Over the past half-century or so, the US has been transformed from a very married nation to a place in which married people are teetering on the edge of becoming a minority. Whether we look at the number (or percentage) who are not married, or the number who have never been married, or the number who are living alone, the trends are remarkable, and sometimes record-setting.
According to the most recent Census Bureau statistics on marital status, it is married people, not unmarried, who are in the minority – they account for 49 percent of people 15 and older. The other 51 percent – 136.3 million people – are divorced, widowed, or separated, or they have always been single (never married).
I prefer marital status statistics that start counting at age 18 instead of 15. Over the past few years, though, the Census Bureau no longer shows those numbers in its key table (Table A1 on marital status). When those data were available, the trend was flipped, with just over half of adults 18 and older who were married, and just under half who were not married. Either way, being single (unmarried) in the US today is totally ordinary.
Of all those adults 15 and older who are not married, two-thirds of them have never been........