It’s Better To Wait Before Marriage, But Not Too Long, Study Finds

Wolfinger, a sociologist at the University of Utah, suggests that after a certain point, the risk of divorce starts to rise again as you get older.

“It appears to be a trend that has gradually developed over the past 20 years: A study based on 2002 data observed that the divorce risk for people who married in their 30s was flattening out, rather than continuing to decline through that decade of life as it previously had”, Wolfinger added.

We’ve been told that waiting to get hitched until you’ve got your sh*t together-your own place, steady finances, a job, a firm grasp on your independence-is the key to a successful marriage, but it turns out that might not be the case if you’re looking to stay hitched: A new study finds people who get married after the age of 32 are more likely to get divorced than those who Wednesday in their mid-to-late twenties. And overall, the divorce rate in the US continues to drop from its peak in the late 1970s And early 1980s.

Wolfinger, a professor of family and consumer studies, finds that not all traditional wisdom is wrong: Relative to older adults, teens still face a higher risk of divorce.

Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Kanye West – who married at in Florence, Italy, in May previous year, when she was 33 and he was 36 – and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie – who Wednesday in an intimate ceremony in Correns, France, in August 2014 at the ages of 50 and 39, respectively – are therefore, reported by Mr Wolfinger, more likely to end up in divorce than those who chose to marry when younger.

“Perhaps people who marry later face a pool of potential spouses that has been winnowed down to exclude the individuals most predisposed to succeed at matrimony”, Wolfinger wrote.

People who thought about getting married later in life so that they were really sure about their partner, I’m sorry to break this to you, but science hates you.

It’s important to remember that we’re just talking about statistical risk here.

“That’s not to say everyone should get married at the same age I did”, she wrote.

Then, after the age of 32 “the odds of divorce increase by 5 percent per year”.

Indeed, back in the 1990s, the odds that someone would end up getting divorced continued declining the longer that person waited to marry – with no sign that the risks ever began increasing. “This is a new development”.