In the Huffington Post article, “‘Red’ States Have Higher Divorce Rates Than ‘Blue’ States, And Here’s Why,” they delve into a recent study “Red States, Blue States, and Divorce: Understanding the Impact of Conservative Protestantism on Regional Variation in Divorce Rates,” soon to be published in the American Journal of Sociology, that shows many religious states experiencing higher divorce rates.
So, why are strong Bible-based cultures where divorce is discouraged showing an increase in rates?
Despite previous thinking that socioeconomic hardships were to blame, Jennifer Glass, a University of Texas professor, and her fellow researchers concluded that the higher divorce rates were due to the social institutions created by the conservative religious cultures. “Specifically,” they further explain, “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.”
You can read more here.
