UNITED STATES – Young adults have come to view marriage as a capstone event – Couples used to marry and build a life together. Now, they build a life first.
U.S. adults who are married by age 21 sank from about one-third in 1980 to 6 percent in 2021, Pew Research reports. Those who married by age 25 plunged to 22 percent.
Young marrieds are a vanishing breed. In 1980, the average American male married at 25; the average woman at 22, U.S. Census data shows. Today, the average first-time groom is 30, and the bride is 28.
Over recent decades, there has been a rise of “unpartnered” Americans. Married Americans, ages 25 to 54, have dwindled from more than two-thirds in 1990 to barely half today. Roughly 1 adult in 10 cohabits with a partner. Everyone else lives alone.
The trend away from early marriage has a great deal to do with sex.
Before sex outside of marriage was taboo in American culture. That stigma has faded, along with having a child, out of wedlock.
American women are now having children at a younger age, on average, than getting married. Since the early 1990s, women are entering marriage later than motherhood.
After marriage, many Americans settle into their own homes. That transition, too, is coming later.
Adults ages 25 to 34 who lived with their parents reached a historic high in 2020.
In the 18-to-29 age demographic, young adults living with their parents soared from 32 percent in 1980 to 52 percent in 2020, Pew data show. A lot of that has to do with housing expenses. If you can’t afford it you can’t move out.
Today, young Americans with less education and income marry at lower rates than people with more education and money.
Between 1990 and 2015, Pew found, the share of adult Americans holding both a bachelor’s degree and a marriage certificate dwindled from 69 percent to 65 percent. But among adults with only a high school education, the marriage rate fell from 63 percent to 50 percent.
Marriage rates are lower and divorce rates are higher among adults with less education and income. Money, or the lack of it, figures prominently in both trendlines.
Some researchers predict the nation’s average marriage age will continue to rise, along with other milestones of adulthood.
Information: The Hill.
