U.S. marriage rate nears record low as millennials wait to wed
In the firm’s new U.S. Wedding Forecast, compiled from demographic data, Google searches and a host of other variables, Sturgeon projects that by next year, the marriage rate will fall to 6.7 per 1,000 people, a historic low. That includes people getting married for the second or third time.
Waiting to wed
Demographers cite several reasons for the massive generational shift in marriage trends.
Millennials — people roughly ages 18 to 34 — continue to delay marriage because of economics, education and preference. In 1960, fewer than 8 percent of women and 13 percent of men married for the first time at age 30 or older, University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen has calculated. Now, nearly one-third of women and more than 40 percent of men who marry for the first time are 30 or older.
Cohen, who has tracked falling marriage rates around the world, has projected that if the current pattern were to continue, the marriage rate would hit zero in 2042.
In the firm’s new U.S. Wedding Forecast, compiled from demographic data, Google searches and a host of other variables, Sturgeon projects that by next year, the marriage rate will fall to 6.7 per 1,000 people, a historic low. That includes people getting married for the second or third time.
Waiting to wed
Demographers cite several reasons for the massive generational shift in marriage trends.
Millennials — people roughly ages 18 to 34 — continue to delay marriage because of economics, education and preference. In 1960, fewer than 8 percent of women and 13 percent of men married for the first time at age 30 or older, University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen has calculated. Now, nearly one-third of women and more than 40 percent of men who marry for the first time are 30 or older.
Cohen, who has tracked falling marriage rates around the world, has projected that if the current pattern were to continue, the marriage rate would hit zero in 2042.
