The Sydney Morning Herald reported recently that Australians are divorcing less than they did six years ago.

Today's divorce rate of 2.5 per 1,000 people is down slightly from 2.9 per 1,000 in 2001.

I'm not sure this is good news, as fewer divorces doesn't mean more long-term happy unions.

The slight decline in Australia — and in the U.S. — is due to several factors:

1. A decline in the number of marriages, possibly resulting in fewer divorces.
2. The practice of co-habiting has grown.
3. There is a decrease in the tendency of divorced persons to remarry.

Still, one in three Australian marriages end in divorce. The most likely divorce candidates are in marriages just over twelve years, men aged 40-44, and women 35-39.

For men it may be a mid-life crisis: they aren't achieving their life goals, and seek new adventures with younger partners. A third of all Australian divorces occur in marriages of five years or less.

While Australian divorces follow the same trend of Western countries, the U.S. still has the highest rate of divorce. Despite a slight decline, the U.S. rate is between 40-50% of marriages. Experts believe that young people marrying for the first time are at the greatest risk for divorce during the first five years of marriage.

In the U.S., marriage rates have declined almost 50% since 1970, from 76.5 per 1,000 to 39.9 per 1,000, at the end of 2006. In 2005, 51% of women were living without a spouse. Women and men are waiting longer to marry.

You may think cohabitation is the way out if you want to avoid divorce, but it's not sure-fire: co-habiting couples have twice the break up rate of married couples. (We just don't call it a divorce.)

In the end, there is only one sure-fire way to avoid divorce: Don't get married.

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