US Divorce rate at lowest lewel since 1970, Cohabitation is up

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/us-divorce-rate-at-lowest-level-since/20070510163709990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

The above news story on the US divorce rate is quite interesting. Some key points:

• The US divorce rate peaked in 1981 and is now at its lowest rate since 1970. That's not too from far from the time of the Beaver


• Families with two incomes and of higher education levels tend to have lower divorce rates


• Part of the decline is due to the increase in co-habitation and waiting longer to get married, so these numbers may be a bit deceiving.

Here is a good quote from the article on young adults and marriage/divorce.

"In the past 30 years, we've had more divorce than any culture has ever had," [Glenn Stanton, family policy expert] said. "A lot of young adults now are coming out of the family upheaval of the '70s, and they are cohabiting out of fear. They don't want to mess up the nice clean carpet of marriage - they saw their parents do that."

What implications does this have for ministry and outreach to young adults?