A Bloomberg News report from 28 July note that Americans are delaying getting married. In 2015 the median age for a first-time American bride was around 28 years old, and the median age for a first-time groom was around 30, according to the most recent data available from the Census Bureau.
Ten years earlier, the median age was 25.5 for a first-time bride and 27 for a first-time groom, but the economic recession of 2008 and 2009, caused the marriage rate to drop at an unusually fast pace.
And it has not returned to its previous rate even after the economy recovered. It cited data from the research firm IbisWorld predicting that the marriage rate will continue falling over the next five years.
Estimates by the Wedding Report, a market-research firm specialising in wedding planning, show the number of weddings in the United States fell by 0.5 percent last year, to 2,162 million.
Growth in businesses providing services to married couples, including florists, bakers, photographers, and caterers started slowing again in 2015, and revenue actually declined slightly in 2016. During the next five years, IbisWorld expects an annual growth rate of just 0.3 percent.
Marriage statistics in Europe look even worse. While the most recent data indicate that the US marriage rate is 6.9 per 1000 people, the average rate in the European Union countries is only 4.6.
The Bloomberg report provides an explanation for the declining marriage rate in Europe: “It has become more socially acceptable for couples to live together and have children together outside the bonds of marriage.
The only “good news” for the wedding industry is the growing demand for same-sex marriages. Since the US Supreme Court legalised gay marriage nationwide two years ago, the Williams Institute estimates about 157 000 same-sex couples were wed. About 1,1 million Americans are married to someone of the same sex, the institute said in May, out of an estimated 10,7 million LGBT adults in the US.
Brides magazine noted on April 21 that many millennials appear not to be interested in marriage. It cited a new report from the US Census Bureau titled The Changing Economics and Demographics of Young Adulthood: 1975–2016, which examined changes in adulthood over the last 40 years. “This generation might not be that interested in settling down. The [Census Bureau] report indicates that Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 are getting married less than previous generations.”
Brides reported: “The report revealed that 55 percent of these young adults don’t believe getting married and having kids are as important as pursuing their career goals and education.”
The number of married people in Ireland however increased by almost 5 percent between the 2011 and 2016 censuses, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) revealed, as reported in the Irish Independent. The number of children per family in Ireland unfortunately remained unchanged since the 2011 census at 1,38 children at “sub-replacement fertility”.
