The National Marriage Project recently published “The State of Our Unions 2006,” which outlines six trends in marriage and family life over the last four decades. For a complete version of the report, please go to The National Marriage Project website.
- Marriage
Over the course of recent decades, marriage rates have been declining, and the most recent data points to a continued decline in U.S. marriages. From 1970 to 2004, there has been a drop of nearly 50 percent in the yearly number of marriages per 1000 unmarried adult women. Factors contributing to this decline include the delay of first marriages, the increase in cohabitation, and a slight decrease in divorced people remarrying.
Of the couples who do marry, fewer have described their marriages as “very happy” since the 1970s, but over the past ten years, this trend has moved in a positive direction.
- Divorce
The divorce rate in the U.S. has nearly doubled since 1960. It reached its highest point in the early 1980s and has decreased slightly since then, a trend experts describe as “leveling off at a high level.” The average couple marrying for the first time in recent years has between a 40 and 50 percent chance of divorce or separation.
Divorce rates are higher for those who marry as teenagers, high-school drop outs, and people who are not religious.
- Unmarried Cohabitation
The incidence of unmarried cohabitation has increased more than tenfold over the last 40 years, and it continues to rise. The majority of younger Americans do choose to cohabit, and more than half of all first marriages are preceded by cohabitation.
Cohabitation is more common among those with less education, lower incomes, those who are less religious, and those who have been divorced, or have experienced parental divorce, fatherlessness, or a great deal of marital discord as children.
Among young people, there is a widely held belief that cohabitation is good preparation for marriage, yet the available data does not confirm this conviction and even indicate that those who cohabit before marriage may be more likely to divorce later.
- Loss of Child Centeredness
Since 1960, there has been a significant decline in the number of children in the U.S. This decline is measured by dropping fertility rates and declining percentage of household with children. In 1960, the average American woman had about 3.5 children. By 2004, that number had dropped to 2.049 children. In 1960, slightly less than half of all households contained children under 18, but by the year 2000, less than 33% of American households included children.
There is evidence to suggest that this decline in the presence of children has reduced child centeredness and weakened the institution of marriage in the United States.
- Fragile Families with Children
Since the 1960s, the number of children who are growing up in fragile - characteristically fatherless - families has increased dramatically. The percentage of children living in single-parent homes rose from 9% in 1960 to 28% in 2005. This trend toward fragile families is driven by increases in divorce, cohabitation, and out-of-wedlock births.
Although the growth of fragile families leveled off in the late 1990s, the latest information indicates a slight increase.
- Teen Attitudes About Marriage and Family
Since 1976, teenagers attitudes toward marriage and family have been monitored by an annual survey. Over the three decades that the survey has been conducted, the percentage of teens who desire “a good marriage and family life” has increased slightly. In the latest survey, 82% of girls indicated a good marriage and family life was “extremely important” to them, while 70% of boys agreed. Boys are also slightly less optimistic than girls about the possibility of long-term marriage.
At the same time, both girls and boys have become more accepting of alternatives to marriage, particularly unwed childbearing. Surprisingly, however, the most recent data indicate a drop in acceptance of cohabitation.