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If you're married, the thought of divorce has probably popped into your mind at least once.
Come on, admit it.
And if you're not married, let me tell you that there's gonna be a point at 2 a.m. when you have a crying baby and haven't slept in two months that it's gonna run through your head to run.
Far.
Away.
But, don't just take my word for it, take the word of the some 379,247 people living in Tennessee over fifteen years of age who are divorced. Or compare that to the 28,339,199 dAmericans who are already divorced in 2022.
A lot of people make the decision to run away - or simply split up - across the Volunteer State.
Isn't the divorce rate in America close to 50%? Yes indeed. But that's not quite what we're measuring; we are looking at counts and percentages of people over 15 years old who are currently divorced.
You typically calculate that 50% statistic as percent of marriages.
But we are just going to focus on the actual number of divorced people today -- what better way to measure marital misery than the straight count of people in Tennessee it affects?
So now that we have you biting your nails, rethinking your world view, and pulling out your hair, let's take a look at the places in Tennessee with highest rates of divorcees.
The 10 Cities In Tennessee With The Highest Divorce Rates
- McMinnville (Photos)
- Ripley (Photos)
- Lawrenceburg (Photos)
- Bolivar (Photos)
- Lexington (Photos)
- Greeneville (Photos)
- Milan (Photos)
- Soddy-Daisy (Photos)
- Brownsville (Photos)
- Kingston (Photos)
Let's quickly recap before we dive into the methodology and a closer look at the top ten places in TN.
What is the city in Tennessee with the highest divorce rate? That would be McMinnville, with 17.0% of people over 15 years of age being divorced, per the most recent census data.
What is the overall Tennessee divorce rate? According to the 2016-2020 Community Survey, the overall divorce rate in Tennessee is 7.000000000000001%, which compares to the US divorce rate of 10.9%.
Alrighty, on to how we calculated the places with the highest divorce rates in Tennessee.
For more Tennessee reading, check out:
/10
Population: 13,707
Divorce Rate: 17.0%
Divorcees: 1,864
Median Income: $36,337
More on Mcminnville: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
Population: 7,852
Divorce Rate: 17.0%
Divorcees: 1,067
Median Income: $34,813
More on Ripley: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
Population: 10,925
Divorce Rate: 16.0%
Divorcees: 1,398
Median Income: $31,573
More on Lawrenceburg: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
Population: 5,005
Divorce Rate: 14.0%
Divorcees: 560
Median Income: $32,174
More on Bolivar: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
Population: 7,838
Divorce Rate: 14.0%
Divorcees: 877
Median Income: $33,337
More on Lexington: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
Population: 14,938
Divorce Rate: 14.0%
Divorcees: 1,673
Median Income: $41,020
More on Greeneville: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
Population: 7,642
Divorce Rate: 14.0%
Divorcees: 855
Median Income: $43,300
More on Milan: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
Population: 13,510
Divorce Rate: 13.0%
Divorcees: 1,405
Median Income: $51,192
More on Soddy-Daisy: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
Population: 9,497
Divorce Rate: 13.0%
Divorcees: 987
Median Income: $35,160
More on Brownsville: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
/10
Population: 5,946
Divorce Rate: 12.0%
Divorcees: 570
Median Income: $48,179
More on Kingston: Cost Of Living | Crime Report
How We Determined The Places In Tennessee That Get Un-Hitched The Most
Since that this is the 58th category of rankings we are compiling for the site, we had a pretty good idea where to find data on marriage and divorce in America the U.S. Census Bureau. Because who likes tracking misery more than the U.S. government?
Specifically, we looked at the 2016-2020 American Community Survey specifically table S1201 -- Marital Status.
Pretty straight forward on that front -- we just had to extract the following column of data:
- Population 15 Years and Over -> Divorced
There's some kinda interesting/fun/sad data in there like .1% of female Americans aged 15-19 are divorced, but 0% of males (That's probably a rounding issue, but still).
But the national data is for another day, today the analysis focuses on the 97 places in Tennessee with a population of over 5,000.
We ranked each of these places by the percentage of divorcees over 15 years of age from highest to lowest. We crowned the divorce capital of Tennessee the place with the highest incidence of divorcees, McMinnville.
And if you're trying to avoid divorce, check out Germantown, the city with the lowest divorce rate in Tennessee.
Getting Some Closure In Tennessee After Untying The Know
Besides just coming up with what we thought would be a great new blog/book title, "Untying the Knot In Tennessee: Life After Divorce", we now have a sense of what places in the Volunteer State don't pay much attention to the whole "'til death do we part" phrase.
Try to keep in mind that the reason cities rank where they do in Tennessee could be because of the age, education, and income distribution, as all of those things impact the rate of divorce.
And, in all honestly, that's probably for the best. It's much better to get out of a toxic relationship than stay it.
Just make sure you have your running shoes ready to go.
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