At what age do Americans marry?

I can't find statistics on frum ages, though from the pressure some girls have on them, one would think the answer is 20 for girls, that is if they can't make it by 19. Single males seem to enjoy a bit more latitude, as no one pressures them at 20, and many only begin to entertain shidduch suggestions at 23. But for the rest of the American population that leaves records with the Census Bureau, the answer depends on the year.

You may be aware that people are marrying older as compared to history stretching back to the middle of the 20th century as graphed in graphed out by http://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/marriage-since-when-new-pew-report/

But as the site says, that upward projection doesn't really give the whole story. If you go back further, all the way to 1890, you find that the actual curve of points first goes downward. Back then the median age for a man at first marriage was just over 26 years old. The average bride was four years younger, at 22. At the lowest point, the average age for men was 22.8, 20.3 for women. Interesting, how the age gap narrowed there and actually remained close to constant at its new high point of 28.2 for men and 26.1 for women in 2010. By 2011, the ages rose even further, according to Bloomberg   28.7 for men and 26.5 for women.


You can see a graph of spousal age differences  from http://www.bsos.umd.edu/socy/vanneman/endofgr/SpousalAgeDifference


I don't have any particular conclusion to draw from all this, except to observe that expectations about age are products of the times and circles.




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Comments

Shimon Schwartz said…
I think these charts would provide even more value, if projected on the percentage of males and females getting married at all + number over divorces.

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