Madison Chapmon

UWRT 1103: Campbell

2/7/15
Topic Proposal: Divorce Rates in the US
Introduction/Overview:
The topic that Ive been interested in is the changes in divorce
rate in the US and what causes it to rise and decline. Growing up I
witnessed many of my childhood friends suffering from hardship as
their parents chose to divorce, more so than not. It got to the point
where if one of my friends told me that their parents were getting a
divorce, I was no longer surprised. In 8th grade, my friend Sydney
came up to me one day at school and told me that her parents were
getting a divorce and I was so surprised and confused. Within the same
year I discovered that my friend Lanes parents were getting a divorce
too. It just kept becoming more common and I was becoming less and
less surprised.
There is a list of different reasons to why so many marriages end
up in divorces nowadays and that list could go on and on for forever.
People have their own reasons to blame due to their own personal
experiences or observations, but there is more than just one reason to
why divorce rates are changing amongst us. Most of us think that
divorce rates have just started to rise over the past couple of decades,
but as a matter of fact, studies from the American Psychological
Association were more common in the 60s and 70s than they are

now! Divorce rates seem to be somewhat unpredictable. Research

from the Encyclopedia of Psychology states that When society
changes, divorce does too. As society changes, many people change
along with it. Federal or states laws have changed, individual values
have changed, views on certain worldly issues have changed, and
personalities have changed and all of these topics will continue to
change. There are reasons to why divorce rates had a dramatic rise
back in the 70s and there are reasons to why they are unpredictable
nowadays.

Initial Inquiry Question(s):

What are the effects on children when parents are getting
divorced?
What caused the dramatic increase of divorce rates in the 60s
and 70s?
Will divorce rates continue to increase or decrease?
Is the husband more likely to divorce the wife or vice versa?
What caused divorce rates to stop increasing dramatically after
the 80s?

My Interest in this Topic:

Im interested in this topic because Ive always wondered about
divorce statistics and why theyre constantly changing.

People are

getting divorced every day and it doesnt seem like such a big deal to
anyone anymore, Id like to learn what to do and what not to do

whenever Im thinking about getting married.

I want to know what

causes most marriages to most likely end in divorce and why its
changing so much.

I always thought that divorce rates have never

stopped increasing and they will always be increasing, but when I

started researching this topic and discovered how divorces were
occurring more rapidly 40-50 years ago. I was shocked to find this out
and I want to know why they became so common.

Id also like to

further my research on the effects that divorce has on children. Some

websites claim that it brings depression and sadness to the children
when their parents become divorced.

But what about those homes

where parents were always arguing and fighting? Does is make the
lives of their children better when they get divorced? Does it bring a
more stable environment to the children when the fighting stops. Id
like to know more about the effects.

Next Steps:
Next I plan to further my research by going more in depth online
and going to the library to see if there are any books covering the
divorce rates of America. I want to see some statistics regarding the
increase and decrease of divorce rate over the years and see if they
are close to what Ive expected them to be or far from it.