Welcome back to the why walking down the aisle was once
considered a cherished rite of passage for young adults.
But now marriage rates in the US are at historic lows.
In 1949, of households had married couples. Now that
number is just 48%,, experts say a lot of factors are
driving this dramatic shift. Newsy's Lauren Magarino
has the story. They don't throw wedding parties, bu
some animals have evolved to practice monogamy penguins
and California mice are among the species that pair off
to survive and raise their young for human beings.
Marriage is an ancient custom as far back as 2100 Bc,
the Mesopotamian written law called the er Namu laid
out marriage rules, practical needs have driven the
desire for marriage for most of human history, marriage
meant sharing food and household tasks and ensuring
that Children were protected. Religious roles ofte
dictated marriage or marriage was used to seal
alliances between families or even kings and queens.
Towards the end of the 18th century, a new reason for
marriage in America emerged. L.O.V.E. Love look hunter,
I love you. I want to marry, I love you too, joe I
don't ever want to be away from you. By the 1950s, the
social pressure to marry was immense. If a woman didn't
marry by age 30, she was considered an old maid. If a
man wasn't married in middle age, he'd be considered a
weirdo But in the 21st century, marriage has chan
yet again decades ago. Most Americans married early in
1947, the median age to marry for women and men was 21
and 24, respectively. Now Americans marry later, the
median age is 29 for women and 30 for men. In 1979
among 33 to 44 year olds, 84% of middle class peopl
were married and 82% of higher income people were
marriage among higher income people has remained steady,
80% are married, but only 66% of middle class people
are Movies like four weddings and a funeral reflecte
that cultural change. And do you think not being
married to me might maybe be something you could
consider doing for the rest of your life, do you I do.
And fewer Americans now see marriage as important. In
2006. According to Gallup, said it was very important
to marry one's life partner and 25% said it was not
important in 2020, only 38% said it was important.
While 36% said it wasn't As marriage rates have
declined, the number of romantic partners living
together without getting married. Cohabitation has
risen 3% of adults in 1995 were cohabitating. In 2018
the number was 7% Same sex marriages, which weren
legal in all 50 states until 2015 make up fewer than 1%
of us marriages since the number is small, it doesn't
really affect overall marriage trends. So what's
driving these changes. One thing, we can probably rule
out divorce, Divoror rates in the us have actually
fallen since 1980. American attitudes meanwhile, h
steadily moved toward less traditional views. Economi
are playing a role to a 2017 study found that familie
living in areas with more income inequality were mor
likely to have a child before getting married
Regardless of what's driving the decline of marriage.
The effects on society have been noticeable, especiall
for Children. In 1979, of Children in middle class
families lived with two parents married or not in 2018.
That number was down to 80%. 40% of American Children
are now born to a cohabitating couple. Single p
meanwhile, are becoming a larger and more vocal
demographic. In America advocates argue that single
people face systematic discrimination. They say the
government should change the tax code because it
currently gives advantages to married couples. Lauren
Magrino Newsy to help us understand more on what's
happening with marriage trends in the US. Let's bring
in Wendy manning, she's the co director of the National
Center for Family and Marriage Research Wendy, welcom
to the program. Thank you for having me. So let's first
start by talking a little bit about the pandemic and
its impact on marriage. We heard, you know, story after
story during the pandemic of its making problems worse
for couples. What's your take on that. Um the pandemic
has had. For some couples, it's probably strength
their relationships and for others it's weakened it
they see increases in relationship conflict that
occurred prior to the pandemic and during the pandemi
Um But we've also seen a number of changes in marriage
and divorce patterns during the pandemic. So let's talk
about people who are waiting later in life to get
married. The average age now for women is 29. For men,
it's 30, it used to be you get married first, but now
it's getting your education, setting up your career,
then getting married and having kids. What are the
trends you're noticing and the effects that that's
having on families So those trends are exactly on point
that um about three quarters of people who got married
have a lot in in any particular year have lived
together before they got married. So very few people,
only about a quarter are walking down the aisle without
the benefit of having lived together um prior to
marriage. So we've seen um continual increases in those
patterns. And um most people want to make sure they're
set not only in terms of their relationship but in
terms of their finances and economics before they get
married. So that explains some of the delay, But I
think as you point out, people are not um waiting to
form a relationship there, just waiting longer to
actually get married. So they're living together still
in their early 20s, they're just waiting longer to
actually get legally married. S you have a study using
marriage and divorce rates from 35 states. Cohabitation
is also more popular. I'm interested in what you
discovered about all of that. My study was mainly
focused on the United States. I was looking at at 20
states in terms of marriage in 35 states in terms of
divorce. And so we were able to use administrative data
and that's vital statistics data where people report
their marriages and divorces every county and state
reports those and they just um and we were able to see
that during the pandemic there were actually declines
in the number of marriages and there were declines the
number of divorces during the pandemic. And so that was
I think one of the main contributions of our, our
was to actually use the most recent real time data to
address those kinds of questions. So let's talk a
little bit about divorce. What do we know about those
rates and how is that impacting families So we know
that um not only do we have declined in marriage in th
United States were at some of our lowest points in
rmtes of our marriage rate. We also continue to have
declining divorce rates. And so a lot of people want to
know how why is that occurring And it's mainly becau
people are probably more select in terms of of who
they marry and they're waiting longer to get married.
And so those marriages that do occur are more
financially secure and more compatible probably before
they enter their marriages. So weee s um with the
declining marriage rate, we also see a declining uh
divorce rate. So we know the effects of divorce can
often be very difficult on kids. What does the research
show us of two parent households and the healt
upbringing of Children And I'm curious to also kind of
get your take on this to. Oftentimes divorce. If let'
say that home environment is very toxic parents who are
split apart and are happier. That can also have a
beneficial impact to kids. What what do you notice
about that Yeah, I think there's um evidence that uh
Children fare better when their parents are in healthy
relationships. And um if those parents are not healthy
in terms of their uh um interactions with one anothe
and interactions with their Children, then maybe that
family is better off not together. Um But we also have
evidence where some families, if they can just work
through their problems that tha maybe um in terms of
economics and having two parents available to parent
could be um could benefit Children. So it really
depends on the nature of the nature of the parental
relationship and their um relationships with their
Children and not all families are the same. We have a
lot of families that are step parent families, so they
have Children from prior relationships and that adds
another form of complexity um and can benefit Children
um in terms of having um two parents available and um
but also could create some tension in terms of um
trying to co parent with parents who aren't living
within the household. So there's a lot of mixed
evidence and um it just seems like Children um
generally need to have to well functioning parents in
order to fare best. Okay. Wendy manning a lot of good
insight there. Thank you for coming on the y sure thank
you. Our marriage stock continu next with a guest who