How attitudes about marriage are changing among singles in America

More Americans are getting married later in life — if at all.

That’s according to a 2023 report by the Pew Research Center, which analyzed Census Bureau data to reveal that a record-high share of Americans over 40 have never been married. One in four 40-year-olds had never tied the knot as of 2021, up from 1 in 5 in 2010.

Forty-year-olds holding a bachelor’s degree or higher were more likely to be married than those without a four-year college degree, the report found, and men were more likely to have never said “I do” than women.

This high marks a decades-long slide in marriage rates, coinciding with evolving social norms and drastic economic shifts. Since the early 1990s, as cohabitation started to become more socially acceptable, ideas about the necessity, importance and timing of marriage — at least among some segments of the population — have dramatically changed.

In part, experts point to economic factors for the delay and decline in marriage rates. Women’s economic gains in the workforce have made them less financially reliant on a wage-earning spouse. The rising costs of raising a child, coupled with declining birth rates, have also driven down marriage rates.

Harder to measure, however, is the impact of shifting attitudes on purpose and fulfillment in marriage. While seven in ten Americans say marriage is important for a fulfilling life, just over half say that while it’s important, it’s not essential for both men and women, according to Pew Research. Broader recognition that marriage does not “complete” a person has made it a “nice to have” — for some — rather than the ultimate goal.

Bella DePaulo, a social scientist and “leading researcher of singlehood” told The Atlantic in 2022 that her “most authentic life” is while being single. “And single for me in the most single sense possible — I live alone, I don’t date, I happily don’t date, and that’s the life that works best for me,” she added.

While some Americans say that society is better off if more people are married, and about four in ten believe marriage brings greater financial security, that’s not enough to convince some people to walk down the aisle. Salvador Espinoza, a 44-year-old from New York City, told Stacker that despite the fact he thinks marriage might “make sense legally” for insurance and tax purposes, a relationship doesn’t need to have a “seal of approval by some other authority.”

Texas marriage and divorce records looked at census data and Pew Research to assess how single Americans have reexamined their relationship with marriage.

In recent years, the COVID- 19 pandemic may have expedited the delay in marriage and engagements. The lowest recorded number of marriages since 1963 occurred in 2020, according to a 2023 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Overall, single adults aren’t looking to rush into marriage, putting it off until when (and if) the time is right. A 2022 Pew survey found that approximately one in five single adults are interested in either casual dating or being in a committed relationship, compared to about three in five adults who weren’t looking for any sort of dating relationship.

Gender differences also play out in relationship goals. Roughly two in five single women say they are strictly looking for a committed relationship compared to just a quarter of men, according to Pew’s survey of single Americans. The survey also found that 56% of men and 44% of single women are flexible in their desire to pursue casual dating or a committed relationship.

As views on what it means to have a satisfying life have shifted, looser expectations about when a person “should” get married and diminishing stigma about being single have also pushed back the marrying age. In 2023, Americans ranked having a gratifying job or career and close friends higher than marriage and parenthood, according to Pew.

Finally, finances may drive couples together, or apart. Four in ten adults who live with a partner say that moving in with their significant other “made sense financially.” However, 53% of Americans believe there isn’t much of a difference in whether married or unmarried couples have it easier becoming financially secure.

In the 1990s, more couples began cohabiting, with the practice preceding over half of marriages formed from 1990-1994.

From there, it became an increasingly acceptable and even institutionalized step before marriage.

Today, half of Americans say couples who live together before getting married are more likely to have successful relationships. Cohabitation is now the norm, with 59% of adults between ages 18 and 44 having lived with an unmarried partner at some point in their relationship, according to the National Survey of Family Growth data analyzed by Pew. That’s compared to 50% of respondents who have been married.

As “gray divorces” among adults over 50 rise, cohabitation rates are also changing. The share of divorced adults aged 50 and over is three times higher than it was in 1990, rising from roughly 5% to about 15% in 2022, according to a 2024 report from the National Center for Family & Marriage Research. In 2022, the number of cohabiting adults aged 50 and older was almost quadruple what it was in 2000.

Increasingly, however, cohabitation is not a step on the path to marriage, but a destination in itself. When asked whether they believe being married is needed to have a fulfilling life, three in ten adults said it’s not important.

Despite the normalization of cohabitation with no intention of getting married, views on unmarried couples with children are more divided. In 2020, 29% of Americans believed that it was “very important” for couples with children to be married, down from 38% who held this view in 2013 and 49% in 2006. Yet views are clearly changing: A majority of people believe that unmarried couples can raise them “just as well as married couples,” according to Pew data from 2019.

Crucially, as rates of cohabitation have increased, declining birth rates have pushed down the number of households with children, according to 2023 Census Bureau data.

For Espinoza, having children is on his mind more than before. If he were to enter a long-term relationship with someone who did want to get married, he would be amenable to it but doesn’t “see it as a necessity.”

“I think we were growing up in the ages where that was viewed as part of the timeline,” Espinoza said. “But I don’t think that’s quite necessary.”

This story originally appeared on Texas Marriage and Divorce Records and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.