The Family - Older Grooms, Older Brides

This chart shows the median age (half are younger and half are older) at which men and women in the United States have been entering a first marriage since 1890. Men marry a bit later in life than do women on average, but this difference in age has diminished from 4 years in 1900 to 1.7 years in 2000.

The pattern over the last century suggests that in the late 1800s people entered marriage later in life than was the norm for most of the 20th century. As we enter the 21st century we are again delaying marriage. The median age at first marriage for women has seen a greater change over the period than has that for men. The rate for men started at 26.1 and was, 100 years later, again 26.1 having dipped during the intervening years. In the year 2000 the age reached a high of 26.8 years.

Women started the period shown with a median age at first marriage of 22 years. Like men, women saw that age drop during most of the following decades. The rate again reached 22 years in 1980. In the following 20 years, women delayed marriage at ever-greater rates and, by the year 2000, the median age at first marriage had reached a high of 25.1 years. The change for women has been greater than for men. What's behind this change?

The two most cited reasons for the delay in marriage are, first, increased participation of women in the workforce and diminished economic dependence on men. The chart provides a line that shows the participation of women in the labor force as a percentage of all women aged 20 years or older. As the women of the Baby Boom generation reached maturity they began in ever-greater numbers to pursue college degrees⁶. In many cases these degrees led to employment opportunities in careers and jobs that placed greater demands on time than the traditional 9-to-5 occupation. In the pursuit of these activities many women put off marriage and child bearing.

The second factor commonly cited for the delay of marriage is the sexual revolution that dates to the mid-1960s and coincides with the advent of highly dependable methods of birth control.

Although we are entering first marriages a bit later in life, an estimated half of these marriages are proceeded by an extended period of cohabitation. The number of couples cohabiting has increased dramatically over the last 40 years, from under half a million in 1960 to over 4.7 million in 2000. Various theories explaining the rise in cohabitation among the young suggest that cohabitation, although appearing to be an alternative to marriage, is more often entered not as an alternative to marriage but rather as a precursor to marriage (Kenney). Cohabitation is another factor delaying the entrée to first marriage.

The factors involved in deciding whether or not to marry and, if so, when, are complex. Disentangling them is not a simple matter. What is remarkable is the resilience and persistence of the institution of marriage in the face of dramatic changes in the economic role of marriage in our society.

How much do the trends in marriage differ by race? That is what we will look at next.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of the Census. America's Families and Living Arrangements 2000. Current Population Reports. June 2001; Estimated Age at First Marriage: by Sex, 1890 to Present. Online. Available: http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/msla/tabms-2.txt. January 1999. Kenney, Catherine T. "Marriage Delayed or Marriage Forgone? New Cohort Forecasts of First Marriage for U.S. Women." American Sociological Review. (August 2001) vol. 66, pp. 506-519.