Despite public opinion that divorce is becoming more frequent in the United States, the divorce rate actually seems to be declining, with Nevada being the top state for divorce in 2022, with a rate of *** divorces per 1,000 of the population, followed by Oklahoma, Arkansas, Idaho, and Wyoming. Marriage and divorce in Nevada Nevada has one of the highest marriage rates in the country, and Las Vegas is a popular wedding destination. Nevada is one of the few states in the U.S. that allows couples to get a marriage license and get married immediately afterwards. In addition, Nevada is a no-fault divorce state, which means that couples do not need to address the reason behind the divorce. Divorced couples in the U.S. In recent years, the number of divorced individuals over age 50 in the U.S. seems to have surpassed the number of those who were under the age of 30, but whether the younger generation remains married longer than generations past is yet to be seen. Additionally, far more children of divorced parents lived with a female single parent, rather than a male single parent.

In 2023, there were *** divorces per 1,000 inhabitants in Maryland. This figure was a decrease from 1990, when the divorce rate stood at *** divorces for every 1,000 inhabitants in the state, but an increase from 2021, when there were *** divorces per 1,000 individuals in Maryland - the lowest divorce rate in the state since 1990.

The graph illustrates the yearly percentage of divorces compared to marriages in the United States from 2000 (‘00) to 2023 (‘23). The x-axis shows years in two-digit form, while the y-axis shows the divorce-to-marriage percentage. During this period, the divorce percentage ranged from a high of about 41.7% in 2002 to a low of around 32.6% in 2022. The overall trend reflects a gradual decline in annual divorces relative to marriages, though year-to-year fluctuations remain. These figures should be viewed as approximate estimates.

In 2022, the divorce rate in the United States stood at *** per 1,000 of the population. Divorce in the U.S. Divorce is the termination of a marital union. In the United States, as in most other countries, it is a legal process in which a judge or another legal authority dissolves the bonds of matrimony existing between two persons. The process of divorce also normally involves issues surrounding distribution of property, financial support of the former spouse, child custody and child support. A divorce also allows a person to marry again.In the United States, divorce is, like marriage, a matter for state governments, not the federal government. Although divorce laws vary from state to state, for example on which terms a divorce can be arranged, a divorce must be certified by a court of law to become effective. A declining divorce rate Over the last couple of years, both the marriage rate and the divorce rate have been declining in the United States. As of 2009, the average length of a first marriage in the U.S. was ***** years, while the average length of a second marriage was about ** years.

In 2022, there were *** divorces per 1,000 inhabitants in Illinois. This figure was a decrease from 1990, when the divorce rate was *** divorces for every 1,000 inhabitants in the state.

State of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) Crude Divorce Rate: per 1000 Population: West Bank data was reported at 1.900 NA in 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of 1.800 NA for 2016. State of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) Crude Divorce Rate: per 1000 Population: West Bank data is updated yearly, averaging 1.300 NA from Dec 1997 (Median) to 2017, with 16 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1.900 NA in 2017 and a record low of 0.800 NA in 2002. State of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) Crude Divorce Rate: per 1000 Population: West Bank data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s State of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) – Table PS.G002: Vital Statistics.

State of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) Crude Divorce Rate: per 1000 Population data was reported at 1.800 NA in 2017. This stayed constant from the previous number of 1.800 NA for 2016. State of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) Crude Divorce Rate: per 1000 Population data is updated yearly, averaging 1.500 NA from Dec 1997 (Median) to 2017, with 16 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1.800 NA in 2017 and a record low of 0.900 NA in 2002. State of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) Crude Divorce Rate: per 1000 Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s State of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) – Table PS.G002: Vital Statistics.

In 2022, the marriage rate in the United States stood at *** per 1,000 people of the population. This is a decrease from 1990 levels, when the marriage rate was *** marriages per 1,000 people. Marriage Marriage is a union that can legally, culturally, and financially bind two people. Marriage occurs between all genders, races, and cultures, and is often drastically different all around the world, due to the diversity of cultures and religions. Marriage can be recognized by a state, religious authority, or an organization. Typically viewed as a contract, it brings people together through a multitude of avenues. A part of marriage is the wedding, for which couples can decide to partake in or not. Weddings are also incredibly diverse and vary in time, money, and customs. Marriage in the United States Marriage in the United States is viewed differently across all 50 states. The number of married couples in the United States has been steadily increasing since 1960. On the other hand, the divorce rate in the United States has decreased since 1990. Nevada was the state in 2021 that had the highest marriage rate in the United States, due to easy accessibility to get married there. In 2021, Nevada was also the state with the highest divorce rate in the country.

