The Divorce Rate in Utah – What the Statistics Say

Published May 26, 1983. I know your idea of an exciting evening is not to sit home and study divorce rates by county in Utah. But recently I received a report published by the State of Utah Department of Health Statistics, 150 W. North Temple, Salt Lake City, 84103.

The report indicates that in 1981 8,077 divorces occurred in our state, which has a population of 1,520,000, and a divorce rate of 5.3 per thousand during the year. Comparatively, there were 7,811 divorces in 1980 when the population was an estimated 1,474,000 with a rate once again of 5.3 per 1,000 population.

And in 1979, there were 7,509 divorces with an estimated population of 1,367,000 and a rate of 5.5 per 1,000 population during that year.

What about the divorce rate by geographical region within the state? Suppose a married couple planned on moving to Utah and wanted to live in the county with the lowest divorce rate, just to protect their marriage. Where would they live? Salt Lake county? Willard County? Davis County?

I took the report issued by the Bureau of Health Statistics, and with the help of my calculator, I also figured the percent of Utah’s population which each county represents, along with the percent of divorces occurring in each county. Then I listed each county in rank order, from highest to lowest, in divorce rate per 1,000 population. Here is what I found (see chart below:)

You will note that four counties – Grand, Weber, Salt Lake, and Toole – have higher than average divorce rates within the state. By my calculations, these four counties contain 54 percent of the state’s population and yet represent 66 percent of the divorces.

As most sociologists know, urban areas tend to have higher divorce rates than rural areas. This trend seems evident in Salt Lake and Weber counties, but not in Davis and Utah counties if they classify as urban areas.

Why Grand and Tooele counties have higher divorce rates is not explained by the rural-urban factor. Grand County had a divorce rate of 6.8 for 1980 and 10.0 for 1979. Tooele, likewise, had a divorce rate of 5.6 for 1980 and 6.9 for 1979.

Utah county, on the other hand, has 15 percent of the population and yet only 10 percent of the divorces for 1981. Similarly, Davis County has 10 percent of the population and only 8 percent of the divorces.

One caution: the figures don’t necessarily mean that counties with lower rates have fewer divorces than those with higher rates, since people from less populated areas may be coming into the more populated counties to get their divorces.

Maybe the best bet for our hypothetical couple moving to Utah would be to move to Daggett where there were no divorces during 1981. Then again, they might be a little lonely in Daggett County. Only 850 people live there.