Men and women are waiting longer than ever to get married, a phenomenon fostered in part by more unmarried couples living together, according to a Census Bureau report released Wednesday.
Men now are nearly 27 years old when they first marry; women, 24 1/2, according to Census data gathered through 1994. The median age - with half above and half below - has crept up since the 1956 low of 22 1/2 for men and 20 for women. The median age now is higher than it was in 1890, when men first got married at 26 and women at 22.Changes in marital situations have a great impact on how people live, according to the report.
Postponed nuptials and increased divorces help explain why the proportion of married people dropped to 61 percent of all adults in 1994, down from 72 percent in 1970. As a result, a smaller percentage of children are living with two parents - 69 percent vs. 85 percent in 1970.
"The delay in first marriages and rise in divorce among adults are two of the major factors contributing to the growing proportion of children in one-parent living situations," said Arlene Saluter, author of the report.
In 1994, 27 percent of children younger than 18 lived with one parent vs. 12 percent in 1970. Of those children, 88 percent are with mothers. The 12 percent with their fathers is up from 9 percent in 1970.
But despite delays in formal marriage, couples are still setting up households together at about the same ages as before, says Larry Bumpass, co-director of the National Survey of Families and Households and an authority on marriage trends.
"Our marriage statistics decreasingly capture the social reality of formation and dissolution of marriage-like relationships," said Bumpass, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Couples have many and varied reasons for living together before marriage, Bumpass said, including economic uncertainty and the hope that cohabitation could help prevent divorce later. According to Bumpass, half of all adults under age 40 have at one time shared living arrangements with someone who wasn't their spouse.
According to the Census report, the number of unmarried-couple households (unrelated adults of the opposite sex sharing housing) rose to 3.7 million in 1994 from 523,000 in 1970.
"It does not mean people are necessarily waiting longer to set up marriage-like relationships," Bumpass said.
The report, which compares marital status and living arrangements in 1994 and 1970, notes several changes in the makeup of families. Among the highlights:
- Of all adults, 44.2 million (23 percent) never were married, up from 21.4 million in 1970. Of women aged 20 to 24, 66 percent were unmarried in 1994, vs. 36 percent in 1970. Among men in the same age group, the proportion rose to 81 percent from 55 percent.
- In the mid-'80s, a child was twice as likely to be living with a divorced parent as with a never-married parent. In 1994, 36 percent were with a never-married parent vs. 37 percent with a divorced parent. Another 23 percent lived with a parent living apart from her or his spouse; 4 percent were with a widowed parent.
- Of the 3.7 million children younger than 18 living in their grandparents' homes, 36 percent had neither parent present.
- Of the 30.8 million individuals 65 and older, 55 percent lived with a spouse, 30 percent lived alone, 13 percent lived with other relatives and 2 percent with non-relatives.
- Of the 54.3 million married couples, 1.3 million were interracial.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)