By MIKE STOBBE (AP Medical Writer)
NEW YORK (AP) — The number of marriages in the United States in 2022 has bounced back to levels seen before the pandemic, reaching nearly 2.1 million.
This represents a 4% increase from the previous year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed this data on Friday. However, they have not yet released marriage data for last year.
In 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were 1.7 million weddings in the United States — the lowest number recorded since 1963. The pandemic disrupted many marriage plans, as communities instructed people to stay at home and restricted large gatherings to limit the spread of COVID-19.
The number of marriages then rose in 2021 but did not reach pre-pandemic levels. They increased again in 2022 and exceeded marriage statistics from 2019 by a small margin.
The states of New York, the District of Columbia, and Hawaii observed the largest increases in marriages from 2021 to 2022. Nevada — home to Las Vegas’ well-known wedding chapels — continued to have the highest marriage rate in the nation, although it slightly decreased from 2021.
The CDC reported that the number and rate of divorces in the United States in 2022 decreased slightly, continuing a downward trend.
In general, marriages are much less common now than they used to be in the United States.
According to data going back to 1900, the peak for weddings was in 1946, when the marriage rate was 16.4 per 1,000 people. The rate was over 10 in the early 1980s before starting a long decline. In 2022, the marriage rate was 6.2 per 1,000 population.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is entirely responsible for all content.
