.S., as many relationships failed to weather quarantines, lost jobs, and homeschooled children during COVID-19 mandates. But why is Florida bucking the trend? Experts say there are several reasons behind the state’s decreasing divorce rates.
Millennials’ Attitude Toward Marriage
The top reason divorce rates are tumbling in Florida is because millennials are doing everything possible to reverse the patterns established by their parents. Often, their baby boomer parents married for reasons other than love. They were expected to marry by a certain age and would force the issue regardless of their personal circumstances. This is not a recipe for a happy marriage.
Millennials, and in some cases, generation Xers, are choosing to put off marriage until they’ve completed their education and established themselves in their career. They are more likely to marry for love and not for security or just to get out of their parents’ house.
Of course, many baby boomer marriages didn’t fail until after their children left the home, so it’s possible millennials’ divorce rate will climb later, but for now, it appears they’re taking a much smarter approach toward the institution.
Higher Education Rates
Another study recently conducted found that 78% of women who receive a college education will have a marriage that lasts 20 years or longer, while just 40 % of women who only have a high school education can expect the same. This discrepancy is due to several factors, one of which is that college-educated women are more likely to be married in the first place.
The rates are similar for men, with 65% of college-educated men having marriages that will last 20 years or longer compared to just 50% of men without a college degree. As with college-educated women, men with at least a bachelor’s degree are more likely to be married than men who only have a high school education.
The main factor that can be attributed to high education rates leading to longer marriages is that the people who wait until after they graduate college to marry are generally older and more financially stable than those who marry right after high school. The difference in maturity could mean that relationship struggles are handled more appropriately by older adults who can think more rationally about how to resolve them.
Two Households are More Expensive Than One
Unfortunately, while declining divorce rates are positive, one reason behind the decrease is not. It can be extremely expensive to get a divorce. This doesn’t mean the actual divorce process, which can be costly, but it actually refers to the aftermath of the divorce. Often, in today’s society, people can’t survive on a single income, especially if they have kids. Ex-spouses may not be able to afford to pay alimony and child support separately from supporting themselves, so it’s cheaper to stay together.
This has become especially noticeable in the wake of the pandemic when millions of Americans lost their jobs or were forced to work from home while supervising their children during virtual learning. Trying to care for children while working from home proved to be a significant challenge, but childcare was rarely an option.
Not only was it hard to find childcare during the pandemic, but also childcare rates are simply too steep for many families to afford. The result is that parents stayed married so that they could either afford childcare or have one parent stay at home while the other worked.
Societal Acceptance of Other Types of Families
At one point, a marriage between a man and woman was the only acceptable type of family in the United States, at least according to society as a whole. In recent years, society has become more accepting of other types of families, which has removed the pressure of having to marry even if it’s not what you want from the shoulders of the younger generation. Of course, heterosexual marriage is still the most prominent type of family, but there is less pressure to enter into any kind of marriage now than even 20 years ago.
People are choosing to make sure they’re absolutely certain they want to marry someone before saying their vows. This could come well after they have children together or maybe not at all, but because society now accepts these types of families, divorce doesn’t come into play nearly as often.
Hopefully, Florida’s declining divorce trend is a sign of what’s to come for the rest of the country. The more marriages that are happy, the better off the nation will be as a whole.
