How do marriage and divorce rates vary by state?
The US Census Bureau calculates marriage and divorce rate by looking at the “number of women who married or divorced in the last year per 1,000 women age 15 and over.”
Washington, DC, had the nation’s highest marriage rate in 2023 with 22.5 marriages per every 1,000 women. Utah has the highest of all states with 21.9, and Alaska followed with 20.9.
Alaska’s relatively high marriage rate is paired with the highest divorce rate nationwide, 9.9 divorces per 1,000 marriages. This may be age-related; marriage rates are impacted by a population’s age, and are generally higher in states with younger populations. Alaska has the fifth-lowest median age in the US, 36.1.
The lowest divorce rate in the nation was in Vermont, with 4.4 divorces per 1,000 marriages and an average age of 43.4. Vermont is the-third oldest state in the nation behind Maine (44.8) and New Hampshire (43.4).