Approximately 43 percent of marriages that took place at ages 15–46 ended in divorce. In general, there is an inverse correlation between education and the likelihood of a marriage ending in divorce. More than half of the marriages by men and women with less than a high school diploma ended in divorce. Marriages of high school graduates and those with some college or an associate degree ended in divorce 47 percent and 46 percent of the time, respectively. Among college graduates, 30 percent of marriages ended in divorce. Because age at marriage increases with education, the question arises of whether lower divorce rates among the college educated are due to having had fewer years over which their marriages could have ended.
This table provides two pieces of information to the contrary. First, for college graduates, the percentage of marriages that are ongoing at 10 and 15 years exceeds the percentages among the other education groups. At 15 years, 75 percent of the marriages of college graduates are ongoing compared with 55–60 percent of marriages among those with less than a college degree. Second, with the exception of marriages that began between ages 41 and 46, divorce rates generally decline as educational attainment increases. For instance, of those marriages that began from ages 23 to 28, the proportion that ended in divorce was 54 percent for those with less than a high school diploma, 50 percent for high school graduates with no college, 46 percent for high school graduates with some college, and 31 percent for college graduates. A similar pattern occurs among marriages that began from ages 35 to 40: the proportion that ended in divorce was 31 percent for those with less than a high school diploma, 25 percent for high school graduates with no college, 26 percent for high school graduates with some college, and 13 percent for college graduates.
