Watch CBS News

Study: Millennials Are Causing U.S. Divorce Rates To Plummet

(CBS Local) -- Millennials get a lot of blame (or credit, depending on what it is) for disrupting traditional behavior patterns and establishing new patterns of consumption.

And now they've done it again. This time, millennials are getting credit for driving down America's divorce rate by 18 percent from 2008 to 2016.

A new study by the University of Maryland says adults under the age 45 are not jumping the gun when it comes to getting married as opposed to baby boomers who married young, divorced, and married again.

"The overall drop has been driven entirely by younger women," University of Maryland professor Philip Cohen writes.

Cohen says millennials are more picky when it comes settling down and doing it later in their adult life.

"Marriage is more and more an achievement of status, rather than something that people do regardless of how they're doing," Cohen told Bloomberg.

Couples are waiting until they're more economically stable to marry, and some poorer Americans might not marry at all, the study suggests.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.