[extropy-chat] Effective relationships

[Anders Sandberg]

spike wrote:
> Wow that is a mind blower Avant.  When this question came up before, about
> 6
> yrs ago, I estimated the half-life of marriages at about 15 yrs.  Looks
> like
> I was off by a factor of 2.  It amazes me to think my own union has
> already
> lasted three half-lives and we are just now starting on the spawning
> process.

Which makes it very likely it is going to last much longer. In the UK the
median length of marriages that break up is 10 years, but the peak is
about 5-6 years. Risk factors involve being young when married, previous
marriages... and in the UK, children. This is a very odd thing, because
most US evidence and data from the 70's in the UK show that children
protect marriage. But children increase divorce probability in the UK now.
Why this has changed nobody knows.

This research paper is turning me into some kind of Dr Love, brimming with
helpful statistics...

-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University