Thursday, September 30, 2010

Marriage is the minority (?)

We’ve already discussed what it like to be Young and Married, but the other day when I saw this article in The Guardian, I wanted to share. It discusses the steady decline of young Americans getting married, not only over the past 30 years but also drastically in the past decade.

The study, conducted in 2009-2010 by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) shows that less than half (44.9 percent) of the population of Americans between the ages of 25 - 34 were married. This is down from the 55.1percent just ten years ago in 2000. For the general population, ages 18 and older, the marriage rate fell from 57 percent to 52 percent from 2000 to 2010.

The authors of the study at PRB attribute the decline in marriage rates to the rising income of women. They no longer rely on a husband to pay the bills, and therefore have the option to wait longer in life to marry. They also explain that the economic decline of the past few years has couples delaying an expensive wedding and the costs associated with a new marriage. Both extremely valid points. Maybe in the future people will actually marry for love?

Also interesting is that Cleveland (our hometown) in particular had a sharp decline of the marriage rate in the past decade. In 2009, less than 20 percent of young adults in Cleveland were married, making them one of the least likely to be married in the country.


Apparently Mr. I and I are much more traditional and "against the grain" for our generation than we thought. Who knew that when we said “I do” we were putting ourselves in a minority category? Not that we would change a thing, and as we’ve discussed there are many reasons we made the decision we did, but it is surprising that find out just how “unique” we are.

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