After COVID lull, marriage rates rebound
After falling with the onset of COVID-19 in 2020, the number of marriages in Connecticut and around the nation rebounded, recently released statistics show.
Wedding-related businesses in the state reported a corresponding rise in bookings and purchases, but divorces also have increased.
Marriages in the U.S. totaled 2,065,905 in 2022, surpassing the 2 million mark for the first time since 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this month. The rate of marriages, 6.2 per 1,000 population, was the highest rate since 2018.
Connecticut’s marriage rate in 2022 was 6 per 1,000 population, rising from a low of 4.3 in 2020, which was the lowest rate in nearly 30 years, the CDC reported.
COVID cut deeply into wedding venues, caterers, photographers, disc jockeys, and all businesses connected with marriage. Birchwoods at Oak Lane banquet facility in Woodbridge was set to have its best year ever in 2020 with 75 weddings booked, owner Trish Calabrese said Monday.
“We ended up doing six. It was horrible,” Calabrese said.
The venue is back to full speed now, with 73 receptions scheduled this year and several more expected, she said. Owners and managers of other wedding-related outfits in the state said business started to pick up again in spring 2021, as state restrictions
on large gatherings were relaxed.
One thing has changed at her business, however,
Calabrese said — the size of wedding parties has shrunk.
“Maybe ever since COVID,
people are doing more intimate gatherings rather than inviting everybody,” she said.
At Brides to Be, a consignment bridal shop in Glastonbury, consultant Gail Bisceglio said the business hit a trough during the pandemic, but has steadily revived.
“We’ve been very busy,” Bisceglio said Monday.
The U.S. Census, which uses survey-based figures, highlights marriage rates for women, in part because women report marriage information more accurately, according to the agency. In 2021, the national marriage rate was 14.9 women per 1,000 population; in Connecticut, the rate was 11.9.
In 2022, 34 percent of people ages 15 and older had never been married, up from 23 percent in 1950. The estimated median age to marry for the first time was 30.1 for men and 28.2 for women in 2022, up from ages 23.7 and 20.5, respectively, in 1947.
The most substantial percentage increases in 2022 over 2021 were in New York (21 percent), the District of Columbia (14 percent), and Hawaii (13 percent).
Nevada, home to many wedding chapels, maintained its status as the state with the highest marriage rate at 25.9. The CDC reported rates reflect where the marriages happened, not the states where the newlyweds live.
Compared with the years just after World War II, marriage is much less common in the U.S. In 1946, when millions of veterans came home and started families, the nationwide marriage rate was 16.4 per 1,000 people.
The recent uptick in marriages in the state and nation also corresponded with an increase in divorces. In Connecticut, the rate climbed from 1.6 per 1,000 population in 2020 to 2.8 in 2022.
The state divorce rate has not wavered widely in the past three decades, but did reach a high of 3.4 in 2008. The national rate was 2.3 per 1,000 people in 2020 and 2.4 in 2022, although the national trend in divorces has been downward, according to the CDC.
Unmarried cohabitations overall are less stable than marriages, according to a 2022 report by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
The probability of a first marriage ending in separation or divorce within five years is 20 percent, but the probability of a premarital cohabitation breaking up within five years is 49 percent, the study found.
After 10 years, the probability of a first marriage ending is 33 percent, compared with 62 percent for cohabitations.