Check out this cool infographic from the U.S. Census Bureau which compares America circa 1940 to 2010. Why 1940? The 1940 Census was just released in its entirety which means you can can see now see all the original data without privacy concerns. All private information from the decennial census are sealed for 72 years–so private data from the 2010 census won’t be available until 2082.
The one part we want to draw your attention to in the infographic is at the very bottom showing the difference in marriage rates. In 1940, for folks between the ages of 20 and 34, 43.9 percent of men and 28.9 percent of women were “never married.” In 2010, those percentage soar with 65.6 percent of men and 55.6 percent of women were “never married.”
This is another way to look at the devaluation of marriage. This data is showing the effects of cohabitation and the delaying of marriage later in life. The consequence of this shift that we are now starting to see is an unsustainable decline in the birth rate leading to a “Demographic Winter.”
