The numbers
Divorce statistics, and where each one actually comes from
How to read this table
Every figure below names the organisation that published it, the year the figure describes, and the date we last opened the link to check it was still there and still said the same thing. Figures we could not trace to a primary source are listed separately, as folklore.
But a sourced number is still an average of other people, and there is no figure on this page that can tell you anything whatsoever about your own marriage.
- 14.4The U.S. divorce rate has fallen a long way from its peak: Pew Research Center reports 14.4 divorces per 1,000 married women in 2023, down from a high of 22.6 around 1980.Married women aged 15 and older in the United States (the 'refined' divorce rate — the denominator is married women, NOT the total population)Pew Research Center · 2023
- 10.3Divorce after 50 is far more common than it used to be: Pew Research Center reports the divorce rate among married women aged 50 and older rose from 3.9 per 1,000 in 1990 to 10.3 per 1,000 in 2023.Married women aged 50 and older in the United States.Pew Research Center · 2023
- about two-thirdsMost people do not stay single after a divorce — Pew Research Center reports that about two-thirds of Americans who have divorced have gone on to remarry.U.S. adults who have ever divorced (cumulative, over a lifetime — this is not an annual remarriage rate)Pew Research Center · 2023
Three of the figures below, read in full in the table. The population line matters: a rate per 1,000 married women is not a rate per 1,000 women, and the two are not comparable.
The figures
| Figure | What it describes | Who published it | Year | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14.4 divorces per 1,000 married women | The U.S. divorce rate has fallen a long way from its peak: Pew Research Center reports 14.4 divorces per 1,000 married women in 2023, down from a high of 22.6 around 1980.Married women aged 15 and older in the United States (the 'refined' divorce rate — the denominator is married women, NOT the total population) | Pew Research Center | 2023 | |
| 7.1 per 1,000 women aged 15 and older (down from 9.8 in 2012) | Divorce is becoming less common, not more: the U.S. Census Bureau reports the national divorce rate fell from 9.8 per 1,000 women aged 15 and older in 2012 to 7.1 in 2022.All women aged 15 and older in the United States (married and unmarried alike are in the denominator) | U.S. Census Bureau | 2022 | |
| one-third (33%) | Pew Research Center found that in 2023, one-third of Americans who had ever been married said their first marriage ended in divorce.U.S. adults who have EVER been married — not all adults, and not a lifetime probability for a marriage entered today | Pew Research Center | 2023 | |
| 10.3 per 1,000 married women aged 50+ in 2023 (up from 3.9 in 1990) | Divorce after 50 is far more common than it used to be: Pew Research Center reports the divorce rate among married women aged 50 and older rose from 3.9 per 1,000 in 1990 to 10.3 per 1,000 in 2023.Married women aged 50 and older in the United States. | Pew Research Center | 2023 | |
| about two-thirds | Most people do not stay single after a divorce — Pew Research Center reports that about two-thirds of Americans who have divorced have gone on to remarry.U.S. adults who have ever divorced (cumulative, over a lifetime — this is not an annual remarriage rate) | Pew Research Center | 2023 | |
| 68% of men vs. 64% of women | The gap between men and women is smaller than the folklore suggests: Pew Research Center found 68% of divorced men and 64% of divorced women have remarried.U.S. adults who have ever divorced, by sex | Pew Research Center | 2023 |
Numbers we will not print
Widely repeated divorce figures that could not be traced to a primary source. This list matters as much as the one above: it is what stops a figure creeping back in later.
| The claim | Why it is not here |
|---|---|
| Half of all marriages end in divorce / the divorce rate is 50%. | Folklore. No primary source states this. It is a 1970s-era projection, not a measurement. What the data actually says: Pew Research Center (2023 ACS) finds one-third of ever-married Americans say their first marriage ended in divorce, and the refined divorce rate has fallen from 22.6 per 1,000 married women around 1980 to 14.4 in 2023. Writers must use the approved figures instead. |
| The U.S. crude divorce rate is about 2.3–2.4 divorces per 1,000 total population (CDC/NCHS). | Could not be verified. cdc.gov returned HTTP 403 to automated fetch on both the FastStats Marriage and Divorce page and the NVSS national rates PDF, so the figure was never read on the primary source. Also excludes several non-reporting states. Use the Census Bureau or Pew rates that were verified instead. |
| A count of how many U.S. adults are currently divorced (e.g. 'X million divorced Americans'). | Attempted via Census ACS table B12001; data.census.gov is not fetchable as a static page and no Census narrative page carrying the count was verified within budget. Rephrase without a number, or use the approved 'one-third of ever-married Americans' figure. |
| Gray divorce has doubled/tripled since 1990; nearly 40% of all people divorcing today are aged 50 or older (BGSU/NCFMR). | Appeared only in search-engine snippets of BGSU/NCFMR pages; the specific numbers were not confirmed on the primary page when fetched (FP-24-22 discusses the trend but publishes no per-1,000 rate, and the FP-25-24 PDF could not be parsed reliably). Use the approved Pew 3.9 → 10.3 gray divorce figures, which state the same trend with verified numbers. |
| Any statistic about dating after divorce — how long divorced people wait to date, online-dating usage, app demographics, success rates. | Explicitly out of scope for this run and unverified. No such number is approved; any draft containing one fails the gate. |
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