Over the holidays so many of us found our Facebook feeds inundated with engagement announcements and close-up shots of the big, shiny sparklers.
It felt like everyone I know got engaged. And… they pretty much did. Or so say the numbers.
Statistics show that the most popular time to get engaged is between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. WeddingWire, a tech company that serves the $70+ billion wedding industry, reports that 33 percent of engagements occur during that time.
And jewelry sales also surge during, and leading up to, the holiday season. Diamond-trading platform IDEX reported a surge in U.S. jewelry sales of 7.5 percent in October, compared to an increase of only 0.8 percent for average retail sales.
So that checks out. But still I had to wonder, why – at 26 – were so many of my friends and colleagues now tying the knot? Well, according to science, we’re heading into that perfect interval. Thirty is statistically the best age to marry – that is, if you would prefer not to be divorced within the first five years.
That magic number, along with the warning “Wait to Get Married, But Not Too Long,” comes from a study by Nicholas H. Wolfinger, a Professor of Family and Consumer Studies and Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the University of Utah.
READ MORE: What You Need to Know About Delayed Marriage Rates and Why You Shouldn’t Be Alarmed
He found that initially – prior to age 32 – each additional year of marriage reduces the odds of divorce by 11 percent, which makes sense. It stands to reason that the younger you are, particularly teens or early twenties, the less likely the marriage is to succeed. The author cites reasons such as lack of financial stability and immaturity as common causes in those divorces.
Now, the tricky part is that if you continue to wait – past age 32 – a sort of upside down bell curve emerges, with the odds of divorce ever rising. After that, the probability of divorce increases by 5 percent each year.
The changing tides first emerged in 2011, when the median marriage age for women jumped to 27, the highest it has ever been. Wolfinger suggested the rise comes from a wage stagnation – people just can’t afford it – and a change in societal norms.
It is much more common and socially acceptable now to be living with your partner out of wedlock – see Lena Dunham and Jack Antonoff, Kourtney Kardashian and Scott Disick, etc. So particularly if finances are an issue, why not put it off?
Of course, that doesn’t explain why divorce rates would begin to rise again once you turn 33. As if there wasn’t already enough of a biological clock ticking. It kind of calls to mind that quote they’re so worried about in “Sleepless in Seattle,” that “It’s easier to be killed by a terrorist than it is to find a husband over the age of 40.”
Wolfinger conceded that point, that it could be due to a smaller dating pool at that age. But he also mused that perhaps the people in that winnowed down pool were not predisposed to succeed in matrimony to begin with.
In other words, it wasn’t just that there are fewer singles at this age, or that these people are waiting due to financial reasons or because they had yet to find “the one,” but that they were never really interested in or destined for marriage anyway.
Or that after spending 32+ years on their own, they would be less likely to adjust as well to the compromises and everyday work of a marriage.
That being said – don’t panic – this study is not at all a guarantee that if you marry later in life you are doomed for failure. As in “He’s Just Not That Into You,” there are always exceptions to “the rule,” so who knows? You could even end up posting that dreaded Facebook announcement that sends someone else into a tailspin.
