Kansas’s divorce rate has dropped to its lowest level in 50 years, when the state began keeping annual records.
As The Wichita Eagle reports, the divorce rate last year dropped to 2.6 per 1,000 persons and there were just under 7,200 divorces, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment,
Those numbers have never been that low.
The divorce rate in the 70s and 80s was above five per every 1,000 persons and there were more than 12,000 divorces in the Sunflower State each year during that time.
The marriage rate has also reached historic lows. According to an annual state report, the marriage rate set record lows in 2013 and 2015 at 6 per 1,000 persons, and then rose a bit last year.
The drop in marriages is attributed, at least in part, to the fact that people are getting married later or foregoing marriage altogether, but also because common-law marriages don’t get recorded by the KDHE.
Nationally, the divorce and marriage rates have also seen a gradual decline.