The marriage rate in the United States in 2018 dropped to the lowest level ever measured, according to government data released Wednesday.
The National Center for Health Statistics reported that the marriage rate fell by 6% to roughly 6.5 marriages per 1,000 people, the lowest rate since the government began measuring the stat in 1867.
“Millennials are in peak marriage years, their 20s and 30s, and it’s still dropping,” NCHS statistician Sally Curtin, the lead author of the report, told The Wall Street Journal. “This is historic.”
Marriage rates plummeted in the early 1930s around the start of the Great Depression, sinking to a then-record low of 7.9 marriages per 1,000 people in 1932. Over time, the marriage rate more than doubled to an all-time high of 16.4 in 1946, the year after the end of World War II.
The marriage rate dropped to 8.4 in 1958, then recovered and fluctuated in the 9-10 range from 1964-1994. Marriage rates started a steady decline in 1994 that led to the record low in 2018. Curtin did not venture a reason as to why U.S. marriage rates have declined.
The Wall Street Journal offered several causes for the decline:
“Many Americans are opting to form households without tying the knot, and strained finances have been a top reason. In recent years, much of the marriage decline has come for middle earners and those with only a high-school education. Declining religious adherence and growing acceptance of unmarried cohabitation have also played a role.”
Harbingers Daily Addition:
The Bible explains that in the last days we would see a severe rise in sexual immorality (2 Timothy 3:1-6, Luke 17:28), as well as a large scale falling away from the Lord (2 Timothy 3:1-5,12-13, 2 Thess. 2:3). These things have attributed to the decline in marriage rates as Biblical truth and values are being discarded by the “all about me generation.”
2 Timothy 3:1-4 KJV – “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God”
