Five Marriage Facts

 

Picture credit to confetti.co.uk

1)  Birth order can influence whether a marriage succeeds or fails. The most successful marriages are those where the oldest sister of brothers marries the youngest brother of sisters. Two firstborns, however, tend to be more aggressive and can create higher levels of tension. The highest divorce rates are when an only child marries another only child

2)  The probability of a first marriage ending in a divorce within 5 years is 20%, but the probability of a premarital cohabitation breaking up within 5 years is 49%. After 10 years, the probability of a first marriage ending is 33%, compared with 62% for cohabitations. 

3)  Marriage does more to promote life satisfaction than money, sex, or even children, say Wake Forest University psychologists. (2)

More than friendship, laughter, forgiveness, compatibility, and sex, spouses name trust as the element crucial for a happy marriage

4)  Half of Americans ages 18 and older were married in 2017, a share that has remained relatively stable in recent years but is down 8 percentage points since 1990. One factor driving this change is that Americans are staying single longer. The median age at first marriage had reached its highest point on record: 30 years for men and 28 years for women in 2018, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

As the U.S. marriage rate has declined, divorce rates have increased among older Americans. In 2015, for every 1,000 married adults ages 50 and older, 10 had divorced – up from five in 1990. Among those ages 65 and older, the divorce rate has roughly tripled since 1990.

5)  Remarriage is on the rise. In 2013, 23% of married people had been married before, compared with just 13% in 1960. Four in ten new marriages in 2013 included a spouse who had said “I do” (at least) once before, and in 20% of new marriages, both spouses had been married at least once before.

Remarriage is more common among men than women. Among previously married men (those who were ever divorced or widowed), 64% took a second walk down the aisle, compared with 52% of previously married women, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of 2013 Census Bureau data. One possible reason for this disparity is that women are less interested than men in remarrying. Among previously married women, 54% said in a 2014 Pew Research Center survey that they did not want to marry again, compared with 30% of men.