People who live in larger cities in the United States are less likely to marry than those in other areas, a study has claimed.
Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren work as economists at Harvard University in Massachusetts. They analysed data relating to five million people in the United States who moved home during the 1980s and 1990s and who are therefore now in their 20s.
Subjects who moved to larger cities like New York, San Francisco, Boston and Washington during the period in question were on average ten per cent less likely to have married,. they found, than people of the same age who lived in more conservative areassuch as Utah, Idaho and Colorado.
Subjects living in Washington DC were the least likely to have married, the researchers discovered, with inhabitants of New York, New Orleans, Philadelphia and San Francisco not far behind.
The effect was most pronounced on people who moved to urban areas at a young age.
Meanwhile, the western state of Utah appears to be the one most marriage-friendly areas of the country, with residents who are close to 15 per cent more likely to tie the knot than the national average.
By contrast, people who live in Manhattan are 12 per cent less likely to marry than the national average The New York Times reports
The study was entitled The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility: Childhood Exposure Effects and County-Level Estimates.
Photo of Manhattan, New York by Israel González. via Flickr
