South Dakota marriage rates up, divorce rates down

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - Since 2021, marriage rates have been steadily climbing, and new data by the CDC shows nationwide marriage rates have reached pre-pandemic levels of just over 2 million.

Those numbers stay true in Rushmore State as well, with South Dakota seeing an increase in the state’s marriage rates since the pandemic of about 6.0 per 1,000 people to the 2022 number of 6.4 per capita.

But when talking about marriage, it is not always sunshine and roses; sometimes those marriages don’t work out and divorce papers are filed. To prevent this, a marriage and family therapist’s advice is to ensure that you evaluate every aspect of your life before marriage.

“So it’s not just, I think, the circumstances of life; I think it’s also learning how to deal with our own emotions, our thoughts, and our own behaviors as they come up, living with another person,” explained Transformations Mental Health licensed marriage and family therapist Sarah Johnson. “To prevent harder conversations and problems happening down the road in marriage, really evaluate all of the circumstances of life before getting married and see if you guys share similar goals.”

Data gathered by the CDC on divorce rates shows that they are up nationwide by 0.1 percent, bringing the nation’s total in 2022 to 2.4 compared to 2020 when it was at 2.3 per capita. Meanwhile, South Dakota saw the opposite, with a decrease in divorce rates since the pandemic, bringing the 2022 total to 2.3 from 2.5 in 2020.

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