State Of The Union: Half Of Marriages Ending In Divorce Is A Thing Of The Past

50% of marriages end in divorce is a long-accepted statistic which has been perpetuated over decades – since the late 1970s when the statistic was first generated. The 50% divorce rate factoid has infiltrated media and popular culture and is widely accepted as accurate. But as pervasive as this statistic has become, the bottom line is that it is now out of date.

No longer do 50% of all marriages end in divorce. As a matter of fact, it is more like 35% - 39% of all marriages. The divorce rate trend has been sliding downward ever since its 50% peak.

Interestingly, the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic, which sparked an onslaught of attention-grabbing headlines suggesting that the mandated stay-at-home lockdowns caused marital discord (and Covid-induced divorce) turned out to be largely false. Divorce rates have continued their steady decline even through the end of 2021.

The bottom line is that the divorce rates have dramatically decreased from its 50% peak over 40 years ago. Why?

For starters, it is not only the number of divorces that are declining, but the number of marriages as well. This is even the case with a general expansion of marital rights, such as interracial marriage in the late 1960s and same sex marriages in 2015.

Those who are electing to get married are doing so at an older age – the average age of a marrying male is now up to age 30 and age 28 for a marrying female, up from ages 27 and 25, respectively, as recently as 2003. These marrying individuals are not only older, but they are also better educated – particularly women – more frequently possessed of bachelor’s and graduate degrees. Marriage, once considered an institution which protected women by providing legal and financial support from their male spouses, is no longer such a foregone conclusion for women of a marrying age.