For the first time, married couples make up less than half of all American households. It’s a good thing the Rapture was postponed, because right now the U.S. is engaged in a fit of hedonistic singledom!
The New York Times reports that census data released today shows married couples made up just 48% of U.S. households in 2010. That’s a slight decline from 2000, and a huge drop from 1950, when 78% of households were comprised of married people. We’re moving farther from the ’50s social structure every year, which is a shame because those were great years. Everyone conformed to strict gender roles and we shunned anyone who stepped out of line!
As previous data shows, this shift is partly due to college-educated people marrying later, which seems to lead to more couples staying married. However, more women with only a high school degree aren’t marrying, and naturally this has inspired a lot of hand-wringing. From The Times:
W. Bradford Wilcox, the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, argues that the retreat from marriage is bad for society because it means less security for children. “It’s troubling because those kids are much more likely to be exposed to instability, complex family relations and poverty,” he said.
Wow, someone should let these people know that a marriage license is their ticket out of a life of poverty and family turmoil! Being in a stable relationship may help people survive when they’re poor and have few job options, but there are multiple factors that lead to kids growing up with “complex family relations.” (Like being a Kardashian, for instance.)
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