Young adults are waiting longer to get married and settle down, but once they do, they stay committed.
The United States has the millennial generation to thank for its decreasing divorce rate, which hit a 40-year low last year. Only 15.7 out of every 1,000 marriages broke up in 2018, according to the American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s down from 2017’s divorce rate, which was about 16.1 divorces per 1,000 marriages. Compare that, however, to the U.S. historical high point in 1979, when 22.6 marriages out of every 1,000 resulted in divorce.
Over time, a rate that high gave us the much-cited warning that half of all marriages end in divorce. However, since the early 1980s, we’ve had fewer divorces every year, and that hasn’t been true for some time.
The divorce rate began falling in the early 1990s and gradually continued its downward trend. Between 2008 and 2016, the rate had dropped by a fifth, and young adults are the reason, says Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland. They tend to delay marriage until they’re more established, educated, and financially stable, and this could contribute to a healthier, more productive relationship, he explained.
“Many of the people getting married today are more privileged than they used to be: more highly educated (both partners), and socially and economically stable, all of which bodes well for the survival of their marriages,” Cohen said.
It could be that young adults have learned from their parents’ and grandparents’ mistakes too.
“There’s a fear of divorce or a specter of divorce looming large in people’s minds. They don’t want to make a mistake. They’re waiting longer to get married to divorce-proof their marriage,” said Wendy D. Manning, co-director of Bowling Green State University’s Center for Family and Marriage Research.
In fact, the most considerable decrease in divorces has occurred among 15-to-24-year-olds, according to Bowling Green State University researchers. The divorce rate among this age group has dropped by more than 43% over the past 15 years.
Plenty of marriages are still in trouble, though. Over the past two years, more than 2 million couples in the U.S. have called it quits. But older adults tend to split more often now, driving a phenomenon that’s been dubbed the “gray” divorce.
For 55-to-64-year-olds, the divorce rate increased. In 1990, there were about five divorces per 1,000 marriages. Now, more than 15 divorces occur per 1,000 marriages. Again, researchers attribute the difference to the age at which each couple decides to settle down. Millennials choose to pursue education and careers before they say, “I do.” But for many baby boomers, self-discovery wasn’t an option.
Young adults tend to approach marriage with more hesitance than their predecessors. But once they commit, they mean it.
