Are men or women more likely to file for divorce?

On Behalf of | Sep 29, 2022 | Divorce |

Someone has to be the first one to pull the plug on a Texas marriage, and research shows that one-half of a male-female couple is more likely to do so than the other. While estimates suggest that today’s divorce rate hovers somewhere around about 45%, studies show that women are far more likely to make the decision to file for divorce than their husbands.

Per Psychology Today, wives initiate about two-thirds of all modern divorces in male-female marriages. While this is true in the United States, it also holds true on a global level. Why is it that women feel more inclined to suggest ending a marriage than men?

They tend to take less of a financial hit

Statistically, men have had more to lose in the financial sense when it comes to divorce. While there are, of course, exceptions, divorce often has less of a financial impact on a woman than it does on a man.

They do not need husbands to have kids

Scientific advances and fertility treatments mean many modern women are having children without husbands in the picture. Historically, women may have been more likely to stay in unhappy or unsatisfying marriages because they feared they would not be able to reproduce otherwise.

They do not need a partner’s resources

Another reason women have become more likely to initiate divorce than men is that many women no longer feel as if they need a man’s resources to get by. Most modern women now earn their own incomes, making them less reliant on those of their spouses.

Ultimately, today’s women tend to have more financial, social, professional and other opportunities than women in previous generations, and this appears to make them less likely to stay in marriages that no longer fulfill them.

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