Want the best chance of making your marriage work?  Get married in Utah.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, couples who marry in Utah have a 15.97 percent chance of getting a divorce.  That divorce statistic makes Utah the lowest in the country, especially compared to Washington DC, with a divorce rate of 31 percent. You may be thinking Utah’s marital success is connected to its high consumption of green-jello, but in reality, Utah is also the “Happiest State in America” according to a recent study conducted by WalletHub.  You can make a more thorough investigation of the report here. What percentage of marriages end in divorce? Research reported in the New York Times suggests that about one-third of current marriages will end in divorce – not the 50 percent statistic you’ve likely heard.  The divorce rate actually peaked in the 1970s and early 1980s and has been declining ever since according to the Times.

Other large indicators of marital success are education and age. A large disparity exists between college graduates and those less educated. Of college-educated people who married in the early 2000s, only about 11 percent divorced by their seventh anniversary, according to University of Michigan economist, Justin Wolfers.  Women are also far more likely to file for divorce than men at a rate of two-thirds. According to data from Pew Research Center, Americans are getting married later in life, if at all. Twenty percent of adults older than 25 have never married.  That statistic is up from 9 percent in 1960. Shares of adults cohabiting and raising children outside of marriage have also increased significantly.  Furthermore, the median age of marriage is now 27 for women and 29 for men, up from 20 for women and 23 for men in 1960 according to Pew Research. Age is also in large indicator of marital success.

According to research by Nicholas Wolfinger, a professor at the University of Utah, found that the best time to marry is in your early 20s and early 30s.  Accordingly, stated Mr. Wolfinger, “for almost everyone, the late twenties seems to be the best time to tie the knot.”  You can review Mr. Wolfinger’s research findings on his blog, the Institute for Family Studies. The divorce rate has not been reported for 2020.