Divorce attorneys in Pasadena know that when it comes to divorce, no one person or particular group of people is entirely safe. Marriages fail regardless of a person's race, ethnicity or class. That said, new studies are showing fascinating data about which ethnic groups in the United States have the lowest and highest divorce rates. Asian women, according to the study, have the lowest first divorce rates in the country, while African-American women have the highest. The study also found a startling link between college-educated women and divorce.
The National Center for Family and Marriage Research (NCFMR) at Bowling Green State University, which conducted the study, found that Asian women have the lowest first divorce rate at 10 divorces per 1,000 women in a first marriage. Hispanic and Caucasian women also reported relatively low figures at 16.3 and 18.1, respectively. African-American women are on the opposite end of the spectrum with 30.4 per 1,000 women. Yet one factor was found to thwart divorce in marriages of all races: a college degree. According to the statistics, women in a first marriage with a bachelor's degree have a lower divorce rate than women without a degree. Just 14.2 per 1,000 college-educated women in a first marriage reported divorce while women with some college education but no degree stood at 23 per 1,000. Interestingly, women with no high school diploma or GED, on the other hand, reported a divorce rate of 14.4 per 1,000.
The data for the report, "First Divorce Rate 2010," were extracted from the U.S. Census Bureau in 2010. The reported first divorce rate last year in the United States was 17.5 per 1,000 women 18 years and older in a first marriage. Wendy Manning and Susan Brown of NCFMR led a team of researchers and co-authored the study, which is the latest in a slew of studies to be published since the release of the census statistics earlier this year.