Income investors are turning to dividend stocks, as they search for yield in a low-interest-rate environment.

The S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats index, which includes S&P 500 companies that have increased dividends for the last 25 straight years, has generated a return of 5.9 percent so far this year through Monday.

"The search for yield hasn't abated," Mark Freeman, chief investment officer at Westwood Holdings Group, tells The Wall Street Journal. "When you see things like utilities and REITs [real estate investment trusts] leading the market, I think that speaks to the impact of it."

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Utility stocks have higher dividend yields than do stocks in most other sectors. As for REITs, the FTSE NAREIT All REIT Index has returned 16 percent in 2014 through Monday.

"If the whole world's only growing 2 percent, a utility with 2 percent revenue growth looks pretty competitive," Margie Patel, manager of the $616 million Wells Fargo Advantage Diversified Capital Builder Fund, which has returned 10 percent year to date, tells The Journal.

Corporations are increasing their dividend payouts. S&P 500 companies last year distributed a record $34.99 a share in dividends, up 12 percent from 2012, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices, The Journal reports. That total rose to $37.38 for the year ended June 30.

While interest rates will eventually rise, which could hurt dividend stocks, that's no reason to abandon them, says Josh Peters, director of equity-income strategy for Morningstar research firm.

"Mentally you have to be willing to accept more interest-rate risk in a high-income strategy than you would have with perhaps a more speculative strategy," he says on Morningstar.com.

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