The Rorschach test - demographics of marriage among people in their twenties

American Demographics, Jan, 1997 by Cheryl Russell

Pity poor twentysomethings, vessels of our anxieties. In them, we see own worst faults. They have been called cynical slackers, materialistic whiners, and addicted to hand-outs. In them, we also see our greatest hopes. They are supposedly comfortable with diversity, intent on saving money, and bringing back the traditions we tossed aside.

Nowhere is this fantasy more blatant than in the pages of the September 1996 issue of Redbook. The subject: marriage. The hope: that young adults will do what we cannot - turn back the clock to the way things used to be. In a special section titled "Why Marriage Is Hot Again," Lois Smith Brady writes: "Today, for the first time since the mid-1960s, smart women in their 20s in - some cases their early 20s - are not only unafraid but eager to become brides." The article weaves together anecdote after anecdote in the hope that their combined force will make it true.

After an opening story about a young married couple who, Brady claims, are "part of a trend," the, facts intrude just a bit. "Although official Census Bureau statistics continue to show a rise in marriage age among Americans overall, people who toil in the marriage field - from sociologists to wedding planners - tell a different story." (In other words, don't heed the facts, listen to our hopes and fears instead). She continues: "...Among well-educated, career-minded women, becoming a wife at around age 25 has grown not only socially acceptable but enviable"

The problem is that getting married around age 25 has never been socially unacceptable. The median age at first marriage for American women has ranged between 20 and 25 years for the past century. While the age at first marriage has been rising since the 1950s, half of women still marry before age 25. Most of the rest marry by age 30. In other words, American women have always been eager to become brides in their 20s.

LONGER IN THE TOOTH

After describing the eagerness with which young women are marrying, Brady writes: "This is a far different tune from the one women were singing 10 or 15 years ago, the one that went, `I need to live on my own first.... Get my career in shape.... Have some fun." In fact, American women married at a younger age 10 or 15 years ago than they did in 1994.

The US. government began to keep records on the median age at first marriage in 1890. In that year, half of women married for the first time by age 22; for men, the median was 26.1. The age at first marriage fell through the first half of the 20th century, bottoming out at 20.1 years for women and 22.5 years for men in 1956. In the 1950s, nearly half of women married in their teens. Beginning in the 1970s, median age at first marriage began to rise steadily, surpassing the 1890 level for women in 1981. That year, the median age at first marriage for women was 22.3. As of 1994, it was over two years older, at 24.5

It's possible that well-educated women are getting married at an earlier age than they used to. It's even possible that age at marriage on the whole has declined in the past two years since the latest official statistics placed it at a record high. But both of these possibilities are pretty unlikely.

Young adults have been waiting longer to marry for good reasons, none of which have changed. Many are in school getting the credentials that will help them earn higher incomes later in life. The proportion of high school graduates who go to college in the fall following high school graduation rose from 45 to 63 percent between 1960 and 1993, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Seventy-two percent are going to college to make more money and 77 percent to get a better job, according to a 1995 survey of college freshmen by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute. Preparing for economic independence is clearly a high priority.

Getting married while in the midst of an education is not, however. The share of full-time female college freshmen who say the chances are very good they will marry while in college was 6.6 percent in 1995, according to the Higher Education Research Institute, down from 9 percent in 1972.

It may be comforting to people over age 30 to imagine that life is becoming less complex, marriages are getting better, and job security is returning. There is something gratifying about the idea that a younger generation has learned from our trials and tribulations, and that they will better balance their work and families, including getting a headstart on marriage.

But today's young adults face a bewildering future. The speed of change makes their lives every bit as difficult to navigate as the lack of jobs and opportunity did for young adults in the Great Depression. Twenty-somethings deserve more than to be a Rorschach test for our desires. They're having a hard enough time coping with their own reality.