Remarriage is the new American marriage

Americans are known around the world for being (dangerously) optimistic; they’re more likely to say their day was “particularly good” than citizens of wealthy European countries. That can-do spirit extends to marriage, even if it didn’t work the first time.

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This is a theme within the statistics collected by Pew Research Center demographer Gretchen Livingston in a Valentine’s-centric new post. While marriage itself is famously on the decline — at the lowest rate since at least 1920 — remarriage is on the upswing. In 1960, just 13 percent of all married people had been hitched sometime before; by 2013, that figure was up to 23 percent.

Also, for 2013, a full 40 percent of weddings had at least one partner who’d been married before. A full 20 percent — or one fifth — were between two people who had both been newlyweds at least once before. Evidently, guys are more into trying it again than gals: 30 percent of previously married men told Pew that they didn’t want to marry again, compared with 54 percent of previously married women.

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