Rand Study: Military divorce rate remains steady after 4 years of war

Divorce in the nation's military was no higher after four years of war than it was in peacetime a decade earlier, despite the stress of long and repeated tours of duty.

A yearlong study by Rand Corp. says divorces rose from 2.5 percent of military marriages in 2001 to 3 percent in 2005. But that is still short of a previous Pentagon theory that marriage breakups had been soaring due to the strain of fighting the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, lead researcher Benjamin Karney said Thursday.

He cautioned that the review of service records could not foresee whether more divorces will occur in years after troops leave the service.

And he also said the yearlong study on "Families Under Stress" did not look at other possible consequences, either current or future, such as increases in alcoholism or the toll on orphaned or emotionally stressed children of troops.

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