Since 1980, marriage and divorce patterns have become increasingly stratified by class. For example, in the late 1970s, the percentage of marriages that dissolved within 10 years was not that different among women with a college degree (29 percent) than among women with just a high school diploma (35 percent), a difference of only 6 percentage points. For marriages beginning in the early 1990s, this gap had grown to over 20 percentage points.63 As we’ve noted, differences in marriage are also beginning to emerge by social class. Historically, college-educated women were less likely to marry.64 But beginning with people born in 1955–64, college-educated women became more likely than other women to ever marry.65 Recent projections suggest that the educational gap in marriage will continue to widen over time.66 Other evidence has shown that higher-earning women are also increasingly more likely to marry.67
