"'Red' States Have Higher Divorce Rates Than 'Blue' States, And Here's Why "

[applegrove]

'Red' States Have Higher Divorce Rates Than 'Blue' States, And Here's Why

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/21/divorce-study_n_4639430.html

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In a new study titled "Red States, Blue States, and Divorce: Understanding the Impact of Conservative Protestantism on Regional Variation in Divorce Rates," which will be published later this month in the American Journal of Sociology, demographer and University of Texas at Austin professor Jennifer Glass set out to discover why divorce rates would be higher in religious states like Arkansas and Alabama -- which boast the second and third highest divorce rates, respectively -- but lower in more liberal states like New Jersey and Massachusetts.

It was previously thought that socioeconomic hardships in the South were largely to blame for high divorce rates, however Glass and her fellow researchers concluded that the conservative religious culture is in fact a major contributing factor thanks to "the social institutions they create" that "decrease marital stability."

Specifically, putting pressure on young people to marry sooner, frowning upon cohabitation before marriage, teaching abstinence-only sex education and making access to resources like emergency contraception more difficult all result in earlier childbearing ages and less-solid marriages from the get-go, Glass writes in the paper.

“It’s surprising,” W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project, told The Los Angeles Times. “In some contexts in America today, religion is a buffer against divorce. But in the conservative Protestant context, this paper is showing us that it’s not.”




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[Squinch]

1. This makes sense. In places where staying single is not a viable social option,

a lot of people (like myself) who are more comfortable in serial monogamy would be very, very unhappy.

There's a reason why growing numbers of people are opting out of marriage: because we CAN!

[Ikonoklast]

13. Marriage as we currently know is an artificial social construct.

Co-opted by religion and government for their own ends.

[OKNancy]

2. We're #1, We're #1

At least Oklahoma was in 2011

[Scuba]

3. Duh.

[Adam051188]

4. great post

[MisterP]

5. and that creates a cycle: the rising rates are a sign of "depravity" and therefore those

"little sluts" shouldn't be "taught sex"

[Skittles]

6. interesting

I figured it was just that the odds of them marrying complete assholes was higher

[IdaBriggs]

7. ^=== This.

[pangaia]

8. How do you marry an asshole?

[A Simple Game]

9. I think you may be on to something. n/t

[applegrove]

11. That's a possibility too. The chasm created by red state men who use the bible/fox news

to ask their wives to submit to them. That would make me walk out the door.

[JaneyVee]

10. Bible Belt.

[Wilms]

12. ^

[indepat]

14. The harm inflicted on society by right-wing Christian elements is

incalculable but enormous imo.