The Current Divorce Rate is 3.5 per 1000

Although it is higher now than it was a 100 years ago, the current divorce rate has been declining for the past 20 years. In 2000, there were 4 divorces per 1,000 people, but in 2008, according to provisional data for most states from the Centers for Disease Control, that rate had decreased to 3.5 divorces per 1,000. The rate at which couples are marrying has also decreased, but the divorce rate has also declined if expressed as the number of divorces per 1,000 married couples. Among first marriages that end in dissolution, husbands divorce at a median age of 31.8 and wives at a median age of 29.4, according to SIPP statistics. But the risk of divorce is not the same for all demographics. Adults who have a college education, or at least a high-school education, are less likely to divorce than those who dropped out of high school. And couples who marry late in life are less likely to divorce than those who marry in their teens and early twenties.