How has marriage in the US changed over time?

Fewer Americans are marrying than before, and when they do, they marry later in life.

Updated February 11, 2025 by the USAFacts team

In 2024, US adults were less likely to be married than at almost any point since the Census Bureau began tracking marital status in 1940. Fewer people are marrying, and they’re doing it later — both men and women are older when they first tie the knot.

Most unmarried people have never been married, rather than divorced or widowed, although divorces have risen. The share of men and women who are widowed, the smallest group of unmarried Americans, has dropped.

What percent of Americans are married?

In 2024, 47.1% of households were headed by married couples, the second lowest share since 2022’s all-time low of 46.8%.

The percentage of households with a married couple peaked 75 years ago: in 1949, it was 78.8%. That percentage has been below 50.0% since 2010, when the rate was 49.7%. In other words, less than half of American households have included a married couple for over a decade.

How has the average age of marriage changed over time?

Both men and women are marrying later in life. In 2024, the average age for a first marriage was 30.2 years for men and 28.6 for women.

The Census has tracked marriage ages since 1890. In that time the youngest median ages of marriage were in 1956, when it was 22.5 for men and 20.1 for women.

But age isn’t the whole story: While marriage ages have been increasing since the late 1950s, so has life expectancy. Comparing marriage age with average life expectancy, Americans are marrying sooner in their lifetimes than prior generations.

Does the likelihood of marriage vary by race and ethnicity?

Marriage rates have declined across all races and ethnicities except Asian men and women, who’ve had the highest rate among all races and ethnicities since 2004. Their marriage rate has remained stable: In 2024, 60.8% of Asian men and 62.2% of Asian women were married, nearly identical to the 1990 rates of 60.8% for men and 62.5% for women.

Marriage rates among people who identify as white, Hispanic, and Black have dropped since 1990. For Black and white people, where more Census data is available, rates have been declining even longer.

The biggest decreases in marriage rates were among Hispanic men and women. Marriage rates for Hispanic men decreased 10.3 percentage points for men from 1990 to 2024; for Hispanic women, 11.3 points.

The marriage rate for white men dropped from 62.8% in 1990 to 54.0% in 2024. White women’s rate dropped from 59.1% to 52.3%.

Black men and women have historically had the lowest marriage rate among all races and ethnicities. For Black men, that rate dropped from 45.1% in 1990 to 37.8%. For Black women, it dropped from 40.2% to 33.3%.

In 2024, the proportion of Asian women who were married was nearly double the proportion for Black women, the biggest gap among genders, races, and ethnicities.

What percentage of Americans are divorced or widowed?

The share of divorced men and women has increased. In 1950, 2.0% of men and 2.4% of women were divorced. In 2024, those figures were 8.4% for men, 10.8% for women.

The opposite was true of widows and widowers — the share of widowed men has declined 1.3 percentage points, from 4.1% in 1950 to 2.9% in 2024. Widowed women dropped 3.6 percentage points, from 11.8% to 8.1%.

In terms of overall numbers, more people were divorced than were widowed over this period.

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