- Several sources attribute the rise in divorce rates in the 1970s, and again in rural communities in the early 21st century, to shifting power dynamics. Sexual discrimination and bias in American society through the 1960s made female empowerment difficult -- women married men for financial stability. In contemporary America, women have access to education and employment, though not quite in equal measure with men. The independence granted by education and a salary, coupled with the increasing ability in men to rear children, cook and clean without the help of women, have shifted marriage power dynamics such that male-female couples no longer rely on one another as they once did. Working class men in particular prove less attractive to modern, ambitious, educated women.
- The passage of time has precipitated a gradual decrease in the social and religious stigma associated with divorce. As divorce rates increase, the notion of a divorce becomes increasingly less taboo -- the bigger the pond, the fewer ripples a single stone causes. Social and religious stigma proves particularly potent in small religious communities, in which anonymity is harder to come by than in suburban or metropolitan areas and the notion of religious stigma extends beyond the self and the church and throughout the entire community. Shifting power dynamics may lessen social stigma for women, as empowered women of a community can publicly empathize with one another in the event of a divorce, rather than being shunned by the empowered men of a community.
- In the 2009 edition of his book "Human Intimacy: Marriage, the Family, and its Meaning," Frank D Cox writes that most divorcees cite personal reasons as the primary cause of a divorce. Personal differences run the gamut from incompatible personalities and lifestyles to sexual dissatisfaction, communication breakdown and general unhappiness. Many young couples in the age of high divorce rates enter marriages with inflated expectations and seek divorce when marriages fail to live up to those expectations.
- Some statistics point to divorce rates as having a snowball effect. Individuals with serial marriage patterns experience increasingly higher divorce rates with each successive marriage, such that if the divorce rate for first marriages is 50 percent, the divorce rate for second marriages might be 67 percent and the divorce rate for third marriages might be 73 percent. Assuming divorces precipitate second, third and even fourth and fifth marriages, which experience increasing divorce rates, the rise in divorce rates creates a snowball effect leading to even higher divorce rates.
- Divorce rates themselves vary depending on the manner in which the statistics are interpreted. According to an article published in the New York Times in 2005, divorce rates may not have risen at all in the 21st century, as the majority of these statistics fail to indulge in the complex research methods necessary to truly determine divorce rates. For instance, many interpret divorce rates by comparing marriages in a year to divorces in the same year. A true measure of divorce rates, however, entails comparing divorce rates each year to marriage rates in the year which divorcing couples married, as the number of marriages in a year in no way relates to divorces from old marriages.