Californians were just as likely to get married in 2009 as everyone else in the nation, but were markedly less likely to get divorced, according to "Marital Events of Americans," a new data report by the Census Bureau.
Overall 19.1 of every 1,000 California men got married in 2009, exactly the same rate as all American men, while the marriage rate of California's women that year, 17.6, was ever-so-slightly higher than the national rate of 17.5.
Marriage rates ranged widely in 2009, from a high of 30.7 for men and 28.7 for women in Wyoming to a low of 13.5 for men and 12.2 for women in Maine. That was in keeping with regional trends of high marriage rates in the West and low marital activity in the Northeast.
California's men had a divorce rate in 2009 of 8 per 1,000, well under the national rate of 9.2, while the state's women, at a rate of 8.9 divorces per 1,000, were also below the national women's rate of 9.7.
Like those of marriage, national divorce rates also showed a wide state-to-state variance.
The highest male divorce rate was in Arkansas at 13.5 and the lowest in New Jersey at 6.1. New Jersey also had the lowest women's divorce rate at 6, while Alaska had the highest, 16.2. Regionally, the South had the highest incidence of divorce while the Northeast, lowest in marriage, was also lowest in divorce.
When it came to widowhood, California's rates for both men and women were well below the national average, perhaps reflecting its relatively young population. But California's women were more than twice as likely as its men to lose a spouse during the year, mirroring the national data.
PHOTO CREDIT: Minutes after their wedding ceremony, Jeremy Rutledge holds his new wife Andrea Griffey's hands as they walk through the rose garden at Sacramento's McKinley Park on July 19, 2011. Manny Crisostomo / Sacramento Bee
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