State of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) Crude Divorce Rate: per 1000 Population: Gaza Strip data was reported at 1.700 NA in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 1.800 NA for 2016. State of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) Crude Divorce Rate: per 1000 Population: Gaza Strip data is updated yearly, averaging 1.650 NA from Dec 1997 (Median) to 2017, with 16 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1.900 NA in 2010 and a record low of 1.000 NA in 2002. State of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) Crude Divorce Rate: per 1000 Population: Gaza Strip data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s State of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) – Table PS.G002: Vital Statistics.

In 2021, the crude divorce rate in Queensland, Australia was 2.6 per 1,000 resident population. In contrast, the divorce rate in the Northern Territory was 1.8 per 1,000 resident population.

According to the 2020 UNIDOMO questionnaire, Portugal clearly led the list of European countries with the highest divorce rate per 100 marriages. With 91.5 divorces the Portuguese Republic led the list, followed by Spain and Luxembourg. All three countries boast a significantly higher share than the other European countries, each reporting a divorce rate over 80 divorces.

A different way to look at Portugal

While Portugal clearly has the most divorces per 100 marriages, looking at divorce rates per 1.000 inhabitants in other European countries alters the picture of the country as one unsettled by significant numbers of divorces. With nearly 1.7 divorces per 1,000 inhabitants Portugal has roughly the same divorce rate as Germany and the Netherlands. Interesting is furthermore that although marriages in Portugal tend to result in divorce lightly more often as in Luxembourg (80.3%), the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg experienced a 0.6 point higher divorce rate.

What about the rest of the World?

While compared with Latin American countries like Guatemala or Peru, ranked among the countries with the lowest divorce rates in the world, Luxembourg’s divorce rate seems excessive. However, when compared with divorce rates (per 1.000 inhabitants) of countries like the United States (2.7) or China (3.5) divorce rates from Luxembourg and Europe are not out of the ordinary.

Content

Marriage

This folder contains data behind the story Marriage Isn’t Dead — Yet.

Source for all data is Decennial Census (years 1960 to 2000) and American Community Survey (years 2001-2012), via IPUMS USA.

Except in the divorce file, figures represent share of the relevant population that has never been married (MARST == 6 in the IPUMS data). Note that in the story, charts generally show the share that have ever been married, which is simply 1 - n. In the divorce file, figures are share of the relevant population that is currently divorced, conditional on having ever been married.

Variable names are as follows. Number in variable names are age ranges, so all_2534 is the marriage rate for everyone ages 25 to 34.

Context

This is a dataset from FiveThirtyEight hosted on their GitHub. Explore FiveThirtyEight data using Kaggle and all of the data sources available through the FiveThirtyEight organization page!

• Update Frequency: This dataset is updated daily.

Acknowledgements

This dataset is maintained using GitHub's API and Kaggle's API.

This dataset is distributed under the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

In 2022, Nevada had the highest marriage rate in the United States, with **** marriages per 1,000 residents. Hawaii had the second-highest marriage rate, at **** marriages per 1,000 residents. The falling marriage rate Perhaps unsurprisingly, the marriage rate in the United States has fallen since 1990, although it has leveled off in the past decade. This means that fewer and fewer people are getting married than in years past, particularly as views about marriage have changed in the U.S. However, despite changing perceptions about marriage and a falling marriage rate, there were more married couples in the United States in 2021 than there were in 1960. First comes love, then comes marriage Weddings and marriage have changed in the United States recently as people have been staying single longer, and especially as gay marriage and interracial marriage have become more socially acceptable. The changing face of America means that love and relationships are changing as well, and what is socially acceptable within a relationship will continue to change with it.

In 2023, the European country with the highest divorce rate per 100 marriages was Finland, with more than 55 divorces. At the bottom of the list was Ireland with only 15.5 divorces per 100 marriages.

In 2023, the divorce rate in Germany lay at about 35.74 percent. The highest divorce rate at almost 52 percent was recorded in 2005. Since then, divorce rates have ranged between 30 and 50 percent. The divorce rate compares the number of marriages with the number of divorces in the same period under review. Accordingly, the divorce rate does not provide any information about the ‘divorce risk’ of a particular marriage cohort, as the divorces do not relate to a marriage year.

As of 2024, the divorce rate in China decreased to *** divorces per 1,000 inhabitants. Before 2020, this number had been constantly increasing since 2002. Divorce rate in Asian countries The divorce rate in China soared from around **** divorces per 1,000 people in 2000 to **** divorces in 2019. This is a quite high value compared to the divorce rate of countries in the Asia Pacific region. However, China shares the fate of a growing divorce rate with many other developing countries, while in most developed countries, the number of divorces per 1,000 inhabitants is either stable or falling. For example, the divorce rate in Singapore has been manly stable at *** divorces per 1,000 inhabitants in the last ten years and the divorce rate in South Korea has fallen from *** in 2009 to *** in 2024. In comparison, the U.S. divorce rate has been falling since 1992 from *** divorces per 1,000 people to *** divorces in 2022. Dating scene in China For the younger generations, dating and marriage happens (if at all) at a much later life stage compared to their parents. The fact that China has the highest working hours in the region does not ease the dire situation for singles in China, most of them being employed as professionals or employed in the media sector, where long working hours and high work pressure are quite common.

