What U.S. state has the highest divorce rate?

Answer 1

The short answer: That depends on which divorce statistics you use. The shorter answer: It's almost certainly Arkansas.

Per estimates from the Census’ 2017 American Community Survey, Arkansas has the highest divorce rate, with 17.14 divorces per 1,000 married individuals.

However, divorce statistics can be complicated, and "divorces per married individual" is just one method of measuring divorce rates. If you look at the crude divorce rate, meaning divorces per 1,000 people (regardless of if they've ever been married), Idaho, Oklahoma, and several other states have higher divorce rates than Arkansas.

Keep in mind, though, that crude divorce rates aren’t spectacular for measuring trends, because they’re influenced by dozens of factors that don’t show up in the statistics. For instance, states with lower marriage rates tend to have fewer divorces, for obvious reasons. Generally speaking, crude divorce rates are highest in the South and lowest in the Northeast, and that’s influenced by the fact that marriages are more common in the South.

Another reason crude divorce rates aren't ideal is that they include children and single adults who obviously cannot divorce. "Divorces per married individual," the statistic where Arkansas comes out on top, is slightly more useful than "divorces per individual," since it only looks at the married population.

Other estimates look at the refined divorce rate, which is measured as “divorces per 1,000 married women.” This is generally seen as a better stat, since focusing on one gender tends to produce a more reliable idea of divorce likelihood—when you divide the refined divorce rate by 10, you get the percentage of marriages that ended in divorce that year.

If you have trouble seeing the logic there, just know this: Arkansas still wins (or loses) when you look at the refined divorce rate.

Here are the top five states according to the refined divorce rate:

1. Arkansas (25.5 divorces per 1,000 married women)
2. Delaware (24.0)
3. Kentucky (22.8)
4. Alabama (22.5)
5. Oklahoma (20.6)

Here are the bottom five states:

1. Illinois (12.9)
2. New Jersey (12.4)
3. District of Columbia (12.1)
4. Montana (12.0)
5. Hawaii (10.1)

By most measures, Arkansas has the highest divorce rate in the United States. We can’t really say why without digging deep into the research, but some factors known to affect divorce rates include economic issues, occupational stress, education level, and age of first marriage.