America is the middle of two simultaneous trends related to marriage. Marriages today are more stable, thanks to the steady decline of divorce rates since the 1980s. At the same time, however, a declining share of Americans marry. In 2018, a record 35% of Americans ages 25 to 50, or 39 million, had never been married, according to a new Institute for Family Studies (IFS) analysis of U.S. Census data. The share was only 9% in 1970.

Previous research suggests that marriage rates tend to fall during a recession. With the Covid-19 stay-at-home order, and the financial fallout from the pandemic, we are most likely to see the share of never-married adults break new records in the near future.

Using data primarily from the U.S. Census Bureau, this research brief focuses on the roles that income, work, and education play in marriage formation. Views from singles regarding the reasons they are not yet married and about their ideal spouse are also incorporated from a recent IFS survey in California. The California survey provides the most updated data on the topic, and findings from the survey are largely consistent with previous findings in the national survey.