In 2022, there were 67.85 million married men and 68.45 million married women living in the United States. This is compared to 3.7 million widowed men and 11.48 million widowed women.

Marriage in the United States

Nevada had the highest marriage rate in the United States in 2021, followed by Hawaii and Montana. This can be attributed to marriage accessibility in the state. Las Vegas weddings are known for being quick, easy, and inexpensive chapel weddings. In comparison to the cheap weddings available in Las Vegas, the average expenditure for a wedding in the United States was the highest in New Jersey, clocking in at 51,000 U.S. dollars.

Same-sex marriage

The number of Americans who think that same-sex marriage should be recognized by law has more than doubled since 1996, while the number of Americans who think it should not be valid has decreased. It was not until June 26, 2015 that the United States Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states. Before then, it was up to the states to decide if they allowed same-sex marriage. States in the Southeast are the most opposed to same-sex marriage, whereas the strongest support comes from Northern coastal states.

Saudi Arabia saw its highest number of divorce cases in 2020, slightly exceeding the ****** cases recorded in 2017. Since 2011, the number of divorces in the Kingdom has risen consistently each subsequent year, with 2019 being the only outlier, dropping by ***** cases from the previous year. Traditional views on marriage Saudi Arabia is still a deeply conservative society, where marriages and divorce are heavily influenced by tradition and familial ties. Cases of marriage and divorce continue to be overseen by the state’s Islamic courts. Unlike the number of divorce cases in Saudi Arabia, the number of marriage cases has been trending in the opposite direction. There is also a notable share of women who were married between the ages of ** and 18 among both Saudi and non-Saudi women in the country. However, as more and more women opt to take on professional careers and pursue higher education, trends are changing. Social reform in the Kingdom Recently, Saudi Arabia has undergone considerable social reforms, which have transformed the role of women in public life. After years of prohibition, women were finally permitted to legally drive as of June 2018. Although the participation of women in the economy has increased in the past years, certain sectors attract more female participation than others. It is safe to say that Saudi Arabia is gradually opening up to the involvement of women in more public affairs. It is therefore expected that the Kingdom may encounter some of the challenges women in other economies have faced for years, such as a discrepancy in average wages between men and women.

According to this statistic, December is the most popular month for an engagement with a proposal rate of ** percent. With just under ** percent, the summer months are also a quite popular choice for this event. The most popular season for weddings is summer, followed closely by fall.

Less say “yes”

The United States’ marriage rate has been declining for decades now; fewer unwed Americans want to get married nowadays, and many seem uncertain. Regarding faits accomplis, the camps are evenly split: Half of Americans are married while the other half are not. However, less commitment means less legal separation, as a decline in marriage rates also means a declining divorce rate.

An expensive engagement

Despite lower marriage rates, the wedding industry in the United States is still booming. Caterers, jewelers, event planners, and venues all profit immensely from weddings. The average amount spent on engagement rings alone is at approximately ***** U.S. dollars now, and average costs for a wedding are estimated to amount to over ****** U.S. dollars – this includes everything from the cake to the band to the ceremony. Expenses for the honeymoon not included.

This statistic shows the moral stance of Americans regarding an affair between a married man and a married woman in 2018. During the survey, 10 percent of respondents stated that they think an affair between a married man and a married woman is morally acceptable.

The moral acceptance of social issues in the US

More than two thirds of respondents to a survey in the United States responded that they believe that sex between an unmarried man and woman is morally acceptable, while one third believed that it is morally wrong and only 1 percent stated that it is not a moral issue. Unsurprisingly, when posing the same question to respondents of the Mormon faith, a significantly higher percentage stated they believed that premarital sex is morally wrong.

Regarding other morally acceptable or unacceptable actions, divorce had an acceptance rate of 71 percent among the American population, and the use of birth control was deemed acceptable – remarkably higher than the acceptance rates for premarital sex.

In the United States, the likelihood of divorce after the first marriage is at about 41 percent, and proportionally higher the more times one gets hitched; and it is increasingly more accepted than it has been in the past. Interestingly, the 2015 results for premarital sex acceptance in the United States are quite different from the results of a similar survey back in 2013, conducted globally, in which 36 percent of respondents in the United States said that premarital sex is not a moral issue, only 29 percent responded that it was acceptable and 30 percent stated it was unacceptable. The country with the least acceptance was Pakistan, where no one responded that premarital sex was acceptable. This is not surprising when taking into account that Pakistan is an Islamic Republic. In contrast, Czechia had the highest acceptance rates, a country with one of the largest atheist populations worldwide.