Divorced Americans might not have to worry about being alone — chances are remarriage is in their future, according to an analysis of federal data by the Pew Research Center.
While divorce declined and marriage rates stayed steady in recent years, according to federal data, divorce still shapes a large part of U.S. culture. About 1.8 million Americans got divorced in 2023, according to Pew — reshaping how families and households are formed, often in surprising ways.
Two-thirds of divorced Americans marry again, according to the Pew analysis released Thursday, which focused on what it called in its report “eight facts” about divorce in the U.S.
Men and women are remarrying at a fairly similar rate, though divorced men are slightly more likely to remarry than women, Pew found. A slight caveat, the analysis showed, was that widows are less likely to remarry than women who have been divorced.
And Pew found that 46% of divorced Americans who have remarried have a child with their current spouse.
“A sizeable fraction of Americans who’ve divorced have gone on to form new families,” lead study author and Pew research associate Jake Hays told CBS News.
For those who do remarry, the economic benefits can greatly outweigh the single life. Pew found that the median household wealth, or net worth, of divorced working adults was $98,700 in 2023, while those in their first marriage had a median household wealth of $326,900. Remarried people had a slightly higher net worth of $329,100, Pew found.
Bari Z. Weinberger, a New Jersey divorce attorney, told CBS News via email that her clients often get back in touch with her firm after they enter a “new committed” relationship.
“Having gone through the experience of divorce, people entering a second marriage tend to approach it with more clarity and foresight,” Weinberger said.
Often, those about to remarry have questions about whether their alimony will end, and they also ask about prenuptial agreements, she said. Weinberger urged those entering second marriages to set clear expectations “when assets from a prior marriage are involved.”
But some experts cautioned that remarriage might not lead to forever after all.
Professors Rosie Shrout of the University of British Columbia and Dana Weiser of Texas Tech University research “gray divorces” — a term that refers to couples 50 and older who get divorced. They cautioned that second marriages can lead to gray divorces.
“Many of these gray divorces are actually second marriages,” they wrote in an email to CBS News, adding that, in general, there is a higher divorce rate for second marriages compared to first marriages.
Pew researchers found that, overall, the divorce rate has continued to decline since the 1980s, with gray divorces being the exception. Although the gray divorce rate has leveled off recently, after rising from 1990 to 2008, Pew found.
That leveling off could be due to several reasons, Shrout and Weiser said. There are fewer marriages today compared to previous generations, and some older people are in committed relationships without marriage. Just like younger couples, cohabitation without marriage is an increasingly popular choice among older adults. There are also those couples who choose to live apart, a term referred to as “living apart together,” where they maintain separate homes while in a committed relationship, the professors wrote.
Shrout and Weiser added that older adults are often “focused on the positives and the things that make them happy — like connecting with people they love and care about and spending time doing activities they enjoy.”
