Is it true that the median age of marriage is rapidly increasing these days in the US?

27 comments

1. I don’t have a hard statistic but I have handfuls of friends, both guys and girls, who have gotten married well into their mid-late 30’s. At least in my experience those that got married in their mid or late twenties were the minority.

2. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/families-and-households/ms-2.pdf

3. According to Google, yes. I personally have not been paying enough attention to notice.

4. It doesn’t surprise me. The idea that you have to get married right after college/in your mid 20’s is fading away for a lot of people. People are spending their 20’s and 30’s establishing their careers or going out and exploring life before they settle down. Plus, I think statistically speaking, the later you get married, the less likely you’ll get divorced, so I think that plays into it too.

   I have a couple of friends who got married right after college, and I have friends who waited til their mid 30s or later.

5. It’s been going up steadily for a few decades, I’m not aware of any sudden and rapid change on top of that.

6. I don’t have any stats on the matter, but it seems so. My wife and I married in our mid 20s, our kids in their late 20s, and many of their friends in their early 30s.

7. Anecdotally, I’m 30 and it feels like only one out of every five couples my boyfriend and I hang out with around our age are actually engaged/married (lower rate if only counting fully married). Most have been together for anywhere from 5-10+ years. My boyfriend and I have discussed our personal timelines as well and likely won’t have a wedding until about 32. We live on the west coast.

8. Is it true you don’t have google?

9. Yes, the age is increasing and has been for decades.

10. yes.

11. It definitely seems that way from what I’ve experienced so I don’t doubt the statistics.

    I also noticed a HUGE difference between small towns and larger cities. The idea that women need to be married and have kids before 24 still seems to be quite prevalent in my hometown and it seems most people who stayed behind were married by then. In the cities it’s very common to see people put off marriage until their 30s.

12. I’m more worried about Millennials having kids so much later. My mom had me when she was 37 and had a bunch of health complications associated with it.

13. Yes, though in my experience it’s also regional due to differences in values, gender roles, culture, and cost of living.

    In my hometown Midwest city, everyone marries their high school and college sweethearts in their early to mid 20s and settles down to have kids right away close to family.

    The attitude is, “It’s easiest to meet someone early in life when you’re surrounded by other young people and life is more carefree. You get first pick and it’s fortunate to have a partner for more stability when you’re starting out. You’ll get to grow together and spend many more years together, and it’s better to have kids in your physical prime.”

    Here in my West Coast city (which includes a lot of East Coast transplants), everyone spends their 20s finding themselves and growing their career and doesn’t even get engaged until their early to mid 30s (if they want to get married at all).

    The attitude is, “Your 20s are the most valuable years for your career growth and the time in your life when you’re most free to have adventures. It’s fortunate to have nothing tying you down during this period so that you can take full advantage. You’ll get to figure out what you want in life and a partner before settling down, and it’s better to have kids when you’re in your financial prime.”

14. The business analogy is that more people are doing mergers after establishing themselves instead of establishing a startup with your partner early in life.

15. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the median age of first marriage has been increasing in the United States in recent decades. In 2020, the median age at first marriage was 30.2 years for men and 28.1 years for women, which is higher than the median ages of 23.5 years for men and 20.8 years for women reported in 1960.

    This trend toward later marriage is consistent with broader demographic and social changes in the U.S., such as increasing levels of education and greater economic independence for women. It’s worth noting that while the median age of first marriage has been increasing, there is still significant variation in marriage patterns across different demographic groups and geographic regions within the U.S.

    Sources:

    U.S. Census Bureau, “Age at First Marriage, by Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 1890 to the Present.” Accessed April 6, 2023. [https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/families/marital.html](https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/families/marital.html)

    Pew Research Center, “As U.S. Marriage Rate Hovers at 50%, Education Gap in Marital Status Widens.” Accessed April 6, 2023. [https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/03/17/as-u-s-marriage-rate-hovers-at-50-education-gap-in-marital-status-widens/](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/03/17/as-u-s-marriage-rate-hovers-at-50-education-gap-in-marital-status-widens/)

16. I just got married for first time at 34, so…. yea, first hand evidence.

17. Have I personally seen evidence of a fact? Yes.

18. I met my now-husband when I was 26 back in 2010. We’re gay so we couldn’t get married until 2015, and we ended up tying the knot about 8 months after it was legalized in early 2016. By that time I was 32 and he was 36. Obviously the legalization of gay marriage was part of the issue for being married in our 30s, and gay relationships have other complexities that can cause later marriage. However, I don’t think our experience is all that different than many straight couples today.

    All that said, this is completely anecdotal and there is perfectly good census data a google search away.

19. Don’t know statistics, but anecdotally, my GF and I (both 32) want to get married, but we want to live together first. We’ve been dating for almost 2 years

    We still can’t afford to move out despite working full time jobs, due to crushing debt.

    Yes I know I’m a huge, embarrassing failure to launch and I’m far behind where I’m supposed to be. (She lives with folks too, but has a good reason as she is a part time caretaker to her handicapped mother as well)

20. Definitely

21. Dayuuum, I wish I was married

22. I got married at 40.

23. Are you asking our opinions on the rising age of first marriage ages or just not wanting to google the question?

24. Over the decades the median age of marriage has increased, not sure how much but it can easily be google’d. personally this phenomenon is noticeable within my family when my generation is compared with the previous two

25. I never got married. I guess as long as a person lives and breathes, they COULD.

26. I don’t know about moreso in the past decade; I suspect that the last several years, it would’ve been greatly impacted by the pandemic (lots of people needing to put off weddings).

    I do know lots of people who’ve been together for a very long time but have not gotten married, for various reasons. My best friends have been together almost nine years, but neither of them can afford to move out of their disapproving families’ homes, not even if they move in somewhere together, so they still haven’t gotten married. My dad and my step-mom have been together for over twenty years at this point; however, “step-mom” is just a useful shorthand, not a legal term in this case, as she and my dad never actually got married. My youngest step-brother and his girlfriend just had a baby together and still aren’t married.

    The only person in my peer/age-group I know who is married is my other step-brother…and he only got married to help out his wife with her immigration status (tl;dr DREAMER, it was safer for her if they were married). If it hadn’t been for that pressure, they probably wouldn’t have bothered, either, despite owning a house together. (The marriage actually came after the house.)

    My social circle is very queer, so that’s a big part of why a lot of the people I know literally weren’t *able* to get married until they were older. But even narrowing down to straight or straight-passing relationships, most people my age just don’t put much value on marriage in the first place.

27. Yes. Anecdotally, the three primary causes are premarital sex, no taboo with unmarried couples living together, and the lack of opportunity of buying a home.

    Marriage and sex used to be more intertwine so a lot more couples were willing to take the plunge into marriage for sex. Remove marriage as a prerequisite for sex and living together, it really only leaves creating a family as the tangible benefit of a marriage. But then many are forgoing or postponing starting a family because they can’t afford stable residence (can’t buy home and rent is wildly fluctuating). When you consider all that, there is no advantage or point of marrying someone.