Valentines by the numbers (2018)

According to the National Retail Federation, U.S. consumers will spend nearly $20 BILLION on Valentines this year. (More than half of celebrants will give candy as a gift, but most spending will be on jewelry.)

While love may be in the proverbial air, young adults are not rushing down the aisle. Median age at first marriage continues to reach new record highs (now 29.5 for men and 27.4 for women).

While age at first marriage has been increasing, and it is incredibly difficult to get an accurate measurement of the rate of divorce, by all accounts divorce rates are falling and may be at a 40-year low. By Census Bureau measures, divorce rates peaked in the years changes in divorce laws that occurred in the mid 1970s, but then leveled off and fell slightly. Some of this trend can be attributed to lower marriage rates (fewer marriages lead to fewer divorces), but some is likely a result of people waiting longer to get married in the first place.

Longer life expectancy and lower divorce rates mean that marriage duration has (on average) increased in recent years. 80 percent of marriages last at least 5 years, and 68 percent last 10 years or more, according to data compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention based on the National Survey of Family Growth (2006-2010). This is an increase from the 2002 survey, in which 78 percent of marriages last at least 5 years and two thirds last 10 years or more.