Young Americans are getting pre-nups, even if they aren’t rich

WASHINGTON – Most couples wait until they are engaged to talk about pre-nuptial agreements. Michelle Kaiser brought it up on the fourth date.

The 38-year-old, who works in fintech, had more complex investments than her future husband, including derivatives and leveraged funds. That, she said, reinforced the importance of talking openly about finances and long-term goals. It did not faze her date: The Bay Area couple married in May with a pre-nup in place.

“It’s just a great way to talk about how you view money, what’s important to you, what are your assets heading into this,” said Kaiser, who works at Equitybee, a startup. And the sooner discussions about pre-nups start, the better, she said. “Before deep feelings come about.”

The financial dynamics of marriage are changing – and so are the agreements couples make before saying “I do”. As people marry later, and women’s earnings grow, a majority of young Americans are securing pre-nups, according to a recent Harris Poll survey of 2,148 adults conducted for Bloomberg News.

Some 53 per cent of engaged or married Americans under age 45 said they had signed such an agreement as of May, up from 41 per cent of Gen Z and 34 per cent of millennials in 2022, when Harris conducted a similar poll.

Although there is no official data on the number of US pre-nups or who is initiating them, family-law attorneys say they have seen a wave of new demand, with women asking about them as often as men do, and not just among the rich.

“It used to be mostly men and generally the wealthier spouse who would ask for a pre-nup,” said Andrea Vacca, a family law attorney in Manhattan.

“Now it’s everyone: Women, lower-earners, couples who are saying ‘I don’t want my parents’ divorce’. People have planned their lives up until this point, and they want to plan for marriage.”

Couples are marrying at older ages than in the past, giving them more time to build wealth and financial know-how.

In 2025, the average age for a first marriage was 28.4 for women and 30.8 for men, more than three years older than in 2005, according to the US Census Bureau. And because they are marrying later in life, couples are looking to protect a broader range of concerns, including inheritances, student debt and frozen eggs or embryos.

At the same time, data show marriage is increasingly an institution of the well-educated and well-off, who can be expected to have more assets and potential earnings.

Women in particular are wedding with more wealth than older generations: They are graduating from college at higher rates, earn more money and have brighter career prospects.

Vacca, the Manhattan attorney, said pre-nup requests at her firm, Vacca Family Law Group, have more than doubled in the past three years, driven primarily by women.

Many of the couples she works with have millions of dollars in income and assets. But, she added, even those with significantly less are looking for ways to craft a fair arrangement in case of divorce.

The rising popularity of pre-nups has fuelled an industry of lawyers, apps and even a dedicated podcast with merch. Candid conversations on social media, as well as the much-publicised wedding of a billionaire pop star and her Super Bowl champion husband, have reinforced the importance of protecting financial interests.

Talking about pre-nups used to be seen as taboo, a first step on the path to eventual divorce. “It was always very difficult to get kids to do pre-nups. It was a tough ask,” said Robert Cohen, a well-known divorce lawyer who has represented Melinda French Gates and Chris Rock in their divorces.

But the proliferation of ugly tabloid divorces, plus the spectre of a massive generational wealth transfer from baby boomers, has made pre-nups a standard conversation.

“Now it’s much different; everybody with the slightest wealth or with the anticipation of wealth is looking to have a pre-nup,” he said. He estimates his firm, Cohen Clair Lans Greifer & Simpson, now churns out more than ever before – as many as 100 agreements a year.

Apps have further democratised the pre-nup.

For about US$600 (S$780), Hello Prenup and First, another app, automatically generate agreements for couples using online questionnaires. Adding lawyers to review the documents or represent each partner can raise the cost to US$2,000 or more.

Neptune, another online service, includes legal representation for a flat US$5,000. That can often be much cheaper than hiring attorneys directly, which can run to tens of thousands of dollars for couples with complex finances.

Software engineer Lindsey Nield said her pre-nup, which she initiated, is “an act of love”.

She and her fiance took “pre-nup walks” – 30-minute strolls around their Denver neighbourhood to hash out finances ahead of their upcoming September wedding. They talked about shared assets like property and cars, and agreed that her fiance gets to keep his prized guitar collection if they separate.

“It’s not a sign that we’re preparing for divorce,” Nield, 27, said. “I look at it as a dose of reality if we were to get into that situation.”

Attorneys say they have noted a rise in the number of women seeking pre-nups, particularly among those who out-earn their spouses. But even those with lower salaries, or plans to step out of the workforce to raise children, are seeking protections.

Women initiated about 52 per cent of prenups on Hello Prenup – an app that has worked with more than 100,000 couples on premarital contracts – up slightly from 50 per cent three years ago. The pattern extends beyond the platform: Women are now requesting almost half of US prenups, the recent Harris Poll found.

A shrinking earnings gap between men and women also appears to be changing the way couples approach finances. “Money means power in a relationship,” said Marsha Garrison, a professor at Brooklyn Law School who has written extensively on marriage policy.

According to Hello Prenup, almost a quarter of women using the app earn US$150,000 or more a year, and its clients typically work in healthcare, tech and finance.

First said the average age of its clients is 36, and the typical user makes more than US$100,000 a year. About a third have student debt. Many focus on inherited assets and real estate, while others take on more modern issues, like prohibiting disparaging social media posts or determining what happens to frozen embryos after a divorce.

Morgan Lavoie did not set out to get a prenup. But the 30-year-old, who works on a money-focused podcast in New York, wanted to avoid the horror stories she had heard about couples assuming the other partner’s debt when divorcing.

Under the agreement, each spouse kept separate ownership of premarital financial accounts, including savings and retirement. They then created joint checking, savings and brokerage holdings that are considered marital property.

“That all felt right to me, not necessarily because I want us to build wealth separately,” she said, but because of “an abundance of caution around debt”.

Lavoie, who got married in 2025, said shifting attitudes about pre-nups have changed the way she thought about them. What was once a taboo subject is now practical, even empowering.

“Getting a pre-nup was not about my husband,” Lavoie said. “I got a pre-nup for me.” BLOOMBERG