Chart: 144 Years of Marriage and Divorce in the US

Dr. Randal S. Olson is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in artificial intelligence, but is curious in other directions, including marriage. So he charted out the per capita number of marriages and divorces in the United States from the late 1860s to the present. You can find an interactive version of his chart here. It permits you to view data from individual years that Olson surveyed.

He notes that there are spikes in both marriage and divorce following World War II. That makes sense, as the stresses of the war could break apart marriages or prompt people who had delayed marriage for the war to get hitched promptly.

Marriage went into relative free fall during the Great Depression. But by the 1970s, it had become nearly universal. Now, Olson notes, the US has the lowest marriage rates since the Great Depression. Why do you think this is the case?

-via reddit


Comments (4)

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Newest 4 Comments

Yes, there definitely must be some kind of woman shortage...perhaps they were discontinued. If your'e lucky maybe they'll bring them back like Hostess did with Twinkies.
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I could pass on the fried bubble gum and the fried coke. Everything else looked like a delicious deep-fried-heart-attack-waiting-to-happen. And here just two days has passed since we engaged in fisticuffs over the turkey skin.
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Oh man... I'm thinking it would be worth the trip to Texas just to try the fried chicken skins. The skin is always the best part of fried chicken and I always wondered they did with the skin when they made all those skinless chicken breasts.
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I have tried picnic on a stick, fried jambalaya and fried coke, from the list, plus others not on the list (fried biscuits & gravy, fried salsa, fried Hans' Kraut Balls, fried beer, etc). By far my favorite was the fried buffalo chicken in a flapjack. It's served with maple syrup and basically tastes like chicken & waffles. Yum!
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@buggzzee & LisaL: Yeah, see, that's why I don't eat at Koo Koo Roo — Who the hell wants chicken cooked without the skin?
Tuesdays at Popeye's they have their Leg & Thigh for 99¢ special. I always get 2 orders, and start by just peelin' off the skins, and sprinkling a little of J&D's Malt Salt on 'em.
Mmmmm, boy! That's good eatin'!!
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