Wedlocked
It seems that more Americans were saying “I do” in 2022… while fewer existing couples called “I don’t” on their unions.
New data released by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics found that marriage rates rebounded in 2022 from the record low seen in 2020, with more than 2 million marriages recorded for the first time since 2019 — equivalent to a US-wide rate of 6.2 per 1,000 people, as 32 states reported increases.
Degrees of separation
Divorce rates also decreased slightly to 2.4 per 1,000 in 2022 from 2.5 the year before, continuing a — somewhat surprising — steady downward trend of divorces, which has nearly halved from a rate of 4 per 1,000 at the turn of the millennium.
Indeed, the small increase in marriages comes as some countries attempt to bolster falling populations by incentivizing marriage, with China recently ending a 9-year decline in nuptials off the back of its ‘three-child policy’. And, although US marriages remain far less common than their 1946 peak (~16.4 per 1,000), tying the knot in Vegas is still giving traditional weddings a run for their money: in 2022, Nevada had a statewide marriage rate of 25.9 per 1,000 and a (presumably quickie) divorce rate of 4.2 per 1,000.
