The 50% divorce claim is off. See lifetime odds, recent yearly trends, and which couples face the highest divorce risk.
Best for the Children Editorial·8 min read·January 6, 2026·Updated October 22, 2026
You've probably heard someone say it at a wedding, half-joking: "Well, half of these end in divorce." It's close, but not quite right. A federal study followed one generation of Americans to age 55. Among those who married, 46% had divorced at least once. For couples marrying now, the odds look better. The share of married women who divorce each year has fallen by more than a third since its 1980 peak, and it is still drifting down.
The "50%" line survives partly because divorce can be counted in several ways, and each answers a different question.
A common shortcut is to divide one year's divorces by that year's weddings. In 2023 that gives about one divorce for every three marriages. But it compares two different groups of couples: the people divorcing this year mostly married years ago. The ratio is easy to calculate and tells you little about any one couple's odds.
The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics reported a provisional 672,502 divorces and annulments in 2023. That count covers 45 reporting states and Washington, D.C., so the true national total is somewhat higher. The crude rate was 2.4 per 1,000 people.
The recent trend is gently downward:
Weddings moved the other way after a pandemic-era low. There were 1,985,072 marriages in 2021 (6.0 per 1,000), 2,065,905 in 2022 (6.2 per 1,000), and 2,041,926 in 2023 (6.1 per 1,000).
The yearly totals hide a bigger story. Bowling Green State University's National Center for Family & Marriage Research (NCFMR) tracks the refined divorce rate. In 1980 it peaked at 22.6 divorces per 1,000 married women. By 2023 it was 14.4, and in 2024 it was 14.2.
Other measures show the same decline:
You may see the 2019 Census figure of 7.6 described as "7.6 out of 1,000 marriages." That reading is wrong. The 7.6 is per 1,000 women aged 15 and older, married or not.
Americans are also marrying later. Census estimates released in late 2025 put the median age at first marriage at 30.8 for men and 28.4 for women. As the next section shows, people who divorce young have the highest divorce rates, so later marriage and lower divorce rates fit together. The figures alone don't prove that one causes the other.
Yearly rates describe a single year. To know how many marriages end in divorce, you need to follow people over time.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics did that with the NLSY79 survey, which tracked the same group of Americans into middle age. Its September 2024 analysis found that by age 55:
That 46% is the most solid "nearly half" figure available. It counts people, though, not marriages. Someone who divorced twice counts once.
The Census Bureau's report on the number, timing, and duration of marriages looks at all ever-married adults 20 and older. It found that 34% of women and 33% of men had ever divorced. The share peaks at about 43% among adults aged 55 to 64, the age group that has had the most years to divorce and came of age when divorce was most common.
Divorce risk is not spread evenly. Three patterns stand out.
Age. Young married adults divorce the most. NCFMR's 2023 data show first-divorce rates highest at ages 18 to 29: 17.6 per 1,000 married men and 19.3 per 1,000 married women. Rates fall steadily with age, down to 2.8 for men and 5.1 for women aged 75 and older.
Education. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that men and women with at least a bachelor's degree are significantly less likely to divorce than people with less education.
Later life. Divorce is falling among younger adults and rising among older ones. NCFMR found that refined divorce rates for adults 15 to 44 have declined steadily since 1990. Over the same period, the rate for adults 50 and older has more than doubled, and the rate for those 65 and older has more than tripled. This "gray divorce" trend means a long marriage is not automatically a safe one.
Some divorce statistics get repeated so often that they sound official.
The statistics describe millions of couples. If you're facing a divorce yourself, these rules are more likely to affect you.
You don't have to prove fault. Every state now allows no-fault divorce. California started the trend with its Family Law Act of 1969, signed by Governor Ronald Reagan. New York was the last state to adopt it, in a law effective October 12, 2010. It allows divorce when a marriage has broken down irretrievably for at least six months.
There may be a waiting period. Rules vary by state. In California, for example, you must have lived in the state for at least six months and in the filing county for three months, and a divorce can't be finalized until at least six months have passed.
Custody follows the child's interests. Courts decide custody using the "best interests of the child" standard. It weighs the child's safety, emotional development, and stability, not which parent is the mother or father.
Alimony taxes changed in 2019. For divorce and separation agreements signed after December 31, 2018, the person paying alimony can't deduct it, and the person receiving it doesn't report it as taxable income.
Ten years can matter for Social Security. You may be able to collect retirement benefits based on your ex-spouse's work record if all of these are true:
Claiming these benefits does not reduce what your ex-spouse or their current spouse receives.
The short answer to the title question: somewhat fewer than half of first-time spouses ever divorce, and each year a smaller share of married couples split than at any point since the 1980 peak.
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