Daniel McGinn of Newsweek has a cover story in the June 5 issue of Newsweek called, “Marriage by the Numbers.” I’ll be discussing this article and other topics in an interview I’m doing tomorrow with Bill Feltner of Pilgrim Radio out of Carson City, NV. McGinn’s article harkens back to a Newsweek cover story of 20 years ago — in the mid-1980s that famously declared, “A woman in her 40s has less chance of getting married than of being killed by a terrorist.” The 1986 Newsweek article (“The Marriage Crunch”) was based on a study by Bennett, Bloom & Craig that found a 2.6% likelihood of a woman marrying after she was 40. A 1986 census report later showed the numbers were actually closer to 17-23% at that time. Still, before 1980, “a woman that hadn’t married in her 30s probably never would” says McGinn. (Which I take to mean: less than 50% chance.)
The point of the 2006 Newsweek story is that more marriages are occurring later in life than in previous years. The story is interesting and fair. Some highlights:
* Married households now make up only about 50% of all households (I quote a similar figure in my book).
* Women in their 40s and 50s, who may be single by choice, nevertheless hope to marry. A 2004 paper by Maryland’s Martin suggests that 90% of baby boomers actually will marry. This reminds me of a great study by American Values that makes the same case about college students, who date less frequently than those of previous generations. Find it here.
* Four out of five twentysomething, lifelong singles say that “education and career come before marriage at this time in my life.” I bet this is higher than its ever been (discounting the early 1900s when a man needed to apprentice for many years before being able to afford to marry).
* 86% of twentysomething, lifelong singles say that “it is extremely important to be economically set before I get married.” The interpretive difficulty is that this could mean anything from getting out of debt to owning a Mercedes.
The Newsweek article is available here.