Put a ring on it

The pandemic led to a drop in both marriages and divorces in the US. Interestingly, the marriage rate, expressed as the number of marriages per 1,000 people, is recovering. But the divorce rate is not recovering, as it dropped back to its pandemic low. One simple explanation could be that there is a lag between the marriage and divorce rate. With respect to the long term, lower marriage rates appear to be contributing to decreasing household sizes. The average number of people per household in the US declined 5% from 2.62 in 2000 to 2.50 in 2022, but this is much smaller than the 25% decrease in the marriage rate.

Source: US CDC, March 2024.