As U.S. marriage rate hovers at 50%, education gap in marital status widens
Half of U.S. adults today are married, a share that has remained relatively stable in recent years but is down 9 percentage points over the past quarter century and dramatically different from the peak of 72% in 1960, according to newly released census data.
The decline in the share of married adults can be explained in part by the fact that Americans are , the median age for a first marriage was 27.4 for women and 29.5 for men – roughly seven years more than the median ages in 1960 (20.3 for women and 22.8 for men).
But delayed marriage ericans who have never married has been rising steadily in recent e time, more adults are living with a partner instead of marrying and raising children outside of marriage.
Marriage rates are also more closely linked to socio-economic status than ever before, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data that shows that the education gap in marital status has continued to widen.
In 2015, among adults ages 25 and older, 65% with a four-year college degree were married, compared with 55% of those with some college education and 50% among those with no education beyond high school. Twenty-five years earlier, the marriage rate was above 60% for each of these groups.
Marriage rates continue to vary widely by race and ethnicity. In 2015, 54% of white adults ages 18 and older were married. This is lower than the share of Asians who were married (61%) but significantly higher than the share of Hispanics (46%) or blacks (30%). The gap between whites and blacks has remained fairly consistent over time.
Among adults who have never been married, 58% say they would like to get married someday and 27% are not sure if they want to get married. Still, 14% say they do not want to get married, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in ong 4,971 U.