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Divorce Statistics By Age

A lot has been said about marriage and the respective ages of the couple getting hitched. There is an urban myth which goes around claiming that those who get married young tend not to have a stable marriage, for they lack the maturity to understand the full responsibility which comes with a committed relationship. Then there are those who claim that marriages where the two individuals involved have a massive age gap in between them are destined for a break up sometime in the future.

So, how many of these urban beliefs are true? How many of them are flat out made up stuff? We at edivorcestatistics.com have the bare numbers to either prove or disprove these rampant, unscientific theories.

Age-wise percentage breakdown

The following divorce statistics in America depicts legal split-up rates among individuals who belonged to different age ranges during the time of their marriages.

Rates among people who married under the age of 20

Women- 27.6%
Men- 11.7%
Rates among people who married between the ages of 20 and 24

Women- 36.6%
Men- 38.8%
Rates among people who married between the ages of 25 and 29

Women- 16.4%
Men- 22.3%
Rates among people who married between the ages of 30 and 34

Women- 8.5%
Men- 11.6%
Rates among people who married between the ages of 35 and 39

Women- 5.1%
Men- 6.5%

As you can observe, the age range with the highest combined separation net percentage (addition of the rate rate among women and men), happens to be, surprisingly not under 20, but the age range of 20 to 24. Even the individual percentage rates for both genders, 36.6% and 38.8% respectively, happen to be higher than that of the other age groups.

Why is this so? "20 to 24" happen to be the "college age", when individuals do not have the fuller sense of maturity and may end up making a lifelong commitment in haste. This is why this age range has the highest number of breakup among people who tied the knot when they belonged to this range, as opposed to the subsequent years where people gain a better understanding of what exactly they are getting into, and have a plan on how to handle day by day situations as they come. The same condition is reflected from the different divorce statistics by state in USA.

One reason the "Under 20" age range has lower combined and gender individual judicial separation rates could be because when this survey was conducted (in 2008), the marriage rates in that age range must have been low in the first place. Far lower than the marriage rates in the "20 to 24" age range. And as we know, low marriage percentages directly mean low breakup percentages. Hence the apparent "victory" of the "Under 20s" over the "Early Twenty" wedded individuals.

Which States See High Percentages of People Marrying, and then Subsequently Divorcing, at a Young Age?

It has been observed that it is the Southern States, where the maximum percentage of people tend to marry at a younger age. Unfortunately, it also the South which has the highest amount of divorce rates- According to a US Census Bureau Study in 2009, the divorce rates in the Southern States were 10.2 out of 1000 for men, and 11.1 out of 1000 for women, as opposed to the national divorce rates- 9.2 out of 1000 for men and 9.7 out of 1000 for women. The Northeast had lesser than the average, 7.2 out of 1000 for men and 7.5 out of 1000 for women.


The Southern States happen to be much more conservative in nature than their Northern and Eastern counterparts and the concepts of "marriage" and "sexual purity" are far more idealized in these states than in any other region. As a result, people get married at a younger age to achieve the object of their dreams as soon as possible, having higher expectations as they enter into marriage. Which, without proper awareness and wisdom, is a recipe for disaster, more often than not, as evidenced in the high divorce statistics in these states.

Rates Among Married Couples With a Large Age Gap in Between Them

While previous studies have shown that the split-up percentage is often high when it comes to married couples with a large age difference between them, especially in the case of younger men and older women, it should be noted that the findings of these studies have been inconsistent and there is no guarantee that a couple with a large age disparity is bound to fail. Ultimately, the strength of the relationship depends on maturity levels and compatibility of each individual couple.

So those were the most important divorce statistics by age in the United States of America. At the end of the day, age is just a number, it is the maturity of a person that ultimately makes his or her marriage stick.

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