Marriages Are Largely Happening in Middle America and Not in Urban Centers, Study Finds
August 25, 2026
With the marriage rate in America still hovering near an all-time low reached in 2019, despite polls consistently showing that the desire for marriage remains strong for young adults, a new study has highlighted the areas of the U.S. that have the most single young adults and which areas are producing the most marriages.
The report, published by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) last week, found that the largest share of unmarried young adults in their 20s and 30s are in urban centers like Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. However, “The areas with the most new marriages are almost entirely in middle America,” the researchers found. These areas included Provo, Utah; Fort Wayne and Evansville, Indiana; and Colorado Springs, Colorado as well as west/central Tennessee, northwest Georgia, and North Carolina’s Greenville/Jacksonville corridor.
