Divorce Rates

1. PER CAPITA ANNUAL. The last-reported U.S. divorce rate for a calendar year, available as of May, 2005, is 0.38% divorces per capita per year, the provisional estimate for the year 2003 from the National Center for Health Statistics. The absolute latest annual divorce rate is 0.37 % for the "year" ending Nov. 30, 2004, given in the latest Monthly Vital Statistics Report .
When a rate for the entire calendar year 2004 is released, you can find it in the Vital Statistics Report for the year ending in December 2004, via this page. Later Vital Statistics Reports covering 2005 and later will be available via this page.

Notes on understanding this per capita rate:

• This rate is only for the states that keep track of the number of divorces. California, Colorado, Indiana and Louisiana do not.
• Since every divorce involves two people, the percentage becomes somewhat more meaningful if you double it. E.g., 0.74% of the entire population gets divorced every year.
• A rate per married people, instead of per straight population, would be even more helpful, but we do not know of a consistent source for that number. If you do, please tell us.

U.S. Per Capita Divorce Rates Every Year 1940-1990

Per capita divorce rates 1990-2002:
1991, 0.47%
1992, 0.48%
1993, 0.46%
1994, 0.46%
1995, 0.46%
1995, 0.43%
1997, 0.43%,
1998, 0.42%,
1999, 0.41%,
2000, 0.41%,
2001, 0.40%,
2002, 0.38%
(Mostly from NCHS, some from Census Bureau's Statistical Abstract of the U.S., which often differs from NCHS by 0.01%)
See also U.S. divorce rates and other vital stats from 1950 to 2001.

2. RAW NUMBERS. The Center has released total state and regional marriage and divorce numbers (not the same thing as rates) for the years 2000, 1999 and 1998.
The total numbers of U.S. divorces (excluding the non-counting states) reported finalized annually are 957,200 in 2000, 944,317 in 1999, and 947,384 in 1998.
The total numbers of U.S. marriages (including those states) reported celebrated annually are 2,355,005 in 2000, 2,366,623 in 1999, and 2,267,854 in 1998.
Chart of all states and regions from this report.

3. PROJECTION/PREDICTION. This is the Census Bureau's often-cited "50%" rate, the proportion of marriages taking place right now that will eventually divorce, which has since been revised downward to roughly 43% by the National Center for Health Statistics but was moved back up to around 50% by the Census Bureau in 2002, with even more ifs ands and buts than usual. Most recently, according to the New York Times, it has been revised downward to just over 40%.

One of the best explanations of what is an accurate prediction for this statistic, and of the limits of divorce statistics, is an April, 2005 New York Times article, "Divorce Rate: It's Not as High as You Think."

This kind of thing is probably the best estimate statisticians can come up with, but it is only a prediction of how many people currently entering their first marriages will ever get divorced. It is a very rough estimate even if current trends continue unchanged, but it is also subject to change if divorce becomes more or less popular or available. For a more detailed exploration of the nature of this and other divorce rates, see messages on "Divorce Statistics and Interpretation" by Scott Stanley and Paul Amato, November, 1998

Here is an excerpt from the Census Bureau report, with a link to the full report:

"The National Center for Health Statistics recently released a report which found that 43
percent of first marriages end in separation or divorce within 15 years. The study is based on
the National Survey of Family Growth, a nationally representative sample of women age 15 to
44 in 1995. Bramlett, Matthew and William Mosher. "First marriage dissolution, divorce, and
remariage: United States," Advance Data From Vital and Health Statistics; No.323. Hyattsville
MD: National Center for Health Statistics: 2 1.

"Data in the Census report were collected from both men and women, age 15 and over, and a
different methodology was used than in the NCHS report.

"About 50% of first marriages for men under age 45 may end in
divorce, and between 44 and 52% of women's first marriages
may end in divorce for these age groups. The likelihood of a divorce
is lowest for men and women age 60, for whom 36 % of men
and 32 percent of women may divorce from their first marriage by
the end of their lives. A similar statistical exercise was performed in
1975 using marital history data from the Current Population Survey
(CPS). Projections based on those data implied that about one-third of
married persons who were 25 to 35 years old in 1975 would end their
first marriage in divorce.

"This cohort of people, who in 1996 were about 45 to 55 years old, had
already exceeded these projections as about 40% of men and
women in these ages had divorced from their first marriage. Current
projections now indicate that the proportion could be as high as
50% for persons now in their early forties."
Rose M. Kreider and Jason M. Fields, "Number, Timing, and Duration of
Marriages and Divorces: 1996", U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Reports, February 2002, p. 18.