Married-couple households continue to plummet across US

Married-couple households continue to plummet across the U.S. as the number of one-person and non-married households rise, U.S. Census Bureau data reveals.

The findings, from the bureau’s “America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2022” report, reveal that the percentage of married-couple households fell from around 71 percent in 1970 to about 47 percent of all households in 2022.

Stats by Household Type

Family Households

The largest decline was seen among married couples with children under the age of 18, which accounted for around 40.3 percent of households in 1970 but only 17.8 percent in 2022, a decline of around 23 percent.

Married-couple households without children under the age of 18 fell to a much smaller degree from 30.3 percent in 1970 to 29 percent in 2022.

However, other family households, including homes without married partners, increased in the same period from 10.6 percent to 17.4 percent. All types of family households accounted for nearly two-thirds of households in 2022 (64 percent) but fell from 81 percent in 1970.

Non-family households

In contrast, non-family households have risen from around 19 percent in 1970 to more than a third of all households in 2022 (36 percent).

In this demographic, women living alone represented the largest percentage of non-family households, rising from 11.5 percent in 1970 to 15.7 percent in 2022.

Meanwhile, men living alone rose sharper from 5.6 percent in 1970 to 13.2 percent in 2022.

Size of Households

The findings also revealed that households have become significantly smaller in recent decades, with the percentage of one-person households rising from 17.1 percent in 1970 to 28.9 percent in 2022. In contrast, the percentage of households with five or more people fell from 20.9 percent to 9 percent.

The largest demographic increase in one-person households was seen in men aged 15-64, rising from 23.3 percent in 1970 to 30.9 percent in 2022. Meanwhile, men living alone aged 64-74 rose from 5.6 percent to 8.6 percent, and men aged 75 and above rose from 4.8 percent to 6.1 percent.

In contrast, the proportion of women living alone aged 15 and above fell from about two-thirds of one-person households in 1970 (66 percent) to around 54 percent in 2022.

In this group, the proportion of women aged 15-64 living alone fell from 30.9 percent in 1970 to 27.6 percent in 2022; women aged 65-74 fell from 19.6 percent to 12.6 percent; and women aged 75 and over fell from 15.9 percent to 14.2 percent.

Commenting on the findings, the U.S. Census Bureau said: “Increases in men’s life expectancy over the period may have contributed to a higher proportion of one-person households being older men, but also a lower proportion being older women, since their husbands lived longer.”

“These trends showcase the importance of collecting detailed demographic and economic information about how the situation of American families and households changes over time.”

The report used data from the 2019 American Community Survey and the Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Surveys.

Newsweek has contacted the U.S. Census Bureau for comment outside of normal working hours.