For young couples in the United States, the divorce rate has been falling. This is not true for all couples, especially those in older age brackets – such as those who are 50 years old and older, who have a rising divorce rate. But it is certainly true that younger generations are getting divorced less than those before them.
Why is this? There are numerous different factors that all contribute. Here are a few things to keep in mind.
People are getting married later
One factor is that most people now put off marriage until around 30. Studies have found that getting married at a young age increases the odds of a divorce. Therefore, the mere fact that people are waiting longer to tie the knot could be why these marriages are more likely to last.
Increased cohabitation
A related trend is that more couples are living together prior to getting married. Cohabitation happens in the majority of relationships now, so it is certainly not an outlier. This means that there are probably many couples who cohabitate and break up, but they don’t contribute to the divorce statistics because they never got married.
Children of divorce
One interesting thing to note is that those whose parents got divorced when they were children have higher odds of getting divorced themselves. So this means that the lower divorce rates for current parents could mean that the next generation will simply continue this trend. Fewer of them will have divorced parents, so their own divorce rate will also drop.
Even though divorce is getting less common, it’s still very complicated when it happens. Those who are splitting up need to know how to divide custody time with their children, split up marital assets and much more.
