Patterns of Marriage and divorce from ages 15 to 55: Evidence from the NLSY79

This article uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) to examine marriage and divorce patterns for a cohort born in the years 1957 to 1964. By age 55, 87 percent of men and women had married at least once and 40 percent had divorced at least once; among those who had married, 46 percent had divorced at least once. On average, people had 1.2 marriages by age 55. We find that marriage and divorce patterns over the lifecycle varied by race, ethnicity, educational attainment, and work history. Black men were less likely to get married than White or Hispanic men at each age, with the gap widening as they got older. Similarly, Black women had consistently lower rates of entry into a first marriage than White and Hispanic women as they aged. College-educated men and women married at older ages than those with less schooling. Men with a bachelor’s degree or higher were more likely to marry and less likely to divorce than those with less education. Women with a bachelor’s degree or higher were less likely to divorce. Men who spent more years in full-time work were more likely to marry and less likely to divorce. In contrast women who worked full time in at least 80 percent of the years from ages 25 to 54 were less likely to marry than women who worked full time in a smaller percentage of years.