Record Share of Americans Have Never Married
One-in-five adults ages 25 and older have never married, up from 9% in 1960. Shifting public attitudes toward marriage, hard economic times and changing demographic patterns may have all played a role.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
One-in-five adults ages 25 and older have never married, up from 9% in 1960. Shifting public attitudes toward marriage, hard economic times and changing demographic patterns may have all played a role.
For as long as romantic relationships have existed, people have sought assistance in meeting potential partners using whatever options were at their disposal. Matchmaking and arranged marriages have existed for centuries, and printed personal ads are nearly as old as the newspaper industry itself. More recently, technological developments from the VCR to the (pre-internet era) […]
Online dating sites are just one of the ways that people can meet prospective partners online. In this chapter, we examine the wider online landscape around dating and relationships, and the ways in which Americans are using the internet to meet and interact with potential, current, or past love interests. 5% of those Americans who […]
A record 8% of households with minor children in the United States are headed by a single father, up from just over 1% in 1960, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Decennial Census and American Community Survey data. The number of single father households has increased about ninefold since 1960, from less than […]
A record 40% of all households with children under the age of 18 include mothers who are either the sole or primary source of income for the family, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The share was just 11% in 1960.
This posting explores statistics about marriage rates, median age at first marriage and attitudes about marriage. Although the marriage rate is at a record low, most never-married Americans say they would like to marry. “Love” is cited more than other factors as a reason to get married, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
The number of Americans who recently wed has been declining for years, and 2011 was no exception, according to estimates from the American Community Survey. An estimated 4.2 million Americans were newlyweds in 2011, about the same as in 2010 and sharply lower than in 2008.
In recent years, same-sex marriage has been a contentious subject within many religious groups in the U.S. Here is an overview of where 16 religious groups stand on this issue.
Across the U.S., a fierce debate is taking place between those who hope all gays and lesbians will soon have the right to marry and those who believe that same-sex marriage is helping to undermine heterosexual marriage. Read about the history and current status of the same-sex marriage debate.
At the Population Association of America’s annual conference in San Francisco this week, papers on the recession’s impact on families, wealth, children, young adults, older Americans and other realms of life will be presented in at least 10 of the 200-plus sessions. Much of the research is preliminary, but it raises intriguing questions. One paper tries to assess whether the poor economy has affected divorce rates.
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