Tying the knot after age 32 ups divorce risk

Marking a major shift in divorce trends, a research ha shown that couples who delay tying the knot in their 30s are more likely to split than those who get hitched in their late 20s.

After the age of 32, the odds of divorce increase by five percent per year, the findings showed. Previous studies showed that delayed marriages lowered risk of divorces.

"This is a big change," said Nicholas Wolfinger from the University of Utah in the US.

"To the best of my knowledge, it is only recently that marraige of thirty-something started to incur a higher divorce risk," Wolfinger said.

For the study, Wolfinger analysed data from the US National Survey of Family Growth from 2006 to 2010.

"It appears to be a trend that has gradually developed over the past 20 years: A study based on 2002 data observed that the divorce risk for people who married in their 30s was flattening out, rather than continuing to decline through that decade of life as it previously had," Wolfinger added.

Wolfinger's analysis, detailed in a blog post for the Institute for Family Studies in the US, showed that prior to age 32 or so, each additional year of age at marriage reduces the odds of divorce by 11 percent.

However, after that the odds of divorce increase by five percent per year, Wolfinger found.