According to FindLaw.com and WestLaw, the leading legal research database, internet searches for divorce peak in March.
The research database analyzed divorce filings across the US between 2008 and 2011. The analysis revealed that divorces in the US spike in January, continue to rise and finally peak in late March.
It is especially interesting that the number of consumers seeking information about divorce escalates around Valentine’s Day. Avvo.com reports that questions about divorce soar as much as 40 percent and filings for divorce increase around Valentine’s Day. They call it the “Valentine’s Effect”.
This trend has been observed consistently year over year with a marked increase in the number of people searching for divorce lawyers around Valentine’s Day.
It is a misconception that fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. Robert Hughes, a former professor in the Department of Human & Family Services, College of Human Environmental Science, and University of Missouri-Columbia says that the demographics of divorce are either reported wrong, calculated wrong or misinterpreted. He says that if one out of the two marriages that occurred in the 1990s ends up in a divorce that does not mean the divorce rate is 50 percent. This is simply because the people getting married in a single year may not be the same ones getting divorced.
The average length of a marriage that ends in a divorce is around eight years. The number of divorces in the US continues to rise with one divorce every 36 seconds. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 2400 divorces take place per day in the US; 16,800 per week and 876,000 a year.
Divorce is an expensive venture. It is estimated that people who are in the process of getting a divorce would need more than a 30 percent increase in income to maintain the same standard of living they had before their divorce. Data also shows that approximately one in five fall in poverty as a result of divorce, primarily because they earn less than men and usually end up getting custody of the children. Data also shows that people who marry after the age of 25 are 24 percent less likely to get divorced.