He said among the general population at OU he's noticed a trend toward unmarried couples living together. One reason may be that people are scared of divorce, he said. He said he's also noticed that Christian women are more career-minded now, but they are also willing to put time aside for a family. Hope said single women as a demographic group didn't exist in the past. Hope said this new demographic group of single women is a major part of the economy and had to be catered to in advertising, but divorced, single-parenting women are still the poorest people in the country.
Hope attributes Oklahoma's high divorce rate to two major factors.
Age at marriage and education usually dictate the success of a marriage, she said. She said many people in Oklahoma get married at a young age. But I'm not convinced that religion has a lot to do with marriage success variables. Hope said it's important to remember that the divorce rate as a whole is driven by something not about individuals but rather societal structural factors. Factors such as women's labor, women's independence, birth control, the economy and technology all affect the divorce rate, Hope said.