Analysis: Marriage and Divorce Trends in Oakland County
(Guest View by Kurt Metzger, Dec. 1, 2015)
I have been married for 37 years and, as a result, have a very personal interest in its success and permanence. However, the institution of marriage took on a great deal more importance for me two years ago. That is because I won a mayoral election in November 2013 and earned the authority to perform marriages anywhere within the borders of Oakland County. So when I heard that the Michigan Department of Community Health had released new marriage statistics last week, I just had to run some numbers to see what trends I could find. This brief article is the result.
Let’s look at the State of Michigan numbers first. While the chart below only tracks the time period of 2000 – 2014, so as to conform to the data available for Oakland County, data for the state are available back to 1900. Figure 1 shows the effect of the recession on marriage, as the number of marriages dropped steadily from 2001 to 2009. While 2014’s total of 57,071 is still relatively low, it represents the highest number since 2006. The highest number of marriages in Michigan was recorded in 1973 when 94,486 couples tied the knot. Even more interesting is the low number of recorded divorces in 2014. It had been said that the recession was causing a reduction in divorces because couples couldn’t afford to go through the process either. These numbers show that not to be true as a reinvigorated economy brought about the lowest number of divorces recorded in the state since 1969.
Now that we have seen the statewide trends, let us focus on Oakland County. Figure 2 presents the marriage and divorce numbers for Oakland County between 2000 and 2014.
Here we see the recession and recovery effect on marriage even more clearly demonstrated. The number of marriages began a rather steady decline in 2002 and reached its low point in 2010. Since then we have seen a climb that has brought the marriage total over 7,000 for the first time since 2005. While the number of divorces has shown some momentary increases over the 15 year period, the general trend has been downward with 2014’s total being the lowest recorded number.
Let us turn to the latest Census Bureau numbers to get a picture of Oakland County’s marriage rates by age, and how they have changed since 2000. Figure 3 tracks the percent of women, by age, who has never married.
The data clearly show that Oakland County women are waiting longer to get married. This is most evident in the younger age groups – particularly those between the ages of 25 and 29 years. Women are outnumbering men in college, as well as graduate and professional school attendance. The desire to establish their careers, combined with increasing numbers of unmarried couples living together, with or without children, have served to delay marriage. Nevertheless, only one-third of women are still unmarried by the age of 34 and less than one in five by 44 years of age.
Men showed the same pattern of delayed marriage and, in fact, slightly increased their gap with women in the 25 – 34 year age cohorts.
Since we only have data through 2014, we are not able to see what effect this year’s Supreme Court decision on gay marriage will have on the numbers. I have no doubt that the total number of marriages in the State and Oakland County will show increases. The size of those increases will be extremely interesting to observe.
Let me conclude with a last chart that shows Michigan marriages by month. While we often think of June as the month for brides, we see that many more Michigan couples choose August. I would look for a real shift toward the end of the year next year thanks to the June 25 Supreme Court decision.
Kurt Metzger is the Mayor of Pleasant Ridge and the founder of Data Driven Detroit. Metzger has provided insights into voter turnout for several elections. Check out previous stories at:
https://oaklandcounty115.com/2015/11/05/analysis-of-voter-turnout-in-south-oakland-county-2015/
https://oaklandcounty115.com/2015/08/05/pontiac-election-a-perfect-example-of-why-voter-turnout-matters/
https://oaklandcounty115.com/2015/03/17/guest-view-lack-of-voting-not-registration-is-the-problem/
https://oaklandcounty115.com/2014/11/08/huntington-woods-tops-pleasant-ridge-with-66-voter-turnout/
https://oaklandcounty115.com/2014/10/29/a-look-at-low-voter-turn-out-rates-in-the-aug-5-primary-2/