At the start of the 1990s, the average OECD woman married for the first time at 25; the average man at 28. By 2021, those figures had climbed to close to 32 and 34, respectively, a shift of roughly seven years in three decades, among the fastest sustained changes in any major demographic institution tracked by the organization.
Globally, the picture is more stable than the OECD trend alone suggests: the share of women married or in a union worldwide fell only modestly, from 69% in 1970 to 64% in 2024, according to UN data compiled by Our World in Data, meaning marriage and marriage-like partnership remain the norm for roughly two-thirds of women globally even as the timing, form, and regional patterns of that partnership have shifted substantially.
How Marriage Has Changed
Global marriage rates have declined over the long run, though the size and pace of the decline vary enormously across sources and definitions. The global crude marriage rate, marriages per 1,000 people, fell from 12.1 in 1950 to roughly 7.2 by 2020, according to UN Population Division data.
In the United States specifically, the marriage rate fell from a peak of 12.2 per 1,000 in the early 1970s to about 6.1 by 2020, while the share of American adults who are currently married fell from 72% in 1960 to about 51% today.
The proportion of adults who have never married has risen correspondingly: about 1 in 5 U.S. adults aged 25 and older had never married as of the most recent data, up from just 9% in 1960, and among 40-year-olds specifically, 25% had never married as of 2021, a record high.
People Are Marrying at Different Ages
The rise in age at first marriage is one of the most consistent trends across high-income countries. OECD data shows the average age at first marriage rose from a range of roughly 22–27 for women and 24–30 for men across member countries in the early 1990s, to roughly 27–33 for women and 29–35 for men by 2021. The increase has been sharpest, over 50% in some cases, in countries that already had comparatively few marriages by 2020, including Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Mediterranean and Nordic countries show the highest average marriage ages overall, while Israel and Türkiye remain notable outliers with average first-marriage ages closer to 25 for women and under 28 for men.
Change in Mean Age at First Marriage, OECD Average
| Period | Women | Men |
|---|---|---|
| Early 1990s | ~25 years | ~28 years |
| 2021 | ~31–32 years | ~34 years |
Marriage and Fertility Are Becoming Less Tightly Linked
Historically, marriage and childbearing were closely sequenced events in most societies; that link has loosened substantially in many high-income countries as cohabitation has become an accepted long-term partnership form, particularly in Nordic countries, where it frequently precedes or entirely substitutes for formal marriage.
This decoupling matters for understanding fertility trends independent of marriage statistics: declining marriage rates do not translate one-to-one into declining birth rates in societies where a substantial share of births occur to cohabiting or unmarried parents, though the specific relationship varies considerably by country and cultural context.
Education, Income and Marriage
Research consistently finds associations between education, income, and marriage timing, though these should be read as correlations rather than simple causal claims. In the U.S., median age at first marriage varies by race and education level, 2024 data puts median first-marriage age at 30.2 for men and 28.6 for women overall, with some variation by race (White men and women marrying somewhat later, on average, than Black or Hispanic men and women in the same dataset), patterns researchers generally attribute to a complex mix of economic circumstances, regional concentration, and cultural factors rather than any single explanatory variable.
Population Structure and the Marriage Pool
Age structure and cohort size directly shape how many potential partners are available to any given generation at marrying age, a dynamic examined in greater depth in coverage of marriage market demographics. Because fertility has declined unevenly across regions and time periods, the size of successive marriage-age cohorts varies, which can affect both the ease of finding a partner within a preferred age range and the aggregate marriage rate independent of any change in individual preferences about marriage itself.
Marriage Versus Cohabitation
Measuring “union formation” broadly, including both marriage and cohabitation, produces a more stable picture than marriage statistics alone. The UN’s finding that 64% of women globally remained married or in a union as of 2024, down only slightly from 69% in 1970, reflects this broader measure; much of the decline in formal marriage rates in high-income countries has been offset, statistically, by rising cohabitation rather than representing an equivalent decline in long-term partnership formation overall.
Geographic Differences
Regional variation in marriage patterns is substantial. UN data shows the share of women married or in a union has changed comparatively little in Asia and South America over the past five decades, while Africa, Europe, and North America have seen larger shifts. Within high-income countries specifically,
Mediterranean and Nordic nations show the highest average marriage ages, while countries such as Israel and Türkiye retain comparatively early average marriage patterns closer to those seen in most OECD countries several decades ago.
Global Share of Women Married or in a Union, Selected Years
| Year | Share of Women Married or in a Union |
|---|---|
| 1970 | 69% |
| 2024 | 64% |
What Could Marriage Look Like in Future Populations?
