FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Stephanie Coontz

coontzs@msn.com; 360-352-8117

CCF REPORTS: Women's Education and Marriage: The Ongoing Reversal of Historical Trends

For most of the 20th century, women who completed higher education were far less likely to be married than their less-educated counterparts. Then in 2010, the Council on Contemporary Families (CCF) reported new research showing that although college-educated women were still more likely to never marry at all than women with lower educational levels, they were so much less likely to divorce that by age 40, a higher proportion of college-educated women were married than any other group.

Now a new study by NYU sociologists Paula England and Jonathan Bearak shows that college-educated women are, for the first time, not only less likely to divorce but just as likely to marry as any other group of women, and much more likely to marry than women who dropped out of high school. A series of graphs, produced by England and Bearak for a new CCF fact sheet, "Women's Education and their Likelihood of Marriage: A Historical Reversal," demonstrate that although women with a college education marry later than other women, they are now as likely to marry as other women, and much more likely to stay married. For all figures and details on the data source, please visit the report.

Read full report here: Women's Education and their Likelihood of Marriage: A Historical Reversal.

TO CONTACT THE AUTHORS: Paula England, Professor of Sociology at New York University, can be reached at pengland @ nyu.edu / 650-815-9308.

CCF and how CCF assists journalists: The Council on Contemporary Families is a non-profit, non-partisan organization of family researchers, mental health and social practitioners, and clinicians dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best practice findings about American families. It was founded in 1996 and is based at the University of Miami. For more information, or to receive future fact sheets and briefing papers from the Council, contact Stephanie Coontz, Co-Chair and Director of Research and Public Education of CCF and Professor of History and Family Studies at The Evergreen State College: coontzs@msn.com; 360-352-8117.