Kiwiblog

Interesting data from Stats NZ.

• 20,521 marriages in 2012. The number of marriages has been fairly constant for the last 20 years
• The marriage rate per 1,000 non-married adults has fallen from 32 in 1977 to 11.8 in 2012.
• The median age of bridegrooms was 32.3 and brides 30.2
• In 1983 it was 26.5 and 23.9 respectively
• The divorce rate is 10.1 per 1,000 marriages. This has fallen in recent years from a high of 17.1 in 1982
• The median duration of a marriage that divorces is 13.7 years and the median age for divorcing is 45.7 for men and 43.2 for women
• There have been 2,981 civil unions since 2005. 592 were heterosexual couples, 1,033 were gay couples and 1,356 were lesbian couples

T

This graph is from Stats Chat. It’s amazing how much views have changed over 50 years. In 1958 only 4% of Americans approved on interracial marriage. That implies both a majority of white and black Americians were against interracial marriage.

The poll is from 2011, but I was fascinated enough by the chart to look up the source data. As Stats Chat pointed out, still a bit alarming 14% don’t approve of interracial marriage, but what I found interesting was the breakdown of the approval rate by age. It was:

• Under 30s 97%
• 30 to 50 91%
• 50 to 64 88%
• Over 65s 66%

So almost one in three Americans aged over 65 disapprove of interracial marriage. Very interesting when you consider the opposition in NZ to same sex marriage is primarily (but of course not exclusively) over 65s.

.

This is just beautiful, and funny.

Stuff reports:

A hopeful groom-to-be suffered the most public of rejections when his proposal at a basketball game was blocked in front of hundreds of fans.

The young man got down on one knee at the UCLA game in California and pulled out a ring live on the stadium’s “mistletoe cam” just before Christmas.

“I knew I was going to do this the first day I met you, so I know this is going to sound corny but … will you marry me?” he said.

But rather than a happy yes, the young woman shook her head.

Her boyfriend could only watch in horror as she grabbed her bag and left the area to jeers from the crowd.

In politics there is a saying, that you should never ask a question that you do not already know the answer to.

I think the same maxim should apply to marriage proposals – or at least public marriage proposals.

A successful public marriage proposal can be sweet and endearing and a memory to last a lifetime. But you should not be doing it unless you are absolutely sure what the answer will be.

That’s the question I pose over at Stuff.

AFP reports:

AN interracial couple in Louisiana have been denied a marriage license by an official who considers their union morally wrong, according to local media.

“I’m not a racist,” Keith Bardwell, a justice of the peace in rural Tangipahoa Parish, told the Hammond Star.

“I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.”

Mr Bardwell told the paper that he believes interracial marriages do not last and that the children of such unions are not accepted by either the black or white community.

Now of course Bardwell is bonkers to think it is his job to decide whether or not a couple should be able to get married, based on his beliefs. He does the classic groupist error of applying a generalisation to everyone (and of thinking it is his decision anyway).

It did get me interested in what is the prevalance of “mixed race” marriages and whether or not their divorce rates are higher than “same race” marriages.

In NZ we have traditionally had a high rate of mixed race marriages, as all modern Maori New Zealanders have at least one European ancestor. I do wonder if we have current stats on this – presumably the census data could reveal this.

In the US, only 2.8% of black women and 6.6% of black men had a white spouse. While 41% of Asian women have a white husband and 36% of Asian men have a white wife. So a big difference in prevalence depending on the races involved.

In terms of divorce rates Wikipedia says:

Marital stability studies published on the Education Resources Information Center found that White female-Black male unions are more prone to result in a divorce than White-White marriages are, while Black female-White male marriages show similar or lower risks of divorce than White-White marriages.

So Bardwell is wrong with his generalisation also.

As I said, I would be interested to see what the prevalence of mixed race/culture marriages are in NZ, and if there are differences in the divorce rates. Anyone know of any studies already done?