In 2021, Nevada and Hawaii had the highest rates of marriage, which was a big change from the year before, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Even though the COVID-19 pandemic still caused bad things to happen in 2021, data shows that at least one institution, marriage, got better.
In 2021, the rate of marriage went up in almost every state. Overall, the rate went up 18%, from 5.1 marriages per 1,000 people to 6.0 marriages per 1,000 people. The National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that was the biggest change from one year to the next since the end of World War II. According to preliminary data from a CDC post about the change, the number of marriages also went up by 18%, to almost 2 million.
In 2020, the number of marriages dropped by almost 17%, to about 1.7 million, which was the lowest number of marriages recorded in the U.S. since 1963. The rate of marriage in the U.S. was still 2% lower in 2021 than it was in 2019, even though marriage was already going down.
Nevada had by far the highest marriage rate in 2021, just like it did in 2020. This isn’t surprising, since Las Vegas is a popular place to get married. (The CDC says that marriage rates are based on where a marriage took place, not necessarily where the people who got married live.) Several states in the West and South came after the Silver State.
Five states have the highest rates of marriage in 2021:
4. Utah (9.1)
5 States with the Lowest Marriage Rates in 2021:
The CDC said that marriage rates went up the most in Hawaii, New Mexico, and California. In Hawaii, marriage rates went up by 73%, and in California, they went up by 63%. Even in Nevada, which had the highest marriage rate in 2020, the rate went up 25% from the previous year.
The CDC says that North Dakota was the only state where the marriage rate went down from 2020 to 2021. However, the drop, which was only about 2%, was not statistically significant. The CDC says that a rise in Idaho was also not very important.
