While there is data to support the fact that the rate of marriage in the United States is declining, the rate of marriage within the county is actually, and somewhat surprisingly, on the rise. In today’s blog, your Western Pennsylvania Family Lawyers break down the report and provide our analysis of it.
According to a Pew Research Center report released last week, 23% of today’s married adults have been married before. This is an increase from 1980 when only 17% of married people were in second or third marriages, and a 10% increase from 1960.
Based on the data gathered from the Census, nearly 42 million American adults have been married more than once. That’s almost double the amount in 1980, when 22 million people had married multiple times, and 3 times the amount in 1960 when the number of re-married Americans was 14 million.
Looking at the big picture, 40% of new American marriages in 2013 involved at least one partner who had been married before. And 8% of newly married individuals were tying the knot for at least the third time.
Today only 70% of American adults have been married at least once. This is a 15% drop from the percentage in 1960 when 85% of the U.S. population had been married at least one time. Despite the change in marriage rate, divorced or widowed individuals are just as likely to remarry now as they were in 1960. Last year 57% of individuals who had been previously married chose to remarry, a number almost identical to the 1960 number, when 56% of the U.S. population remarried.
So, why are less people are marrying, but more people are remarrying? Findings point to two factors to explain this trend: the growing divorce rate and increased life expectancy. Americans who marry a first time have a 1 in 2 chance of ending up divorced, and now because they are expected to live longer they have more opportunity to remarry and divorce.
There is no doubt that these numbers are quite interesting and are telling of the preferences of the American people. Whether we will see a change in this trend or not in the coming years is to be seen, but for now we know two things: people today are less likely to get married than people in 1960, but if they do get married they are more likely to get divorced, and then just as likely to get married again as the previous generation.
If you are one of the Americans that chose to get married and is now facing a Pennsylvania divorce, contact our PA Divorce Lawyers at Taybron Law Firm, LLC. And if after this divorce you do decide to remarry, as the study suggests you might, also contact our lawyers regarding the drafting of a Pennsylvania Prenuptial agreement in order to protect yourself in case your second or third marriage does not work out.
Source: Wall Street Journal