July 28, 2015
People don’t typically go into marriage expecting to get divorced, but as countless sets of data and research have shown, many marriages end up that way.
The latest study to peer into the crystal ball of marital bliss, conducted by Nick Wolfinger, a sociologist at the University of Utah, takes a different approach at offering relationship guidance by suggesting an optimal age range to commit to someone and make it last.
According to Wolfinger’s research, published by the Institute of Family Studies and analyzed by Time magazine and Slate, couples should commit to marriage between the ages of 28 and 32 if they don’t want to get divorced - at least in the first five years.
To come up with his findings, Wolfinger looked at data from both the 2006-2010 and 2011-2013 National Survey of Family Growth, which showed “a sort of upside down bell curve” suggesting that the odds of divorce decline as you age from your teenage years through your late 20s and early 30s, then rise again as you move into your late 30s and early 40s.
For each year after about 32, the chance of divorce goes up about 5 percent, according to the data analysis. Marrying around age 30 seems to be the sweet spot. (Time Magazine)
As Wolfinger explains, there seem to be several reasons why marrying in this range leads to the highest rate of lasting marriages, including the fact that people at this age are “old enough to understand if they really get along with someone or are just blinded by hormones” while "not so old and set in their ways that they can’t make the myriad of little adjustments in habits and lifestyle and goals.”
But before reading too deeply into the study, it's important to note that not everyone agrees.
For example, sociologist Philip Cohen of the University of Maryland used a different set of data from the American Community Survey to refute Wolfinger’s claims, warning readers to not take “stupid advice from analyses like this.”
Wolfinger counters that Cohen’s analysis of his research is “biased and therefore not dependable.”
Read the full study here and decide for yourself.
