Full Citation
Title: Age Variation in Unmarried Adults, 1900-2020
Citation Type: Working Paper
Publication Year: 2023
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ISSN:
DOI: 10.25035/NCFMR/FP-23-04
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Abstract: Since 1900, the share of unmarried adults aged 18 and older in the U.S. has increased such that by 2020 they represented nearly half the adult population (Marino, 2023). As the U.S. marriage rate has decreased over the past few decades (Schweizer, 2020) and high levels of divorce persist (Reynolds, 2021), the share of adults who experience singlehood, particularly at later ages, has become more prevalent. Additionally, the median age at first marriage has increased for both women and men since the mid-1900s (Payne, 2021), underscoring the utility of examining changing patterns of age variation among unmarried adults. In this family profile, we use data from the 1900 to 1990 U.S. Decennial Censuses and the American Community Survey 1-year estimates from 2000, 2010, and 2020 to examine the age distribution of unmarried adults in the U.S. over a century. We also describe the median ages of all unmarried men and women and unpack the heterogeneity among unmarried adults by examining the median ages of divorced/separated, widowed, and never married adults. It is important to note that some of these changes are simply a function of increased life expectancy, which rose from 47.3 in 1900 to 77.0 in 2020 (Arias & Xu, 2022).
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Marino, Francesca
Series Title: National Center for Family and Marriage Research
Publication Number: Family Profile No. 04
Institution: Bowling Green State University
Pages: 1-2
Publisher Location: Bowling Green, OH
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Family and Marriage
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