Getting married later in life may come with an important advantage that has shown up repeatedly in American marriage research: marriages that begin when people are older tend to be less likely to end in divorce than marriages that begin at very young ages.
The difference can be substantial.
Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, one of the longest-running studies of Americans’ work and family lives, has provided researchers with decades of information about marriage and divorce. An analysis published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found a striking relationship between the age at which a marriage began and whether that marriage eventually ended.
Among marriages that began when people were between 15 and 22 years old, approximately 58 percent ended in divorce during the period observed by researchers. For marriages beginning between ages 23 and 28, the figure dropped to roughly 43 percent. Divorce became still less common among marriages that started at older ages.
The pattern helps explain why researchers have long regarded very early marriage as an important risk factor for marital instability.
But the lesson is more complicated than simply saying, “Wait longer and your marriage will survive.”
Age itself is only one part of the story.
People who marry later may differ from very young newlyweds in education, finances, career development, emotional maturity, relationship experience and expectations about marriage. Those differences can influence how couples deal with the pressures that inevitably arise over many years together.
In other words, getting older may help, but what happens during those additional years may matter just as much.
What the Long-Term Data Shows
The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, commonly known as the NLSY79, began following thousands of Americans who were born between 1957 and 1964. The participants were teenagers and young adults when they were first interviewed in 1979, and researchers continued collecting information about their education, employment, relationships, marriages and families for decades.
Because the same individuals have been followed over such a long period, the survey provides researchers with an unusually detailed picture of how American lives develop.
A 2013 Bureau of Labor Statistics analysis using the NLSY79 found that marriage outcomes differed considerably depending on the age at which the marriage began.
Researchers reported that 58 percent of marriages beginning between ages 15 and 22 eventually ended in divorce within the observation period. The proportion dropped to 43 percent among marriages beginning from ages 23 through 28.
The decline continued among marriages that began later.
The study concluded that there was a clear negative relationship between age at marriage and the likelihood that the marriage would end in divorce. In straightforward terms, marriages beginning at younger ages were more likely to break down than those beginning later.
The researchers were careful about what the numbers meant, however. Their work was descriptive. It identified patterns in the population but did not claim that age alone caused the differences.
That distinction matters.
Two people marrying at 20 may be different in many ways from two people marrying at 32. They may have different levels of education, different incomes, different employment histories and dramatically different amounts of life and relationship experience.
Age can therefore act partly as a marker for many other changes occurring in a person's life.
Newer Data Still Shows the Importance of Marital Timing
More recent work from the Bureau of Labor Statistics has continued to follow the same NLSY79 generation.
A 2024 BLS analysis examined their marital histories all the way through age 55. By that point, about 87 percent of the men and women in the study had married at least once, and approximately 40 percent had experienced at least one divorce.
Among participants who had ever married, roughly 46 percent had experienced divorce by age 55.
The newer study also shows how complicated marital outcomes can be.
Education, race and ethnicity, work history, gender and other factors were associated with different marriage and divorce patterns. Marriage therefore cannot realistically be reduced to a single variable.
Still, the earlier findings concerning age remain important because they illustrate just how vulnerable very young marriages can be.
Why Might Very Young Marriages Be More Vulnerable?
There is no universal explanation, but several factors make the association understandable.
One is simply that the late teenage years and early twenties are periods of enormous personal change.
A person at 19 may have strong beliefs about what they want from life. By 25, those beliefs may have changed considerably.
Career goals can change.