Census shows Wyoming has high rates of marriage and divorce

New statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau show Wyoming among the top states notorious for high rates of marriage, and divorce, in 2009.
Amy Bittner, an economist with the Wyoming Economic Analysis Division who has studied the data, says the reason for this is a bit of a no-brainer.
"There is a high divorce rate because there is a high marriage rate meaning that in order to get divorced you have to be married. So that seems pretty typical in areas that have high rates of marriage you would also find high rates of divorce, places where there's low rates of marriage there's low rates of divorce."
Per 1,000 Wyoming residents, about 30 married in 2009. And Wyoming also had high rates of marriage among women with about 28 women per 1000 getting married. Conversely, for both men and women, of every 1000 residents, 10 marriages ended. As well, Wyoming was one of the states with the highest number of widowers.
Nationally, in 2000, 57-percent of adults over 18 were married. In 2009 more than 52 percent had tied the knot