Marriage Prevalence for Black Adults Varies by State

U.S. marriage rates have been on the decline since the latter half of the 20th century and both men and women are marrying at a later age, but the decline and delay are even more dramatic among Black adults.

The median age at first marriage has risen for both men and women. In 1970, the median age at first marriage was 23.2 years for men, and 20.8 years for women. Fifty years later, those figures climbed to 30.5 years and 28.1 years, respectively.

Although there have been drastic changes in marriage patterns for all race and Hispanic origin groups, differences have been especially pronounced for non-Hispanic Black adults (throughout this story, Black is used interchangeably with non-Hispanic Black).

For all groups, the percentage of never married men in 1970 was 28.1%, compared to 22.1% of women. By 2020, these figures rose to 35.8% and 30.0%, respectively. However, in 1970, 35.6% of Black men and 27.7% of Black women were never married, but by 2020, these percentages had jumped to 51.4% for Black men and 47.5% for Black women.

While the percentage of all adults who were never married increased by 7.6 percentage points for men and 7.9 percentage points for women, the corresponding change for Black adults was more than double that, at 15.8 percentage points for men and 19.8 for women.

Similarly, the median age at first marriage for Black adults increased more dramatically than it did for the overall population.