Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Real Reality]

Even Winston Churchill of England was quoted as stating, "I only trust statistics that I manipulate on my own."

Considering the fact that one out of two couples according to the old method, and one out of 10 couples according to the Office of Court Administration are divorced, the magic of statistics is surprising. Previous divorce statistics employed the method of "simply comparing the number of cases of marriage with that of divorce" for a given year. According to this method, there are 306,600 couples married and 145,000 divorced, which calculates to a 47.4 percent divorce rate.
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2004042128198

One of my favorite undergraduate test items is the following:
Which of the following statements is correct about divorce?

A. For every marriage that occurs in this country there is about one divorce.
B. In 1990 there were 4.7 divorces for every one thousand people.
C. In 1990 there were 20.9 divorces for every 1000 married women over 15 years of age.
D. Forty percent of the women born in the 1970s will divorce.
E. All of the above are correct.

The answer to the above question is "E." They are all correct. All of these statistics get reported at one time or another, but when people see these different numbers, it is very confusing.

DIVORCE RATE PER MARRIED WOMEN. The best indicator of the divorce rate is the number of divorces per 1000 married women over 15 years of age. This statistic is the most accurate indicator of rate of divorce. Comparisons of this statistic across communities and over time will provide the most accurate picture of what the trends really are. (Note: A similar rate should be found using married men... it's close but never exactly the same.....demographers trust women's reports of their marital status rather than men.... hmmm.)
Robert Hughes, Jr.
Department of Family Relations and Human Development
The Ohio State University
http://www.hec.ohio-state.edu/famlife/divorce/demo.htm

[just because]

RR,
I think you should marry a statistics book

[Real Reality]

just because wrote,
RR,
I think you should marry a statistics book.

But, Virtual and I are engaged.

[Toby]

82% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

[sparkx]

You can use statistics to prove anything. 47% of people know that...

[Toby]