The divorce rate for those 50+ is increasing, while that for younger folks is decreasing.
The article at the link suggests that what boomers actually love is marriage, particularly second and third marriages, which are much more likely to end in divorce.
I suppose divorce statistics are going to overrepresent serial divorcers. I’d probably rather track % of those who have been ever divorced. I looked for this, actually, and never found it. The publicly available stats are pretty hard to find/inadequate.
The point of the inquiry, as I see it, is to measure the change in societal norms, independent of things like income, age and number of children. The ‘average’ makeup of society has changed drastically in each of these areas over the last hundred years.
And it’s way too easy to just publish a provocative headline finding with no credible theory of causation to back it up. In my mind, sociologists have been pretty weak on the question of why. Isn’t this supposed to be science?
Why does society change? Why are we nicer to our kids? Why do crime rates fluctuate? Et Cetera.
Bueller?
Not Unreasonable 