Millennials have a reputation for avoiding relationships and commitment, and a new statistical study has revealed there may be some truth in this belief. According to Olin College Professor of Computer Science Allen Downey, Millennials are getting hitched later in life, and more people are not getting married at all.

Compared to previous generations, women born in the 1980s and 1990s are staying unmarried at substantially high rates, and 44 percent of men are unmarried at age 33, according to the findings.

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Downey analyzed data from the National Survey of Family Growth, which was administered by the National Center for Health Statistics and based on a sample of 58,488 women and 24,652 men in the United States. To reach his findings, he then ran projections for the Millennial Generation as they age, comparing people who were born between 1940 and 1990 decade-by-decade.

“To me the most surprising result is for women in their early thirties,” Downey said, according to Olin College of Engineering. “Between ages 30 and 34, their marriage rate has been close to zero, and much lower than in previous generations.”



The number of unmarried 23-year-old women has increased from 25 percent, for those born in the 40s, to 81 percent for women born in the 90s. Once they’re in their 70s, the amount of unwed Millennial women is projected to be 36 percent.

Meanwhile, 30 percent of Millennial men are still unmarried at the age of 43, which is about a 13 percent increase compared to males born in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.



Of course it is not possible to predict exactly what will happen in the next 20 years, but Millennials are already tying the knot later than previous generations.

Source: Downey A. Millennials are Still Not Getting Married. Probably Overthinking It: A Blog By Allen Downey. 2016.

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