“The ideal age to get married, with the least likelihood of divorce in the first five years, is 28 to 32,” says Carrie Krawiec, a marriage and family therapist at Birmingham Maple Clinic in Troy, Michigan. “Called the 'Goldilocks theory,' the idea is that people at this age are not too old and not too young.”
Getting Married in Your 30s
Dr. Thomas says those who decide to wed in their 30s benefit from emotional maturity. “The partners may have lived more life, had more experiences, and emotionally grown through what they have gone through and been exposed to,” she continues.
A study reveals that getting married after one's mid-30s is actually riskier than getting married in one's late 20s. The best age at which to get married appears to be between 28 and 32, according to research.
In the U.S. in 2019, among adults between the ages of 25 and 29, fewer than 1 in 3 were married. That jumps to just over half for adults between 30 and 34, then to just over 60% for people between 35 and 39. The marriage rate peaks at nearly two-thirds after that.
There is no best age to get married that applies to everyone. You're never too old for it, and while it's very possible to get married before you're ready, it's often not necessarily because you're too young to marry.
Among those 18 to 29 years of age, 63% of men versus 34% of women considered themselves single. This dropped to 25% of men and 17% of women for those 30 to 49 years of age.
From the mid-1970s until 2018 there was a steady and ongoing increase in the median age of men and women at first marriage. This upward trend halted between 2018 and 2020 but continued again in 2021. In 2021 the median age of men was 30.8 years, and women 29.4 years.
Studies have shown that there is a “Goldilocks” zone, between ages 28 and 32, where marriages have the highest chance of success. After 32, the likelihood of your marriage ending in divorce increases by approximately 5% per year.
Couples in their 30s who have dated for at least 2 years are said to have an almost 80% success rate in marriage.
The average age for a woman to have her first child in the U.S. is 26 years old. However, women who live in big cities like New York and Los Angeles tend to be older before starting their families, most waiting until their early 30s.
Most couples date for two or more years before getting engaged, with many dating anywhere from two to five years. Once the question is popped, the average length of engagement is between 12 and 18 months.
And according to the National Survey of Family Growth, getting married between 28 and 32 is the lowest risk for divorce. The age of 18 might be considered “adult,” but it may not be the perfect age to get married.
Being single in your 30s doesn't mean you weren't with someone you thought you'd spend the rest of your life with. It also doesn't mean you'll stay single for the rest of your life too. But for now, as long as it takes to find the right one, you're single and life is easy.
Unconditional Love
Back to that thing called love. It's the primary reason why men get married. In fact, in a survey conducted by Pew Research, 93 percent of married people (both men and women) said love was the reason why they got married, and 84 percent of unmarried people want to marry because of love.
While there are countless divorce studies with conflicting statistics, the data points to two periods during a marriage when divorces are most common: years 1 – 2 and years 5 – 8. Of those two high-risk periods, there are two years in particular that stand out as the most common years for divorce — years 7 and 8.
But what is the most common age to get divorced? The average age for a couple entering their first divorce is 30 years old. And 60% of divorces involve spouses between the ages of 25 and 39. Women are more likely to file for divorce than men.
Those who married in their mid-20s or later, however, were found to have better well-being later in life. The study also found that those who married later in life were less depressed.
The crude divorce rate (divorces per 1,000 Australian residents) was 2.2 divorces per 1,000 residents in 2021, up from 1.9 in 2020. The total number of divorces granted in 2021 was 56,244, the highest number of divorces recorded since 1976.
The average age of mothers has been rising over time, from 30.0 in 2010 to 30.9 in 2020. Average maternal age has risen for both first-time mothers (from 28.3 years in 2010 to 29.6 in 2020) and those who have given birth previously (from 31.3 years in 2010 to 32.0 in 2020).
Average Marriage Length
But the 2021 statistics show that the median marriage-to-divorce duration is now 12.2 years. 47.8 per cent of granted divorces included spouses with children under 18 years old. The average age for divorce for men was 45.9 years, and for women, it was 43.0 years.
According to a new study from Compare the Market, 45% of couples still meet either at a social gathering or through mutual friends, and only 7% meet on a dating app.
Pew Research found that 55 percent of the singles it surveyed said they were not looking for a partner, though this includes widows and divorcees.
Some of the top places that engaged couples met were at school, work, via online dating, and through friends. Others met their partner partying the night away at a bar, through family, at church, at the gym, and at restaurants.