This statistic contains data on the estimated median age of Americans at their first wedding in the United States in 2021, by race and origin. In 2021, the median age for the first wedding among Asian women stood at 28.8 years.

Niger has the highest child marriage rate in the world among girls. According to the most recent data, in this West African country, more than three fourths of girls aged under 18 were married, with nearly 30 percent of them being younger than 15 years old. The Central African Republic, Chad, and Mali followed behind with rates ranging from 61 to 54 percent. This issue is globally spread, particularly in African countries. In many of these countries, the legal age to get married is lower for females than for males. In Niger and Chad, for instance, the legal age is 15 years for females and 18 for males. In Guinea, instead, the legal age for marriage is 17 for females and 18 for males. Child marriage is often related to poverty, with poor families choosing to marry away their girls both in order to earn money as a wedding gift and as this means fewer mouths to feed.

In 2022, there were about 4.15 million Black families in the United States with a single mother. This is an increase from 1990 levels, when there were about 3.4 million Black families with a single mother.

Single parenthood

The typical family is comprised of two parents and at least one child. However, that is not the case in every single situation. A single parent is someone who has a child but no spouse or partner. Single parenthood occurs for different reasons, including divorce, death, abandonment, or single-person adoption. Historically, single parenthood was common due to mortality rates due to war, diseases, and maternal mortality. However, divorce was not as common back then, depending on the culture.

Single parent wellbeing

In countries where social welfare programs are not strong, single parents tend to suffer more financially, emotionally, and mentally. In the United States, most single parents are mothers. The struggles that single parents face are greater than those in two parent households. The number of families with a single mother in the United States has increased since 1990, but the poverty rate of black families with a single mother has significantly decreased since that same year. In comparison, the poverty rate of Asian families with a single mother, and the percentage of white, non-Hispanic families with a single mother who live below the poverty level in the United States have both been fluctuating since 2002.

In 2022, 97.4 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 19 years old in the United States were childless -- the most out of any age group. In the same year, 17.7 percent of women between the ages of 40 and 44 years old were childless. Demographics of women without children As of 2022, a little less than half of all women in the U.S. were childless. About 68.4 percent of women without children did not have a high school degree, which is in line with the largest percentage of childless women being between the ages of 15 and 19. Additionally, about 48 percent of Asian women in the United States did not have any children, more than the national average. Births in the U.S. Asian women in the United States have the lowest fertility rate per 1,000 women, while Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women had the highest fertility rate. The vast majority of all births in the U.S. were to women between the ages of 20 and 39, but it is worth noting that births in the United States have been declining over the past few decades.

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.