Married couples are in the minority in America for the first time.
In last year’s U.S. census, married couples represented 48 per cent of all households, down from 52 per cent a decade earlier.
Experts attributed the change to a fast-growing older population who are more likely to be divorced or widowed, and young people delaying marriage amid fears of not being able to hang on to a job and a shift away from having children at a young age.
Meanwhile the number of opposite-sex couples living together rather than marrying jumped 13 per cent from 2009 to 7.5million.
The median age for first marriages has climbed steadily in the U.S. since the 1960s, when men got married at about 23, and women at 20. Now men are waiting until they are 28 and women until 26.
In the next twenty years the number of married people in the UK is expected to In the next 20 years the number of married people in the UK is expected to drop to 41 per cent from 49 per cent
In the next 20 years the number of married people in the UK is expected to drop to 41 per cent from 49 per cent
Americans are also living longer, with an average life expectancy of 78, nearly a decade longer than in the 1960s.
According to the most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics, the married population in the UK is expected to drop to just 41 per cent in 20 years, compared with 49 per cent now.
The average groom in Britain is for the first time now the same age as his bride.
In the 1960s, men were typically two years older than the women they married.
But around one in ten marriages are now between couples of the same age, which is more common than any other age difference.
The age gap has largely been eliminated as an increasing number of women marry men closer in age to them or are younger.
A growth in female independence has led to marriage becoming more of an equal partnership, instead of women being dependant on a man’s career.
In 1963, only 15 per cent of marriages involved a woman older than her new husband.
Now 26 per cent of brides have a younger groom. Like 29-year-old Kate Middleton, who is five months older than William, 28, more women are marrying younger men and choosing to do so after following similar life paths such as going to university.
There has also been an increase in the prominence of ‘cougar’ women who have relationships with younger ‘toyboys’.
This phenomenon has been fuelled by growing numbers of financially independent older professional women who marry or date much younger men, including Ann Summers boss Jacqueline Gold, 50, whose second husband Dan Cunningham is 17 years her junior.
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The decline of marraige
The decline of marraige
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