In 2022, the median age for the first wedding among women in the United States stood at 28.6 years. For men, the median age was 30.5 years. The median age of Americans at their first wedding has been steadily increasing for both men and women since 1998.

Mean age and median age at divorce and at marriage, for persons who divorced in a given year, by sex or gender and place of occurrence, 1970 to most recent year.

Mean age and median age at marriage, for persons who married in a given year, by legal marital status, gender (when available), the couple's gender composition (when available) and place of occurrence, 1991 to most recent year.

Number of marriages that took place in England and Wales by age, sex, previous partnership status and civil or religious ceremony.

In 2022, there were 67.85 million married men and 68.45 million married women living in the United States. This is compared to 3.7 million widowed men and 11.48 million widowed women.

Marriage in the United States

Nevada had the highest marriage rate in the United States in 2021, followed by Hawaii and Montana. This can be attributed to marriage accessibility in the state. Las Vegas weddings are known for being quick, easy, and inexpensive chapel weddings. In comparison to the cheap weddings available in Las Vegas, the average expenditure for a wedding in the United States was the highest in New Jersey, clocking in at 51,000 U.S. dollars.

Same-sex marriage

The number of Americans who think that same-sex marriage should be recognized by law has more than doubled since 1996, while the number of Americans who think it should not be valid has decreased. It was not until June 26, 2015 that the United States Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states. Before then, it was up to the states to decide if they allowed same-sex marriage. States in the Southeast are the most opposed to same-sex marriage, whereas the strongest support comes from Northern coastal states.

The Wedding Services industry provides a wide variety of wedding day services, apparel retailers and venues. Evolving social norms and medical advancements, which enable women to safely give birth later in life, have caused the marriage rate to decline in recent decades. Extended periods of cohabitation before marriage and family planning have increasingly become normal among young couples. As a result, the industry has contended with declining revenue over the past five years. Despite fewer couples getting married, increasing per capita disposable income has enabled those seeking to spend more on their big day, limiting revenue declines. Nonetheless, as couples postponed or downsized their weddings during the COVID-19 pandemic, industry revenue dropped significantly in 2020 alone. Consequently, industry revenue fell at a CAGR of 4.1% to $70.3 billion over the past five years, including a decrease of 0.6% in 2023 alone.Despite rising wedding budgets, which translated to higher revenue, heightened competition has hindered revenue per operator. Over the past five years, the barriers to entry for operators in this industry have decreased as more couples can find vendors through the internet. Online marketing and social media have increased visibility for wedding services and lowered marketing budgets, making it easier for new companies to enter the industry. But, coronavirus-related pressures forced many of these new entrants out of the industry. Also, limited demand because of the declining marriage rate has led to lower revenue per operator somewhat deterring new entrants.Moving forward, industry demand will continue to be pressured by the marriage rate, which will further decline over the next five years. Even so, continued pent-up demand from previously postponed weddings will support industry revenue. During the outlook period, rising consumer confidence indicates that individuals will be more willing to take on nonessential expenditures and incur high wedding costs. Also, the increasing average age of marriage and the length of engagements will give couples more time to plan and save money for their ceremonies. Overall, industry revenue will rise at a CAGR of 0.2% to $71.1 billion over the next five years.

Married women surveyed in India were first pregnant when they were about 21 years old. These women were between 25 and 49 years old. While this is influenced many varying factors from socio-economic conditions to education and cultural influence, results from the survey found that women in urban areas had their first child more than a year later than their rural counterparts.

In 2024, there were around 394,608 divorces involving Muslim marriages, a decrease in compared to the previous year. 2022 saw a peak in divorces, reaching an all-time high for the past decade. The rise in divorce cases indicated a growing acceptance of the practice. Even so, divorcing in Indonesia can have serious consequences, especially for women. Muslim marriages in Indonesia Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population, and they are served by the religious courts with regards to matters concerning marriage and divorce, inheritance, and property. In 2022, almost two million Muslim marriages took place in Indonesia, including informal registrations. Under Syariah law, Muslims are permitted to marry once they reach sexual maturity. This has led to a widespread practice of forced child marriage in Indonesia. In September 2019, the Indonesian parliament passed a bill to raise the minimum age of marriage for women from 16 years to 19 years. Financial burden of divorce Forced marriage was cited as a ground for divorce in *** cases in 2022. The second-most commonly cited grounds for divorce, however, were financial problems and difficulties. Unfortunately, for many women, the financial difficulties would not end with divorce – in fact, it may just be the beginning. Men are typically the primary breadwinner in Indonesia, leaving many women financially dependent on their husbands. As of 2021, only half of Indonesian women had an account in a financial institution. Meanwhile, custody of the children is usually awarded to the woman after a divorce. This leaves many Indonesian women without financial support, and the additional burden of having children to raise alone. Despite the decreasing stigma of divorce, many women might still choose to stay in a bad marriage to avoid being put in a financially precarious situation.

