US Public’s Knowledge of Divorce Rates


In 2010 the Pew Research Center asked this survey question to American adults:

“Has the divorce rate gone up, gone down, or stayed the same over the past two years?

The correct answer is that it has gone down.  What percentage of Americans got this right?

Only 5%…over 66% believed that the divorce rate had gone up, and 21% thought it had stayed the same…. whoa…..

Of all the demographic trends that Pew surveyed, knowledge of the divorce rate was the most frequently guessed wrong.

Here is a a graph with the trend in the divorce rate over the past 100 years in the US.