Women initiate about 69% of divorces

The best nationally representative U.S. panel finds women initiated about 69% of divorces — but the same data show the gap vanishes for unmarried couples, so it points at marriage as an institution rather than female nature.

The number

In the strongest nationally representative U.S. study of how relationships end, women initiated about 69% of divorces, against 31% for men — close enough that rounding it to the "70% of divorces" the manosphere cites is fair. ^[1]

What it does and doesn't establish

The headline figure is real and replicated: on the literal question, the number checks out. But it does not prove women are simply the sex that walks away — in the same panel the gender gap disappears for unmarried couples (breakups there are roughly 50/50), and married women reported lower relationship quality than married men, which points at marriage as an institution rather than at female nature. Full context: Do women initiate 70% of divorces?

Sources

1 source · all archived at publication

[1]Who Wants the Breakup? Gender and Breakup in Heterosexual Couples · Springer — Social Networks and the Life Course · 2018-01-01 archived ↗

By The Fieldnote Desk · How we verify · Corrections