Randy Olson, a Computer Science grad student who works with data visualizations, writes about seven of the biggest factors that predict what makes for a long term stable marriage in America. Olson took the results of a study that polled thousands of recently married and divorced Americans and and asked them dozens of questions about their marriage (PDF): How long they were dating, how long they were engaged, etc. After running this data through a multivariate model, the authors were able to calculate the factors that best predicted whether a marriage would end in divorce. "What struck me about this study is that it basically laid out what makes for a stable marriage in the US," writes Olson. Here are some of the biggest factors:
How long you were dating (Couples who dated 1-2 years before their engagement were 20% less likely to end up divorced than couples who dated less than a year before getting engaged. Couples who dated 3 years or more are 39% less likely to get divorced.); How much money you make (The more money you and your partner make, the less likely you are to ultimately file for divorce. Couples who earn $125K per year are 51% less likely to divorce than couples making 0 - 25k); How often you go to church (Couples who never go to church are 2x more likely to divorce than regular churchgoers.); Your attitude toward your partner (Men are 1.5x more likely to end up divorced when they care more about their partner’s looks, and women are 1.6x more likely to end up divorced when they care more about their partner’s wealth.); How many people attended the wedding ("Crazy enough, your wedding ceremony has a huge impact on the long-term stability of your marriage. Perhaps the biggest factor is how many people attend your wedding: Couples who elope are 12.5x more likely to end up divorced than couples who get married at a wedding with 200+ people."); How much you spent on the wedding (The more you spend on your wedding, the more likely you’ll end up divorced.); Whether you had a honeymoon (Couples who had a honeymoon are 41% less likely to divorce than those who had no honeymoon).
Of course correlation is not causation. For example, expensive weddings may simply attract the kind of immature and narcissistic people who are less likely to sustain a successful marriage and such people might end up getting divorced even if they married cheaply. But "the particularly scary part here is that the average cost of a wedding in the U.S. is well over $30,000," says Olson, "which doesn’t bode well for the future of American marriages."
(Score: 2) by strattitarius on Tuesday October 14 2014, @08:48PM
They paid about $2000 to complete the surveys through Mechanical Turk, so they couldn't just throw out the results because of some contradictions. Here was the final conclusion of the paper:
Overall, our findings provide little evidence to support the validity of the wedding industry’s general message that connects expensive weddings with positive marital outcomes.
Yeah... maybe you didn't correlate marriage success with the amount spent, but you did correlate it with the number of guests. Which either means more money for the wedding, or doing it in the backyard with Vienna Sausage hors d'oeuvres. They are going to get some serious hate when clients of wedding planners start saying "I need you to accommodate 200 guests on about $5k."
Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday October 14 2014, @09:22PM
surveys through Mechanical Turk
Oh God no, not the Turk, my coworkers went thru a phase where they would drink heavily and as a game try to keep up on the turk. Definitely a cheap beer in the backyard thing not a $75 bottle of scotch thing. This is a lot more fun at a party than drinking alone although I imagine people do that too.
I turked for fun a couple months ago (its a true grind game, especially if you start competing with someone, and yes I did lose but I made a valiant effort) and there's an inherent entitlement that sets in after the 30th questions or so, I did my part, now "F you pay me" set in, and the quality level of my responses declined dramatically by question 150 or so.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday October 15 2014, @06:14PM
In other news, taking surveys on the Mechanical Turk increases your risk of divorce considerably. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.