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Data

Marriage rates

See all data and research on:
Marriages & Divorces

What you should know about this indicator

The crude marriage rate is defined as the number of marriages during a given year per 1,000 people.

Marriage rates
Number of marriages during a given year per 1,000 people.
Source
OECD (2024); US Census Bureau (1949); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
December 30, 2024
Next expected update
December 2025
Date range
1886–2020
Unit
per 1,000 people

Related research and writing

A dark blue background with a lighter blue world map superimposed over it. Yellow text that says Marriages and Divorces by Our World in Data

Marriages and Divorces

Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser

Explore charts that include this data

Marriage rates in 1990 vs. 2020

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The OECD Family Database provides cross-national indicators on family outcomes and family policies across the OECD countries, its enhanced engagement partners and EU member states. It includes 70 indicators under four main dimensions: (i) structure of families, (ii) labour market position of families, (iii) public policies for families and children and (iv) child outcomes.

Retrieved on
December 30, 2024
Retrieved from
https://data-explorer.oecd.org/vis?tenant=archive&df[ds]=DisseminateArchiveDMZ&df[id]=DF_FAMILY&df[ag]=OECD&dq=..FAM14%2BFAM13%2BFAM15A%2BFAM15B%2BFAM10C%2BFAM10B%2BFAM10A%2BFAM9C%2BFAM9A%2BFAM9B%2BFAM7%2BFAM17%2BFAM8C%2BFAM8B%2BFAM11D%2BFAM11C%2BFAM11B%2BFAM11A%2BFAM8A%2BFAM5C%2BFAM5B%2BFAM5A%2BFAM4B%2BFAM12A%2BFAM12B%2BFAM4A%2BFAM3&pd=1960%2C2022&to[TIME_PERIOD]=false&vw=tb
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
OECD (2024). OECD Family Database.

Vital statistics in the United States, including births, deaths, marriages, and divorces, are compiled nationally by the National Office of Vital Statistics, with data sourced from state and city registration officials.

Retrieved on
January 22, 2025
Retrieved from
https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1949/compendia/hist_stats_1789-1945.html
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
National Office of Vital Statistics, "Marriage and Divorce Statistics: United States, 1946," Vital Statistics-Special. Reports, vol. 27, No. 10.

Marriage license data is collected locally and reported to NVSS via the Vital Statistics Cooperative Program. Coverage varies by year and state: Alaska and Hawaii were included from 1959 and 1960, respectively, while California, Louisiana, and Georgia had exclusions in specific years. Population counts for non-reporting states are excluded from rate calculations for those years. Reports and data are available on the CDC and NCHS websites.

Retrieved on
January 22, 2025
Retrieved from
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/marriage_rate_2018/marriage_rate_2018.pdf
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Curtin, S., & Sutton, P. D. (2020). Marriage rates in the United States, 1900–2018. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline
Notes on our processing step for this indicator

Marriage rates in the United States between 1886 and 1945 are sourced from the US Census, for years 1945 to 1990 they are sourced from the CDC. Recent data comes from OECD.

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Marriage rates”, part of the following publication: Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser (2020) - “Marriages and Divorces”. Data adapted from OECD, US Census Bureau, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/marriage-rate-per-1000-inhabitants [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

OECD (2024); US Census Bureau (1949); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

OECD (2024); US Census Bureau (1949); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020) – processed by Our World in Data. “Marriage rates” [dataset]. OECD, “OECD Family Database”; US Census Bureau, “Vital Statistics, Health, and Nutrition Series”; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Marriage Rates in the United States” [original data]. Retrieved February 17, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/marriage-rate-per-1000-inhabitants