The number of young Americans still unmarried at the age of 40 could reach its highest ever levels , a new study suggests.
Researchers from the Urban Institute in Washington DC studied data from the American Community Survey, an ongoing statistical survey of the US population. According to their findings, the number of ‘millennials’ (people who reached adulthood around the year 2000) who have married by the age of 40 is set to be the lowest in US history.
Between 2000 and 2004, just under ten per cent (of women had married by the age of 26. But this rate had dropped to just under nine per cent by the years 2004 to 2008, and this fell still further after the onset of the recession in to less than eight per cent.
According to the researchers, unless the marriage rate increases over the post-recession period, less than 70 per cent of women and only 65 per cent of men will marry by the age of 40. If the marriage does return to its pre-recession levels, just under 77 per cent of ‘millennial’ women and just under 73 per cent of men will be married by the age of 40.
Last month, a separate study from the University of Madison-Wisconsin found that uneven levels of education in a marriage are no longer a predictor of divorce.
