The United States marriage rate hit an all-time recorded low in 2022: 6.2 marriages per 1,000 people. To put that in context, the rate was 11.1 per 1,000 in 1972 — the postwar peak. In just five decades, the marriage rate has nearly been cut in half.
Americans are not simply delaying marriage. A growing number are skipping it entirely. And the consequences — for children, for economic mobility, for mental and physical health, for social cohesion — are extensive and well-documented.
This is not a culture-war talking point. It is a demographic fact with measurable downstream effects that researchers across the political spectrum have spent decades studying.
The Numbers Behind the Decline
Marriage rates in America have been falling since the early 1970s. The decline accelerated in the 1990s and 2000s and has not reversed.
Key statistics:
- Marriage rate: 6.2 per 1,000 people (2022) — the lowest since records began in 1867.
- Median age at first marriage: 30.1 for men, 28.2 for women (2023) — up from 23 and 20, respectively, in 1960.
- Share of adults who have never married: 35% of adults aged 25–54, up from 9% in 1970.
- Cohabitation: 59% of adults aged 18–44 have cohabited at some point, compared to essentially zero in 1960.
- Divorce rate: After peaking in 1980, the divorce rate has fallen — but primarily because fewer people are marrying in the first place, not because marriages are more stable.
The decline is steepest among adults without college degrees. For Americans with a four-year degree, marriage rates have declined modestly. For those without, the decline has been severe. This educational marriage gap is one of the most significant and underreported social divides in contemporary America.
Who Is Not Getting Married
The marriage decline is concentrated in specific demographic groups, and understanding the pattern is essential to understanding the causes.
Working-Class and Non-College Americans
Sociologist Charles Murray’s 2012 book Coming Apart documented what has since become a well-established finding: marriage as a stable institution has largely remained intact among college-educated Americans while collapsing among non-college-educated working-class Americans.
Among adults without a four-year degree, marriage rates dropped from roughly 70% in 1980 to under 50% today. Among college-educated adults, the rate has declined from about 75% to roughly 65%. The gap — once negligible — is now enormous.
Young Men
Labor economists have documented a dramatic deterioration in the economic position of young men without college degrees since the 1970s. As manufacturing declined, union jobs disappeared, and wages stagnated, many young men lost the economic footing that historically made them viable marriage partners.
Sociologist Andrew Cherlin has described the emergence of what he calls “the marriage premium” — college-educated professionals marry and largely stay married, while less-educated Americans increasingly don’t form stable families at all.
The Economics of Non-Marriage
Marriage is not merely a personal choice. It has significant economic implications at both the individual and societal level.
The Marriage Income Premium
Married men earn significantly more than unmarried men — even controlling for education, age, and occupation. The marriage wage premium for men is approximately 10–20%, depending on the study. For married households, the combination of two incomes and shared expenses produces dramatically higher wealth accumulation than single households.
The Pew Research Center found that the median wealth of married couples aged 25–34 is nearly four times that of single adults of the same age.
Child Poverty and Single-Parent Households
Children in married-parent households have dramatically lower poverty rates than children in single-parent households. The child poverty rate for children in married families is approximately 8%. For children in single-mother households, it is approximately 39%.
This is not a minor difference. It represents one of the largest predictors of childhood economic outcomes in America.
Government Spending
Heritage Foundation economists have estimated that family fragmentation — divorce and non-marital childbearing — costs federal and state governments over 100 billion dollars annually in means-tested welfare programs. As marriage declines, dependency on social programs rises.
Marriage, Health, and Longevity
The health benefits of marriage are among the most robust findings in social epidemiology.
- Married men and women live longer than their unmarried counterparts.
- Married adults have lower rates of heart disease, cancer mortality, and all-cause mortality.
- The mental health benefits are substantial: married adults report lower rates of depression, anxiety, and loneliness.
- Married men in particular show dramatically lower rates of risky behavior, substance abuse, and criminal activity.
A 2023 meta-analysis published in Social Science & Medicine found that the mortality benefit of marriage is equivalent to not smoking — a finding that holds across income levels, races, and countries.
The Cohabitation Substitution
Many commentators argue that cohabitation — living together without marriage — is simply a modern equivalent that produces the same outcomes. The data does not support this.
Studies comparing cohabiting couples to married couples consistently find:
- Cohabiting relationships dissolve at two to three times the rate of marriages
- Children born to cohabiting parents experience greater instability than children born to married parents
- The health and economic benefits of cohabitation are smaller than those of marriage, and many do not appear at all for men
- Cohabiting couples report lower relationship quality and commitment on average
Serial cohabitation — moving from one live-in partner to another — is associated with the worst outcomes for children, even compared to stable single-parent households.
Why Are People Not Getting Married?
Research identifies several overlapping causes.
Economic barriers: Many young adults, particularly men without college degrees, don’t feel economically “ready” to marry. They apply an economic bar to marriage that previous generations did not apply. This isn’t unreasonable — it reflects genuine wage stagnation — but it means marriage is deferred indefinitely for many.
Cultural de-stigmatization of alternatives: As cohabitation and non-marital childbearing became normalized, the social pressure to formalize relationships through marriage weakened. The stigma that once drove people toward marriage as a default has largely disappeared.
Mismatched expectations: Some researchers, including sociologist Stephanie Coontz, argue that Americans now expect more from marriage — emotional partnership, sexual fulfillment, personal growth — and are quicker to exit when those expectations aren’t met, or quicker to avoid entering if they’re uncertain.
Student debt: Among college-educated young adults, student debt delays the financial milestones (stable income, homeownership) that historically preceded marriage.
What the Data Tells Us
Marriage is not simply a lifestyle preference. It is a social institution that, when widespread, produces measurable goods: lower child poverty, better health outcomes, greater wealth accumulation, lower crime rates, and stronger communities.
Its decline at the scale we’re currently seeing — especially concentrated among the working class and less-educated Americans — represents a significant driver of inequality, child poverty, and social fragmentation.
The Moral Decay Index tracks marriage rates because the evidence is clear: what happens to marriage in a society shapes what happens to children, families, communities, and the economy. The data on American marriage is not good. Understanding why matters.
Sources
- CDC National Center for Health Statistics, “Marriage and Divorce Rates,” 2023
- Pew Research Center, “The Changing Profile of Unmarried Parents,” 2023
- Charles Murray, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010, 2012
- Andrew Cherlin, Labor’s Love Lost: The Rise and Fall of the Working-Class Family in America, 2014
- W. Bradford Wilcox, “The Evolution of Divorce,” National Affairs, 2009
- U.S. Census Bureau, “America’s Families and Living Arrangements,” 2023
- Robert Rector and Kirk Johnson, “The Effects of Marriage on Child Poverty,” Heritage Foundation, 2022