Which U.S. states had the highest and lowest divorce rates in 2024–2025?
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Executive summary
Multiple reputable data projects and news analyses show meaningful geographic variation in U.S. divorce patterns, but there is no single, universally adopted state ranking labeled “2024–2025” in the materials provided; the National Center for Family & Marriage Research (NCFMR) reports the refined U.S. divorce rate for 2024 and documents state-level variation, while several media and advisory pieces rely on older (mostly 2021–2022) data that still circulate as the de facto lists of “highest” and “lowest” states [1] [2] [3] [4]. Consequently, any firm claim about the exact highest- and lowest-divorce-rate states for 2024–2025 must be hedged: available sources point repeatedly to a small group of states that tend to appear at the extremes, but the year, metric, and methodology differ across reports [4] [3] [1].
1. Why the headline question is trickier than it looks
“Highest” and “lowest” divorce-rate labels hinge on definitions and data years: outlets sometimes report divorces per 1,000 people, divorces per 1,000 women 15+, or a “refined” divorce rate (women divorcing per 1,000 married women), and those denominators shift the ranking; the NCFMR emphasizes a refined divorce rate and publishes geographic variation for 2024 while noting margins of error and methodologic nuance that make single-year state rankings sensitive to measurement choices [1] [2].
2. What the most authoritative family-research source supplied here actually says
The National Center for Family & Marriage Research reports a U.S. refined divorce rate of 14.2 women divorcing per 1,000 married women in 2024 (down slightly from 14.4 in 2023) and provides a geographic profile of variation across states for 2024, including margins of error; that profile is the best available population-based source in the set but the snippeted materials do not supply a concise top‑and‑bottom state list for 2024 in the provided excerpts [1] [2].
3. Which states repeatedly show up as “high divorce” in available reporting
Several non‑government and media compilations that rely on 2021–2022 or earlier microdata identify a recurring cluster at the top: Forbes‑sourced summaries (reported by ASFAML) list Wyoming, New Mexico, Arkansas, West Virginia and Kentucky as among the states with the highest divorce rates in their reviewed period (2022 figures used by Forbes); other compilations point to Nevada as historically having the highest divorce rate in 2021 — a status driven in part by Nevada’s high marriage turnover and unique marriage laws — and some summaries include Arkansas, Oklahoma and Alaska among high‑rate states depending on the year and metric [4] [3] [5].
4. Which states repeatedly show up as “low divorce” in available reporting
By contrast, multiple summaries put large Northeastern and some West Coast states among the lowest: Forbes/ASFAML and other compilations cite Alaska, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York and California as low‑rate states in the periods they examined, while other sources list Massachusetts, Illinois and New Jersey among the lowest when using CDC/Census tabulations for certain years — again reflecting differences in year and denominator rather than contradiction in basic trends [4] [5].
5. Reconciling the differences and the practical answer
There is a consistent pattern across sources: Southern‑Mountain and some rural states (Arkansas, Wyoming, New Mexico, West Virginia, Kentucky, etc., depending on the metric and year) often rank among the higher divorce rates in recent multi‑year snapshots, while several Northeastern and large coastal states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, California, Illinois in some tabulations) trend toward the lower end [4] [3] [5]. However, the provided authoritative NCFMR release for 2024 documents refined rates and geographic variation without a single, clearly excerpted top‑and‑bottom list in these snippets, so a definitive, citation‑backed naming of the 2024–2025 single highest and lowest state from these materials cannot be produced without consulting the full NCFMR or CDC/Census state tables referenced [1] [2].
6. What a careful reader should take away
State rankings change depending on whether analysts use raw divorce counts, divorces per population, divorces per women 15+, or the refined divorce rate (women divorcing per 1,000 married women), and the most defensible statement from the assembled reporting is that Arkansas and several Mountain/South states often appear among the highest in recent years while Massachusetts, New Jersey and other Northeastern states frequently appear among the lowest — but naming a single highest and single lowest state for “2024–2025” requires the specific table and metric from NCFMR or CDC/Census that the snippets provided do not fully reproduce [1] [4] [3].