Number of divorces and various divorce indicators (crude divorce rate, divorce rate for married persons, age-standardized divorce rate, total divorce rate, mean and median duration of marriage, median duration of divorce proceedings, percentage of joint divorce applications), by place of occurrence, 1970 to most recent year.

In 2023, 6.5 marriages were registered per 1,000 inhabitants in Russia, compared to 4.7 divorces per 1,000 population. The marriage rate in the country saw an increase compared to the previous year. In 2011, 9.2 marriages were registered per 1,000 Russians, which was the highest number recorded over the period under consideration. What do marriage and divorce rates mean? The crude marriage rate refers to the number of marriages per one thousand population, according to the United Nations Population Division. In total, around 946,000 marriages were registered in Russia in 2023, while the country’s population was estimated at 146.3 million in that year. Another indicator relevant to Russian demographics is the crude divorce rate, which is the number of divorces recorded in a year per 1,000 population, as defined by the United Nations Population Division. In total, nearly 684,000 divorces were registered in Russia in 2023. What do Russians think of marriage? In every age category, most Russians believed that being married and living in a family was most preferable in the society. However, the share of family and marriage supporters was the lowest among 18-to-24-year-olds, measuring at 60 percent. Both for men and women, the ideal age to get married was considered in a person’s twenties.

As of 2025, Sri Lanka had the lowest divorce rate in the world, with 0.15 divorces per 1,000 population. Vietnam and Guatemala followed with 0.2 divorces per 1,000 inhabitants.

Section 3

Survey instrument:

Section 4

Survey instrument:

Section 5

Survey instruments:

Section 6

Survey instrument:

Section 7

Survey instrument:

Section 8

Survey instrument:

Section 12

Survey instruments:

Section 13

Survey instrument:

Section 11

Survey instrument:

Section 9

Survey instrument:

Section 15

This dataset was created on 2021-10-06 18:58:39.791 by merging multiple datasets together. The source datasets for this version were:

Empowering Girls in Bangladesh Baseline Census: Bangladesh baseline census.dta Information was collected from the baseline census questionnaire by surveying one household member per household, preferably the household head, about all members of the household. In total, the dataset contains information about 1,375,714 individuals from 281,337 households.

Empowering Girls in Bangladesh Baseline Parents: Bangladesh baseline parents.dta This dataset contains information collected from the parents in subsample households. In total, 9,048 households were interviewed.

Empowering Girls in Bangladesh Baseline Girls: Bangladesh baseline girls.dta Combines information from married and unmarried girls questionnaires. In total, 11,086 unmarried girls and 264 married girls were interviewed.

Empowering Girls in Bangladesh Baseline Marriage Registrars: Bangladesh baseline registrars.dta Contains information from 146 marriage registrars in the target villages from the marriage registrar questionnaire. In our sample, each marriage registrar was responsible for an average of 6.2 villages. As such, while a small amount of villages have more than one marriage registrar (13%), many villages have none.

Empowering Girls in Bangladesh Baseline Schools: Bangladesh baseline schools.dta Contains information from 920 schools in 460 target villages from the school questionniare. While some vil- lages had more than one school, and others had none.

Empowering Girls in Bangladesh Baseline Villages: Bangladesh baseline villages.dta Contains information from 460 target villages.

Empowering Girls in Bangladesh Midline Census: Bangladesh midline census.dta Contains follow-up information on 65,663 households that were originally surveyed at baseline census.

Empowering Girls in Bangladesh Midline Parents: Bangladesh midline parents.dta Contains follow-up information on 8,988 households.

