Data show 'dramatic' surge in single twentysomethings

USA Today reports:

Almost three-quarters of men and almost two-thirds of women in their 20s in 2006 said they had never been married, according to Census data released today that shows a sharp increase in never-married twentysomethings in just six years.

Among men ages 20-29, 73% said they had never been married in 2006, compared with 64% in 2000. For women, 62.2% had never married in 2006, compared with 53.4% six years earlier.

The data also show the percentage of those marrying in their 20s continues to decline. A USA TODAY analysis of the new Census figures shows that just 23.5% of men and 31.5% of women ages 20-29 were married in 2006. (The analysis excludes those who are married but separated.) Both the number and percentage of those in their 20s fell from 2000, when 31.5% of men and 39.5% of women were married.

"These clearly are quite dramatic changes by demographic standards," says demographer Peter Morrison of the non-profit RAND Corp., which studies public policy issues. "The amount of change in six years is quite substantial. It's impressive in terms of the degree to which the institution of marriage is evolving. There clearly is a process of social evolution occurring here, and one can speculate about where it will end."

The trend toward delaying marriage has emerged over several decades as economic and social forces have made it more difficult for those in their 20s to reach independence. Sociologists and demographers say other factors are also at work, including increasing numbers of cohabiting couples, more highly educated women who have fewer highly educated men of comparable age to partner with, and more choices open to women than in decades past.

For those reasons and others, experts say they don't expect this upward trend in the ages for marriage to reverse.

"The numbers suggest we haven't seen a slowdown on this postponement of marriage," says Suzanne Bianchi, a sociologist at the University of Maryland in College Park.

A closer analysis of the data on ages 20-24 and 25-29 shows that among men and women in both groups, the percentage change between the never-marrieds and the now-marrieds was relatively consistent.

"This suggests it's not just the phenomenon of the college-educated who tend to marry later or the high school-educated who tend to marry earlier," says Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University. "It's an across-the-board shift."

No word yet from the National Association of Realtors on this one.