Military divorce rate rises slightly in 2011 - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Military divorce rate rises slightly in 2011

The military divorce rate reached a new high this year as roughly one in every 27 married troops got a divorce in 2011, according to new Defense Department data.

The percentage of marriages that ended in divorce during fiscal 2011 ticked up to 3.7 percent after holding steady at 3.6 for the past two years, data shows.

That rise was driven mainly by the officer corps, which saw its divorce rate rise to 2.1 percent, up from 1.9 percent in 2010.

The divorce rate for enlisted service members remained flat at 4.1, meaning that for every 100 service members who reported being married at the start of the year, slightly more than four were not married at the end of the year.

The Air Force had the highest divorce rate at 3.9 percent, up slightly from 3.8 percent in 2010.

The Marine Corps was the only service to see a decrease in its 2011 divorce rate, which fell to 3.6 percent, down from 3.8 percent in 2010.

In total, there were more than 29,400 divorces in the military in 2011, the data shows.