Empowering Girls in Bangladesh Midline Inlaws: Bangladesh midline inlaws.dta Contains follow-up information on 1,092 girls who moved to in-law households.

Empowering Girls in Bangladesh Midline Girls: Bangladesh midline girls.dta This dataset combines information from married and unmarried midline girls questionnaires. Contains follow-up information on 11,350 girls.

Empowering Girls in Bangladesh Midline Schools: Bangladesh midline schools.dta Contains follow-up information on 524 schools from 338 villages.

Empowering Girls in Bangladesh Midline Villages: Bangladesh midline villages.dta Contains follow-up information from 275 villages.

Section 10

Survey instrument missing

Section 2

Description and codebook for subset of harmonized variables:

Section 14

Survey instrument:

Documentation

Guide to datasets:

Full project name: Impact of Financial Incentives on Child Marriage and Schooling in Bangladesh

PIs: Nina Buchmann, Erica Field, Rachel Glennerster, Shahana Nazneen, Svetlana Pimkina, Iman Sen

Uniqe ID: 500

Location: Bangladesh

Sample: 15,739 girls aged 15-17 in 438 communities

Timeline: 2007 to 2015

Target Group: Women and girls

Outcome of Interest: Energy access, Enrollment and attendance, Sexual and reproductive health, Student learning, Fertility, Age of Marriage, Gender attitudes and norms

Intervention Type: Community participation, Incentives, Tracking and remedial education, Empowerment training, Norms change

Dataverse: Buchmann, Nina; Field, Erica; Glennerster, Rachel; Nazneen, Shahana; Pimkina, Svetlana; Sen, Iman, 2018, “Power vs Money: Alternative Approaches to Reducing Child Marriage in Bangladesh, a Randomized Control Trial”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/ET8WJD, Harvard Dataverse, V1

Associated publications: https://www.povertyactionlab.org/sites/default/files/publications/Power-vs-Money-Working-Paper.pdf

More information: https://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/empowering-girls-rural-bangladesh

The average American family in 2023 consisted of 3.15 persons. Families in the United States According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a family is a group of two people or more (one of whom is the householder) related by birth, marriage, or adoption and residing together; all such people (including related subfamily members) are considered as members of one family. As of 2023, the U.S. Census Bureau counted about 84.33 million families in the United States. The average family consisted of 3.15 persons in 2021, down from 3.7 in the 1960s. This is reflected in the decrease of children in family households overall. In 1970, about 56 percent of all family households had children under the age of 18 living in the household. This percentage declined to about 40 percent in 2020. The average size of a family household varies greatly from state to state. The largest average families can be found in Utah, California, and Hawaii, while the smallest families can be found in Wisconsin, Vermont and Maine.

The typical American picture of a family with 2.5 kids might not be as relevant as it once was: In 2023, there was an average of 1.94 children under 18 per family in the United States. This is a decrease from 2.33 children under 18 per family in 1960.

Familial structure in the United States

If there’s one thing the United States is known for, it’s diversity. Whether this is diversity in ethnicity, culture, or family structure, there is something for everyone in the U.S. Two-parent households in the U.S. are declining, and the number of families with no children are increasing. The number of families with children has stayed more or less constant since 2000.

Adoptions in the U.S.

Families in the U.S. don’t necessarily consist of parents and their own biological children. In 2021, around 35,940 children were adopted by married couples, and 13,307 children were adopted by single women.

In 2022, the divorce rate in the United States stood at *** per 1,000 of the population. Divorce in the U.S. Divorce is the termination of a marital union. In the United States, as in most other countries, it is a legal process in which a judge or another legal authority dissolves the bonds of matrimony existing between two persons. The process of divorce also normally involves issues surrounding distribution of property, financial support of the former spouse, child custody and child support. A divorce also allows a person to marry again.In the United States, divorce is, like marriage, a matter for state governments, not the federal government. Although divorce laws vary from state to state, for example on which terms a divorce can be arranged, a divorce must be certified by a court of law to become effective. A declining divorce rate Over the last couple of years, both the marriage rate and the divorce rate have been declining in the United States. As of 2009, the average length of a first marriage in the U.S. was ***** years, while the average length of a second marriage was about ** years.

