Marriage in America: The Numbers Behind a Changing Institution
SEXUAL HEALTH AND AWARENESS
Marriage is not dying in America. But it is changing — in ways that are measurable, documented, and more nuanced than the headlines usually capture.
About 2.1 million couples marry every year in the United States. That is millions of weddings annually, flowers and vows and dancing, even as the long-term trend points consistently downward. [1] Understanding what is actually happening to marriage in America requires looking at the real numbers rather than the cultural narrative — which tends to run either catastrophically dire or defensively optimistic depending on who is telling it.
Neither extreme fits the data.
The Long Decline — What the Numbers Actually Show
The marriage rate has slipped from 8.5 marriages per 1,000 people in 1960 to approximately 6.2 today, according to CDC National Center for Health Statistics data. [2] The share of adults who are married has fallen from 72 percent in 1960 to about 51 percent. [1]
That 20-point decline over six decades represents one of the most significant demographic shifts in American social history — and it has been building for a long time. The marriage rate has fallen approximately 54 percent since its peak in 1920, when it hit 92.3 marriages per 1,000 unmarried people. The 2022 rate was less than a third of that figure. [3]
In 2024, 47.1 percent of U.S. households were headed by married couples — the second lowest share ever recorded, near the all-time low of 46.8 percent set in 2022. [4] Fewer than half of American households include a married couple. That has been true for over a decade, since 2010, when the rate fell below 50 percent for the first time. In 1949 the figure was 78.8 percent. [4]
The marriage rate is forecast to decline a further 3.6 percent in 2026, reaching 5.6 marriages per 1,000 people — a continuation of a structural trend that has outlasted every prediction that it would reverse. [5]
Americans Are Marrying Later — At Record Ages
The age at which Americans first marry has climbed steadily and is now at historic highs. In 2024 the median age at first marriage was 30.2 years for men and 28.6 years for women, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. [6]
For context: in 1956 — the youngest median ages in recorded history — men married at 22.5 and women at 20.1. The shift from those numbers to today’s represents a decade of additional life experience before first marriage. Longer education. Longer career establishment. The widespread spread of cohabitation as a precursor or alternative to marriage. [6]
Young adults living with unmarried partners jumped from 0.1 percent to 9.4 percent between 1968 and 2018 — reflecting a fundamental shift in how Americans sequence major life decisions. [1]
Who Is and Isn’t Getting Married — The Demographic Picture
Marriage rates have declined across almost all racial and ethnic groups — with one notable exception.
Asian Americans have maintained the highest marriage rates of any racial or ethnic group since 2004. In 2024, 60.8 percent of Asian men and 62.2 percent of Asian women were married — nearly identical to their 1990 rates. That stability, while every other group declined, is striking. [4]
Hispanic Americans experienced the steepest declines. Marriage rates for Hispanic men dropped 10.3 percentage points between 1990 and 2024. For Hispanic women the drop was 11.3 points. [4]
White Americans saw significant but somewhat smaller declines. The marriage rate for white men dropped from 62.8 percent in 1990 to 54.0 percent in 2024. White women declined from 59.1 percent to 52.3 percent over the same period. [7]
Black Americans have historically had the lowest marriage rates of any racial group, and the gap has widened. For Black men the rate dropped from 45.1 percent in 1990 to 37.8 percent in 2024. For Black women, from 40.2 percent to 33.3 percent. The proportion of Asian women who were married in 2024 was nearly double the proportion for Black women — the largest demographic gap in the marriage data. [4]
Geography matters too. Utah recorded the highest refined marriage rate in 2024 at 51.7 per 1,000 unmarried women. Delaware had the lowest at 20.1. The Northeast consistently shows lower rates while the Mountain West and parts of the South run higher. [1]
The Never-Married Generation
One of the most significant shifts in the data isn’t the divorce rate or the marriage age — it’s the share of Americans who have simply never married at all.
About 1 in 5 adults aged 25 and older have never married, up from 9 percent in 1960, according to Pew Research Center. [1] Among 40-year-olds, 25 percent had never married as of 2021 — a record high. That number represents people who aren’t just delaying marriage. They are not marrying at all.
In 2024, 34 percent of all adults aged 15 and older had never married. [6] Cultural shifts are playing a meaningful role alongside economic ones. Rising labor force participation and earnings among women have altered household dynamics. The perceived necessity of marriage has declined. For a growing number of Americans, marriage is a choice rather than an inevitability — and a meaningful percentage are choosing otherwise.
The Divorce Rate — The Number Most People Get Wrong
The divorce rate is not 50 percent. It has not been 50 percent for a long time and the persistence of that figure in the cultural conversation is one of the most durable statistical myths in American life.
