October 15, 2006
Its Official: To Be Married Means to Be Outnumbered
By SAM ROBERTS
Married couples, whose numbers have been declining for decades as a
proportion of American households, have finally slipped into a
minority, according to an analysis of new census figures by The New
York Times.
The American Community Survey, released this month by the Census
Bureau, found that 49.7 percent, or 55.2 million, of the nations
111.1 million households in 2005 were made up of married couples
with and without children just shy of a majority and down from
more than 52 percent five years earlier.
The numbers by no means suggests marriage is dead or necessarily
that a tipping point has been reached. The total number of married
couples is higher than ever, and most Americans eventually marry.
But marriage has been facing more competition. A growing number of
adults are spending more of their lives single or living unmarried
with partners, and the potential social and economic implications
are profound.
It just changes the social weight of marriage in the economy, in
the work force, in sales of homes and rentals, and who
manufacturers advertise to, said Stephanie Coontz, director of
public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, a
nonprofit research group. It certainly challenges the way we set
up our work policies.
While the number of single young adults and elderly widows are both
growing, Professor Coontz said, we have an anachronistic view as
to what extent you can use marriage to organize the distribution
and redistribution of benefits.
Couples decide to live together for many reasons, but real estate
can be as compelling as romance.
Owning three toothbrushes and finding that they are always at the
wrong house when you are getting ready to go to bed wears on you,
said Amanda Hawn, a 28-year-old writer who set up housekeeping near
San Francisco with her boyfriend, Nate Larsen, a real estate
analyst, after shuttling between his apartment and one she shared
with a friend. Moving in together has simplified life, Ms. Hawn
said.
The census survey estimated that 5.2 million couples, a little more
than 5 percent of households, were unmarried opposite-sex partners.
An additional 413,000 households were male couples, and 363,000
were female couples. In all, nearly one in 10 couples were
unmarried. (One in 20 households consisted of people living
alone).
And the numbers of unmarried couples are growing. Since 2000, those
identifying themselves as unmarried opposite-sex couples rose by
about 14 percent, male couples by 24 percent and female couples by
12 percent.
Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force, said gay couples were undercounted because many gay
people were reluctant to disclose their sexual orientation. But he
said that inhibition seemed to be fading.
I would say the increase is due to people feeling more comfortable
disclosing that they are gay or lesbian and living with a partner,
he said.
The survey did not ask about sexual orientation, but its
questionnaire was designed to distinguish partners from roommates.
A partner was defined as an adult who is unrelated to the
householder, but shares living quarters and has a close personal
relationship with the householder.
Some of the biggest gains in unmarried couples were recorded in
unexpected places. In the rural Midwest, the number of households
made up of male partners rose 77 percent since 2000.
The survey revealed wide disparities in household composition by
place. The proportion of married couples ranged from more than 69
percent in Utah County, Utah, which includes Provo, to 26 percent
in Manhattan, which has a smaller share of married couples than
almost anyplace in the country. But Manhattan registered a 1.2
percent increase in married couples since 2000, in contrast to the
rest of New York City and many other places.
Among counties, the highest proportion of unmarried opposite-sex
partners was in Mendocino, Calif., where they made up nearly 11
percent of all households.
The highest share of male couples was in San Francisco, where,
according to the census, they accounted for nearly 2 percent of all
households. In Manhattan, they made up 1 percent of households.
Hampshire County, Mass., home to Northampton, had the highest
proportion of female couples, at 1.7 percent. Some of the highest
numbers of unmarried couples were recorded in the South, which as
defined by the census, has the largest population of any
region.
David Blankenhorn, president of the marriage advocacy group the
Institute for American Values, said married couples had become a
minority largely because of the growing number of households made
up of people who planned to marry or who used to be married.
Steve Watters, the director of young adults for Focus on the
Family, a conservative Christian group, said that the trend of
fewer married couples was more a reflection of delaying marriage
than rejection of it.
It does show that a lot of people are experimenting with
alternatives before they get there, Mr. Watters said. The biggest
concern is that those who still aspire to marriage are going to
find fewer models. Theyre also finding theyve gotten so good at
being single its hard to be at one with another person.
But Pamela J. Smock, a researcher at the University of Michigan
Population Studies Center, said her research unaffiliated with
the Census Bureau found that the desire for strong family bonds,
and especially marriage, was constant.
Even cohabiting young adults tell us that they are doing so
because it would be unwise to marry without first living together
in a society marked by high levels of divorce, Ms. Smock
said.
A number of couples interviewed agreed that cohabiting was akin to
taking a test drive and, given the scarcity of affordable
apartments and homes, also a matter of convenience. Some said that
pregnancy was the only thing that would prompt them to make a legal
commitment soon. Others said they never intended to marry. A few of
those couples said they were inspired by solidarity with gay and
lesbian couples who cannot legally marry in most states.
Jennifer Lynch, a 28-year-old stage manager in New York, said she
had lived on the Lower East Side with her boyfriend, who is 37 and
divorced, for most of the five years they have been a couple.
Cohabitating is our choice, and we have no intention to be
married, Ms. Lynch said. There is little difference between what
we do and what married people do. We love each other, exist
together, all of our decisions are based upon each other. Everyone
we care about knows this.
If anything, she added, not having the false security of wedding
rings makes us work even a little harder.
With more competition from other ways of living, the proportion of
married couples has been shrinking for decades. In 1930, they
accounted for about 84 percent of households. By 1990 the
proportion of married couples had declined to about 56
percent.
Married couples have not been a majority of households headed by
adults younger than 25 since the 1970s, but among those aged 25 to
34 the proportion slipped below 50 percent for the first time
within the past five years. (Among Americans aged 35 to 64, married
couples still make up a majority of all households.)
Its partially fueled by women in the work force; they dont
necessarily have to marry to be economically secure, said Andrew
A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College of the City
University of New York, who conducted the census analysis for The
New York Times. You used to get married to have sex. Now one of
the major reasons to get married is to have children, and the
attractiveness of having children has declined for many people
because of the cost.
William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution,
attributed the accelerated trend to the lifestyles of baby
boomers.
Its the legacy of the boomers that have finally caused this
tipping point, Dr. Frey said. Certainly later generations have
followed in boomer footsteps, with high levels of living together
before marriage, and more flexible lifestyles. But the boomers were
the trailblazers, once again, rebelling against a norm their
parents epitomized.
This would seem to close the book on the Ozzie and Harriet era
that characterized much of the last century, he said.