Millennials Are Killing Divorce Rates

Article upon article suggest that “Millennials are killing” just about everything – the real estate industry, diamonds, Applebee’s. The list goes on and on… And now, we can add divorce rates to that list. New data from University of Maryland professor Philip Cohen shows that the U.S. divorce rate has dropped 18% from 2008 to 2016. So, what’s the cause of this decline? It’s important to note that the marriage rate has also declined over the past few decades, but Cohen considered this in his research. He calculated the divorce rate as a ratio of divorces to total number of married women.

“The overall drop has been driven entirely by younger women,” Cohen states in his study. He continues to say that recently married women are “more likely to be in their first marriages, more likely to have BA degrees or higher education, less likely to be under age 25, and less likely to have own children in the household.” The driving factors of the decline in divorces are ultimately that the married population is waiting until they’re older and waiting until they are individually successful before tying the knot. Marriages today are more likely to last than those of ten years ago. In accordance to this study’s predictions, we can anticipate the divorce rate will continue in this declining pattern.

The demographic changes in our society are changing so many businesses today from weddings to home purchase. Those who are marketing to women need to embrace this new woman.