A new Census report examines Americans martial patterns and trends and one nugget stood out from the rest – the divorce rate is falling. Yes, really.
From the article:
A new report from the U.S. Census Bureau finds divorce rates for most age groups have been dropping since 1996 by an average of about 5 percentage points.
One reason that fewer couples landed in divorce court may be that people were waiting longer to get married and that about a third of men and women ages 25 to 29 have never married….
Since the ’50s, the median age of men and women marrying for the first time has increased, from age 20 for women and 23 for men in 1950 to 26 for women and 28 for men in 2009. And the percentage of men and women who have never been married is increasing in most age groups.
Why the delay? According to Kelly Raley, “People are waiting till they are settled in a stable job to get married.”
People feel more comfortable postponing their trip down the aisle thanks to the increased acceptability of cohabitation, Cherlin says.
“Fifty years ago, you had to be married,” he says. “Marriage used to be the first step in adulthood, and now it’s the capstone.” {source}
To me, this sounds like a smart move, considering couples with higher educational attainment (also examined in the Census report) tend to have stronger marriages.
What say you? Have you seen this to be true – have you seen more people getting married later in life? Do you really think couples who get married later (after the career is established, a home is purchased, etc.) have a better shot at “making it”?