Couples who met online 'divorce more often' - Printable Version

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Couples who met online 'divorce more often' - Kyng - 10-31-2021

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/divorce-marriage-online-dating-study-b1948675.html

Divorce rates are six times higher in the early years of marriage for couples who met online than in those who met at university or through friends and family, a new study has found.

A survey of 2,000 ever-married adults aged 30 and over found that couples who met online since the year 2000 had a 12 per cent risk of divorce in the first three years of marriage, compared to two per cent for those who met via social connections.

Marriage Foundation, the charity that commissioned the research, said the findings show that social networks play an important role in supporting couples in the early years of marriage.

According to the study, the disparity in divorce rates remains until up to 10 years of marriage.

Of those that met their partners online, 17 per cent had gotten divorced after seven years, compared to 10 per cent of couples who had met through mutual connections.

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Hmmm... there are some things here that I have doubts about. For example, while the study found higher divorce rates among couples who met online, it doesn't explain why this disparity exists. This makes me wonder whether there might be a correlation/causation thing going on here - and whether the disparity might be due to something that isn't inherent to online relationships. For example, perhaps the 'online' couples are getting married after less real-life contact than their 'offline' counterparts? (Or, another suggestion from the article is that these 'online' couples tend to lack support networks, because they have to establish relationships with their partner's family from scratch. While true, this doesn't fully convince me - because isn't that also true of many 'offline' couples?)

In any case, I hope they're able to figure out why this disparity exists, to help these online couples improve their chances in the future .

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