Marriage among men seems to be more prevalent after age 45, but it’s also the age when women’s interest in marriage starts to decrease, according to a recent analysis of national marriage and divorce data by the law firm Koth, Gregory & Nieminski.
The analysis of “National Marriage and Divorce Rate Trends for 2000-2021” and “Divorce Rates by State: 1990, 1995, and 1999-2021” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that as they get older, more men marry, but women marry earlier and divorce sooner than men. This trend is seen in statistics showing that while more than 68.7 percent of men who are 65 and older are married, less than 50 percent of women in the same age group are married.
While less than 14.2 percent of men are divorced at 65 or older, some 17.9 percent of men are divorced at this age. Women and men younger than 34 were less likely to be married in 2021 and beyond compared to ten years ago; significantly more women in this group, 32.3 percent, were found to be married compared with 25.4 percent of men. The analysis noted that this imbalance continues until 45 to 54, when marriage rates are higher for men at 65.3 percent, overtaking 62.9 percent for women.
The data shows that between 2011 and 2021, the never-married population among men increased across all age groups. In 2011, the never-married category among men aged 20 to 34 was 67 percent, but by 2021, that number increased to 72 percent for men. Among women in this age group, the never-married population increased from 57 percent to 63 percent. A 2020 report from the National Center for Health Statistics shows marriage rates reached their lowest point in more than 100 years because of changing norms and economic insecurity.
The report by statisticians Paul D. Sutton and Sally Curtin noted that while adults have been increasingly putting off marriage, a record number of young adults and youth are projected to go without marriage altogether. The federal government has been collecting marriage data since 1867, but the report focused on the marriage rate per 1,000 people from 1900 through 2018. From 2017 to 2018, the rate decreased by six percent from 6.9 per 1,000 population to 6.5, which is the lowest marriage rate on record for the period studied.
Curtin, who is the lead author of the report, told The Wall Street Journal in 2020 that although millennials are in peak marriage years in their 20s and 30s, the marriage rate is still dropping, which is historic. Recent research emphasized how various economic factors have resulted in marriage increasingly becoming a status symbol of wealth. Many successful women were also being forced to choose to remain unmarried or settle for men who earn less than $53,00 and lack a college degree, according to researchers in Mismatchers in the Marriage Market.
Philip Cohen, author of The Coming Divorce Decline and University of Maryland sociology professor, noted in an earlier report that today, marriage is becoming more of a status achievement for those who choose it, adding that the United States is moving toward a system where marriage is rarer and more stable than it was in the past.