Available projections and demographic modeling, including Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research forecast that women born in 2005 will have an 80.9% probability of ever marrying, with an average first-marriage age of 28.6, suggest continued gradual increases in marriage age and modest declines in the probability of ever marrying in several high-income countries, rather than the wholesale disappearance of marriage as an institution. These remain scenario-based projections rather than certainties, contingent on economic conditions, housing markets, cultural shifts, and policy choices that remain genuinely uncertain over multi-decade horizons.
Conclusion
Marriage is not disappearing, but it is changing, arriving later, increasingly coexisting with or following cohabitation, and varying enormously by region and country in ways that resist any single global narrative. The near-decade shift in average OECD marriage age since the early 1990s stands alongside a global partnership rate that has held remarkably steady, at roughly two-thirds of women married or in a union, for more than fifty years.
Understanding the future of marriage requires holding both facts simultaneously: an institution undergoing real structural change in its timing and form, within a broader pattern of long-term partnership formation that remains, globally, closer to stable than collapsing.
Key Findings
- The OECD average age at first marriage rose from about 25 (women) and 28 (men) in the early 1990s to roughly 32 and 34 by 2021, a shift of about seven years in three decades.
- Globally, the share of women married or in a union fell only modestly, from 69% in 1970 to 64% in 2024, indicating long-term partnership remains the norm for most women worldwide.
- U.S. adults currently married fell from 72% in 1960 to about 51% today, while the share of 40-year-olds who have never married reached a record 25% as of 2021.
- The global crude marriage rate fell from 12.1 per 1,000 in 1950 to roughly 7.2 by 2020.
- Marriage age increases exceeded 50% in some countries with already-low 2020 marriage rates, including Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain.
- Japan’s official population projections estimate an 80.9% lifetime marriage probability for women born in 2005, with an average first-marriage age of 28.6.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Are marriage rates declining worldwide?
Crude marriage rates have declined substantially, from 12.1 to about 7.2 per 1,000 globally between 1950 and 2020, though the broader share of women married or in a union has declined much more modestly, from 69% to 64% between 1970 and 2024.
2. Why are people marrying later?
Extended education, rising cohabitation as an accepted alternative or precursor to marriage, housing costs, labor market conditions, and shifting cultural norms around when to marry are all documented contributing factors.
3. Which countries have the highest marriage rates?
Several Middle Eastern and North African countries report marriage rates above 7 per 1,000, among the highest globally, while Mediterranean and Nordic OECD countries tend to show the lowest rates and highest marriage ages.
4. How does marriage affect fertility?
The two have become less tightly linked in many high-income countries as cohabitation increasingly substitutes for or precedes marriage; declining marriage rates do not translate directly into equivalent fertility declines where nonmarital births are common.
5. Is marriage becoming less common?
It is becoming later and, in several countries, somewhat less universal, the U.S. share of never-married 40-year-olds reached a record 25% in 2021, though the global share of women in any form of union (married or cohabiting) has declined only modestly over the past five decades.
6. What is the difference between marriage rate and marriage prevalence?
Marriage rate measures new marriages per population in a given year; marriage prevalence measures the share of a population currently married or ever-married. The two can move in different directions and should not be used interchangeably.
7. Has cohabitation replaced marriage?
In several countries, particularly in the Nordic region, cohabitation has become an important and often long-term partnership form, functioning as either an alternative to or an extended precursor to formal marriage.
8. How much has age at first marriage increased?
The OECD average rose by roughly seven years for both women and men between the early 1990s and 2021, one of the largest sustained shifts in any tracked demographic institution over that period.
9. Do education and income affect marriage timing?
Research finds consistent associations between education, income, and marriage age, though these represent correlations shaped by a complex mix of economic and cultural factors rather than simple, isolated causes.
10. What might marriage look like in the future?
Demographic projections, such as Japan’s official 80.9% lifetime marriage probability estimate for women born in 2005, suggest continued gradual shifts toward later and somewhat less universal marriage in several countries, rather than the institution’s disappearance.
Sources
- OECD, “Marriage and divorce,” Society at a Glance 2024; OECD Family Database, Indicator SF3.1.
- Our World in Data, “Marriages and Divorces,” UN Population Division data compilation.
- U.S. Census Bureau, marriage statistics, 2024.
- Pew Research Center, marriage prevalence and never-married adult data.
- National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (Japan), Population Projections for Japan: 2021–2070.
- CDC/NCHS, U.S. marriage rate data.