According to the 2020 UNIDOMO questionnaire, Portugal clearly led the list of European countries with the highest divorce rate per 100 marriages. With 91.5 divorces the Portuguese Republic led the list, followed by Spain and Luxembourg. All three countries boast a significantly higher share than the other European countries, each reporting a divorce rate over 80 divorces.

A different way to look at Portugal

While Portugal clearly has the most divorces per 100 marriages, looking at divorce rates per 1.000 inhabitants in other European countries alters the picture of the country as one unsettled by significant numbers of divorces. With nearly 1.7 divorces per 1,000 inhabitants Portugal has roughly the same divorce rate as Germany and the Netherlands. Interesting is furthermore that although marriages in Portugal tend to result in divorce lightly more often as in Luxembourg (80.3%), the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg experienced a 0.6 point higher divorce rate.

What about the rest of the World?

While compared with Latin American countries like Guatemala or Peru, ranked among the countries with the lowest divorce rates in the world, Luxembourg’s divorce rate seems excessive. However, when compared with divorce rates (per 1.000 inhabitants) of countries like the United States (2.7) or China (3.5) divorce rates from Luxembourg and Europe are not out of the ordinary.

In 2023, there were about 15.09 million children living with a single mother in the United States, and about 3.05 million children living with a single father. The number of children living with a single mother is down from its peak in 2012, and the number of children living with a single father is down from its peak in 2005.

Marriage and divorce in the United States

Despite popular opinion in the United States that “half of all marriages end in divorce,” the divorce rate in the U.S. has fallen significantly since 1992. The marriage rate, which has also been decreasing since the 1990s, was still higher than the divorce rate in 2021. Half of all marriages may not end in divorce, but it does seem that fewer people are choosing to get married in the first place.

New family structures

In addition to a falling marriage rate, fewer people in the U.S. have children under the age of 18 living in the house in comparison to 1970. Over the past decade, the share of families with children under 18, whether that be married couples or single parents, has stayed mostly steady, although the number of births in the U.S. has also fallen.

In 2022, about 40.26 percent of all family households in the United States had their own children under age 18 living in the household. This is compared to the approximate 50.62 percent of female led households with their own children.

The percentage of births to unmarried women in the United States has more than doubled since 1980, reaching 40 percent in 2023. This significant shift in family structure reflects changing societal norms and demographic trends over the past four decades. The rise in births outside of marriage has implications for family dynamics, social support systems, and public policy. Age and ethnicity factors in birth rates While the overall percentage of births to unmarried women has stabilized around 40 percent in recent years, birth rates vary significantly across age groups and ethnicities. Unsurprisingly, in 2023, women between 20 and 34 years old had the highest birth rate at 83 births per 1,000 women, while teenagers aged 15 to 19 had the lowest rate at 8 births per 1,000 women. Additionally, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women had the highest fertility rate among all race/ethnicities in 2022, with approximately 2,237.5 births per 1,000 women, compared to the national average of 1,656.5 births per 1,000 women. Changing household structures The increase in births to unmarried women has contributed to evolving household structures in the United States. In 2023, there were approximately 15.18 million families with a single mother, a significant increase from previous decades. This trend aligns with the overall rise in births outside of marriage and suggests a growing need for support systems and policies that address the unique challenges faced by single-parent households.

As of 2005, people in the United States stated that they have had an average of 10.7 sexual partners, which is slightly above the global average of nine sexual partners.

Turkey in the lead?

Surveys on sensitive or very personal topics, like sexuality, are often to be taken with a grain of salt, but in this case, Turkey did not only lead the ranking in 2005, it also topped the one conducted in 2010 on the mean number of sexual partners. So is it likely that the Turkish people are sexually more prolific than everybody else? Another survey by another source suggests otherwise: It does not include Turkey when it comes to the countries with the most sexually active inhabitants but lists the Greek as the most active ones. In general, people tend to embellish their own activities, but also those of others – the disparity between the perceived and the actual number of times people have sex is staggering and similar everywhere around the world.

India the most monogamous?

Of those countries surveyed, Indian respondents report the lowest average number of sexual partners, only slightly surpassed by China. Both China and India struggle with a significant difference between the number of men and the number of women, and both countries largely adhere to conservative standards of sexuality that prohibit sex before marriage.