--- description: The suave star and his new wife are the model modern couple title: 5 Reasons George Clooney's Marriage Will Survive image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e1301b474278cd1/6986a6d5cd804de3ecccd220/george-clooney-10-768.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Living](/tag/time-section-living/) ## Living Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # 5 Reasons George Clooney's Marriage Will Survive  by [Belinda Luscombe](/author/belinda-luscombe/)  ## Belinda Luscombe Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Editor at Large Oct 3, 2014 2:55 PM CUT  People Magazine  by [Belinda Luscombe](/author/belinda-luscombe/)  ## Belinda Luscombe Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Editor at Large Oct 3, 2014 2:55 PM CUT Celebrities, as anyone who has ever passed a magazine stand at the checkout knows, are always on the verge of divorcing. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie veer toward the off-ramp to splitsville at least once a month, or whenever tabloids aren’t selling so well. The Beyonce and Jay-Z rumor mill churns so hard, it could crush diamonds. Now that George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin have been wed long enough to have their wedding pictures sold for charity, we should expect to see rumors of the demise of their marriage any day now. But be warned, ye Cassandras, Clooney and Alamuddin have gone about getting married in the way that sociologists say leads to a lower likelihood of divorce. Here’s why, with help from economist and Brookings Institute egghead Isabel Sawhill’s new book _Generation Unbound_. 1) **They’re Old.** Clooney is 53, Alamuddin 36\. That’s higher than the average age people get married (for men it’s 29, and women it’s 27, although this is Clooney’s second marriage.) There’s a pretty strong correlation between the age at which you get married and the likelihood that your marriage survives, says Sawhill. “Later marriages are more durable than earlier ones,” she writes. “The most recent data suggest that it is best to wait until your mid-twenties, and better still your early thirties, if you want to reduce the risk of divorce.” 2) **They’re Childless.** This may seem obvious, but in the U.S. it’s not. The average age at which women get married is now _higher_ than the average age at which women have their first baby, notes Sawhill. Marriages that happen after children have a high rate of failure, especially if the children were unintended. Some studies show that in poorer families, who are often delaying marriage because they don’t feel they’re financially stable enough, a child is welcomed and “highly valued,” as Sawhill puts it. However, she notes “about four in ten \[of these relationships\] will have ended before the child is age 5.” 3) **They’re Equally Educated.** Both Clooney and Alamuddin have similar interests and come from similar socio-economic backgrounds. Alamuddin’s mother was a journalist, Clooney’s dad was an anchorman. Alamuddin has way more formal education than Clooney, who never finished college, but seems to have picked up some useful skills. “The tendency of the well-educated to marry each other,” notes Sawhill is “what scientists call ‘assortative mating.”” Those relationships have proved to be the most stable. 4) **They’re Wealthy**. Clearly Clooney’s wealth dwarfs Alamuddin’s, but she’s not without means. In any case, wealth — not crazy money, but a lack of need — tends to produce more stable families, or at least poverty produces unstable ones, especially if there are kids involved. This is such a big predictor of marital stability that sociologists are not quite sure if richer people have more stable marriage or whether more stable marriages produce better wealth. 5) **They Decided.** Clooney, you may have noticed, dated a lot of women before marrying Alamuddin. He even lived with some of them. But the relationships never just slid into marriage because they had nowhere else to go. Alamuddin and Clooney had only been dating for about a year when they got married, and only about six months before they got engaged. This is in contrast to many families which are founded out of convenience or lack of choice. “The less privileged …are drifting into relationships they did not plan and frequently cannot maintain,” writes Sawhill. Those who carefully choose their spouses and delay starting a family until they have chosen one, tend to stay married. Of course, these trends may fade to meaninglessness in the blinding glare of living in the public eye, which, if the reality shows are to be believed, is not very easy on newlyweds. Nevertheless, we’re sure nobody is hinting at a Clooney-Alamuddin rift yet. [Or are they?](http://www.people.com/article/amal-alamuddin-george-clooney-party-venice-wedding "undefined") ### From Goofy Teen to Dashing Groom: See George Clooney's Life in Pictures  Nerds of the world take heart: This is how the future "Sexiest Man Alive" looked in middle school. Chris Bott—Splash News/Corbis  Clooney played George Burnett on "The Facts of Life" from 1985-1987. Ron Tom—NBC/Getty Images  Clooney married Talia Balsam in 1989\. They divorced three years later. Ron Galella—WireImage  Clooney premiered in his breakout role as Dr. Doug Ross on ER in 1994. Sven Arnstein—NBC/Getty Images  In 1996 Clooney appeared in From Dusk Till Dawn, his first successful movie.  Clooney was voted People's Sexiest Man Alive for the first time in 1997 (he would win again in 2006). Sunset/Warner Bros.  Clooney tore his dura mater while filming Syriana in 2005, causing spinal fluid to leak out of his nose. He had to undergo two surgeries to repair it. Warner Brothers  In 2006 Clooney was the first person in Oscars history to be nominated for best director (Good Night and Good Luck) and best actor (Syriana) in different movies in the same year. Reed Saxon—AP  Clooney was on the cover of TIME Magazine in 2008. TIME  Clooney won the Bob Hope Humanitarian Emmy in 2010 for his work for the victims of the Haitian earthquake. Kevin Winter—Getty Images  In 2014 Clooney proposed to girlfriend Amal Alamuddin, despite claims that he would never marry again. Andres Solaro—AFP/Getty Images ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3452588/george-clooney-amal-alamuddin-marriage-divorce/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3452588/george-clooney-amal-alamuddin-marriage-divorce/"},"headline":"5 Reasons George Clooney's Marriage Will Survive","datePublished":"2014-10-03T14:55:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:42:49.747Z","description":"The suave star and his new wife are the model modern couple","url":"https://time.com/3452588/george-clooney-amal-alamuddin-marriage-divorce/","keywords":["Living","Marriage","relationships","George Clooney","celebrity","amal alamuddin","Sociology"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e1301b474278cd1/6986a6d5cd804de3ecccd220/george-clooney-10-768.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Belinda Luscombe","jobTitle":"Editor at Large","url":"https://time.com/author/belinda-luscombe/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e1301b474278cd1/6986a6d5cd804de3ecccd220/george-clooney-10-768.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"george-clooney-10-768","caption":"George Clooney Amal Alamuddin wedding photos","creditText":"People Magazine","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3452588/george-clooney-amal-alamuddin-marriage-divorce/","name":"5 Reasons George Clooney's Marriage Will Survive"}}]}] ```