Surprisingly, not much good data is available connecting divorce rates and occupation. A 2010 study is the only one I found that does a relatively thorough job of it. The huge table below (listing divorce rates by profession) is the data provided by that study.

The reason I became curious about this is that I read in American Sniper that Navy SEAL’s divorce rate is 90-95%. Whether that’s true or not, it made me wonder what the rate is for other occupations. It seems intuitive to me that a person’s job may be one of the best predictors of a marriage’s success or failure. The balance between work and family seems to be a common day-to-day struggle of the middle class average Joe.

There are a lot of factors wrapped up in what occupation a person has. The job defines the amount of hours you work, the mental toll it takes, and also the personality you develop from succeeding or failing at that job. And conversely, the job you choose is certainly a reflection of your personality.

The table below identifies that the highest divorce rates are for dancers, bartenders, and massage therapists, all around 40%. Perhaps the extroverted nature of these job reflects a personality that is unwilling to commit or quickly gets tired of the same old thing. The occupations with the lowest divorce rates (of less than 10%) mostly seem to be engineers. I was very surprised to read this, because of the intellectual and mental toll that a lot of these jobs take. The engineers I know become extremely passionate about their work, which I assumed can take away from the marriage. But perhaps it doesn’t. There’s hope for us nerds after all.