The crude divorce rate in 2024 sits at approximately 2.4 per 1,000 people — the lowest since the early 1970s, according to CDC data. [8] Approximately 41 percent of first marriages end in divorce — a meaningful figure, but considerably lower than the half that everyone cites. [8]
The divorce rate peaked at 22.6 per 1,000 married women in 1980 and has fallen by more than 37 percent since then. The refined divorce rate dropped to 14.2 in 2024, down from 14.4 in 2023. [8]
The marriages most likely to fail: second marriages at 60 percent divorce rate, and third marriages at 73 percent. [8] First marriages where both partners waited until their late twenties show substantially lower failure rates than those entered in early adulthood.
Gray Divorce — The Countertrend Nobody Expected
While overall divorce rates have declined, one demographic has moved sharply in the opposite direction.
Gray divorce — divorce among adults over 50 — has roughly doubled since the 1990s. Approximately 36 percent of all divorces now involve people over 50. [8] Women aged 65 and older have seen their divorce rate jump from 1.4 per 1,000 in 1990 to 5.6 in 2021 — a fourfold increase in one generation. [7]
The drivers are well documented: longer life expectancy creating 20 to 30 additional years that people are unwilling to spend in unhappy marriages, women’s increased financial independence enabling them to leave relationships that earlier generations could not afford to leave, and the empty nest phenomenon that reveals underlying disconnection after children leave home. Women over 50 experience a 45 percent decline in standard of living after divorce. Men experience a 21 percent decline. [8]
Same-Sex Marriage — A Decade of Data
Since the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling in 2015, the same-sex marriage data has had a decade to develop. According to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, there are approximately 823,000 married same-sex couples in the U.S. as of 2025 — more than double the estimated 380,000 at the time of the ruling. [9] Married couples now account for 59 percent of cohabiting same-sex couples.
An estimated 299,000 children under 18 live in households headed by married same-sex couples. Public support for same-sex marriage reached 69 percent in a 2024 Gallup poll, compared to 27 percent in 1996 when Gallup first asked the question. [9]
What Makes Marriages Last — What the Research Shows
High commitment is the strongest single predictor of marital stability — people who rate divorce as “not at all likely” are 306 percent more likely to report stable marriages over time. Quality communication and conflict resolution. Shared values and practices. Premarital counseling reduces divorce risk by 30 percent. [9]
The Gottman Institute’s research identifies a specific ratio as predictive of marital stability: 5 positive interactions for every 1 negative interaction. Couples who maintain that ratio across the ordinary texture of daily life show dramatically better long-term outcomes than those who don’t. [9]
The median duration of current marriages has held at about 19 years since 2010. Among marriages that do end, a first marriage that ends in divorce lasts about 8 years on average. [1]
The Bottom Line
Marriage in America is declining in rate, rising in age, and varying dramatically by race, geography, religion, and economic circumstance. The institution is not disappearing — 2.1 million couples committed to each other in 2024, and the marriages that do happen are more durable than they were at the historical peak of divorce in 1980.
What is changing is who marries, when they marry, and whether they marry at all. The never-married share of the adult population is at a historic high. The age at first marriage is at a historic high. The share of households headed by married couples is near a historic low.
These are not signs of collapse. They are signs of an institution in significant, ongoing transformation — one that is becoming less universal and more deliberate. For the Americans who do marry, the data suggests they are doing it more carefully, more selectively, and with better odds of it lasting than at any point in the last half century.
Sources
— [1] MarriageScience.com. Marriage Statistics 2026: 50+ Data Points on Rates and Trends. marriagescience.com. 2026. Citing CDC/NCHS, Pew Research Center, NCFMR data.
— [2] South Denver Therapy. Marriage Statistics 2026: Divorce Rates, Age Trends and Key Facts. southdenvertherapy.com. January 2026. Citing CDC National Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Census Bureau, BGSU National Center for Family and Marriage Research.
— [3] Daily Citizen / Focus on the Family. Mapping Declining U.S. Marriage Rates. dailycitizen.focusonthefamily.com. December 2025. Citing National Center for Family and Marriage Research, Bowling Green State University.
— [4] USAFacts. How Has Marriage in the U.S. Changed Over Time? usafacts.org. February 2025. Citing U.S. Census Bureau data through 2024.
— [5] IBISWorld. Marriage Rate — Business Environment Profile Report. ibisworld.com. May 2026.
— [6] The Global Files. Marriage Statistics in US 2026. theglobalfiles.com. March 2026. Citing CDC/NCHS National Vital Statistics System; U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2024, CPS ASEC 2025; NCFMR Family Profiles 2025–2026; Pew Research Center Analysis of Federal Data October 2025.
— [7] The Happy Trunk. Marriage Statistics 2025: The Surprising Truth About Modern Relationships. thehappytrunk.com. 2025. Citing U.S. Census Bureau data 1990–2024.
— [8] The World Data. Marriage and Divorce Statistics in US 2026. theworlddata.com. May 2026. Citing CDC NCHS National Vital Statistics System; National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University.
— [9] Connected Couples. Marriage Statistics in 2026: Trends, Rates, and What’s Changing. connectedcouples.app. February 2026. Citing Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law June 2025; Gallup 2024; Gottman Institute research.