Later Marriage, Longer Singlehood: What It Means for Sex Before Marriage

How old are Americans when they first marry?

The Census Bureau reports a median age at first marriage of 30.8 years for men and 28.4 years for women in 2025 ^[10]. The year before, the same survey gave 30.2 and 28.6 ^[1]. A median means that half of first-time spouses were younger and half older, and it is calculated for people who marry, not for the whole population. Both figures come from the Current Population Survey's Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC).

A second federal survey gives slightly different numbers for 2024. According to an analysis by Bowling Green State University's National Center for Family and Marriage Research, the American Community Survey's 2024 one-year estimates put the national median at 30.8 for men and 28.8 for women ^[7]. The difference reflects the two surveys' methods and samples, not a disagreement about the trend, and it is a reminder to name both the survey and the year whenever a marriage-age figure is quoted.

Many Americans have not married by any age. In 2024, 34% of adults aged 15 and over had never been married ^[1]. That count includes teenagers, who are mostly unmarried by definition, so it overstates the share who will remain single, but it shows how far marriage has moved from the early adult years. Pew Research Center's analysis of Census data found that about one in four 40-year-olds, 25%, had never been married in 2021 ^[11].

The marriage age is also a measure of when a legal and social boundary is crossed. In the legal sense that animates this encyclopedia, sex before marriage is sex before the wedding; the later the wedding, the longer the stretch of adult life that falls in that category. Our overview of premarital sex statistics in the United States covers how common the experience is.

Median age at first marriage, United States (Census Bureau, Current Population Survey ASEC)

Measure	1974 / 1975	2024	2025
Men	23.1 (1974); 23.5 (1975)	30.2	30.8
Women	21.1 (1974 and 1975)	28.6	28.4
Adults 15 and over never married	not in source	34%	not in source
One-person households (share of households)	19% (1974); 20% (1975)	29%	29%

How has the marriage age changed since the 1970s?

The median age at first marriage has risen by about seven years for both men and women since the mid-1970s. The Census Bureau's figures were 23.5 for men and 21.1 for women in 1975, against 30.8 and 28.4 in 2025, increases of 7.3 years for each ^[10]. Measured from 1974 to 2024, the rise was 7.1 years for men (23.1 to 30.2) and 7.5 for women (21.1 to 28.6) ^[1]. The rise has been long and gradual rather than sudden.

Other measures moved in the same direction. In 2024, 64% of households were family households, down from 79% in 1974, and 39% of families had their own children under 18 at home, compared with 54% fifty years earlier ^[1]. One-person households rose from 19% to 29% of all households over the same period, reaching 38.5 million ^[1]. Among family households, 74% were married-couple households in 2024 ^[1].

The never-married share at midlife shows the long-run shift. Pew reported that about 6% of 40-year-olds had never married in 1980, compared with 20% in 2010 and 25% in 2021, the highest share in a series that starts in 1900 and whose previous peak was 16% in 1910 ^[11]. The age at which people marry and the share who ever marry have moved together, so later marriage has been partly a delay and partly a decline in marrying.

Young adults also live differently. In 2025, 58% of Americans aged 18 to 24 lived in their parents' home, as did 16% of those aged 25 to 34 ^[10]. Those numbers do not describe sexual behavior, but they describe the stage of life, mostly unmarried, in which much of it now takes place.

Why are Americans marrying later?

The sources consulted point to economics and changing priorities rather than a single cause. Pew's analysis of Census data, as reported by Fortune, suggests that millennials delayed marriage and children to focus on careers and finances, and that two recessions before midlife, a weak job market after graduation, student debt and housing costs made settling down harder ^[4]. The article presents these as explanations in circulation, not as a tested causal model ^[4].

The pattern is uneven across groups. Men are more likely than women never to have married by 40, and Black Americans are more likely than Hispanic, white or Asian Americans, according to the same analysis ^[11]. Education matters too: one-third of 40-year-olds with a high school diploma or less had never married, against 26% of those with some college and 18% of those with a bachelor's degree or more ^[11]. The pattern complicates any story in which later marriage is mainly a choice by the educated.

Education and housing shape timing. The Census Bureau's finding that more than half of 18- to 24-year-olds live with their parents suggests an extended period of financial dependence before many people form households of their own ^[10]. The sources do not say how much of the rise in age at marriage this explains, and the number alone cannot separate cause from correlation.

Cultural change is harder to measure. Gallup has tracked the share of Americans calling sex between an unmarried man and woman morally acceptable since 2001, when it was 53%, and it reached 76% in 2022 before easing to 65% in 2026 ^[6]. That change in opinion makes it possible to date and live together without marrying, but the surveys cannot show whether looser norms caused later marriage or followed it.

How does later marriage affect premarital sex?

Later marriage lengthens the period of premarital sexual activity without necessarily changing how many people experience it. A Guttmacher Institute analysis of the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, published in Public Health Reports in 2007, found that by age 20, 77% of Americans had had sex, 75% had had premarital sex and 12% had married ^[2]. By age 44, 95% had had premarital sex, and 81% of those who had abstained until at least 20 had done so by 44 ^[2]. The author concluded that almost all Americans have sex before marrying ^[2].

Across birth cohorts of women, the share with premarital sex by age 20 rose from 48% for those who turned 15 in 1954-63 to 65% for 1964-73, 72% for 1974-83 and 76% for 1984-93, before easing to 74% for 1994-2003 ^[2]. The big change, then, came in the 1960s and 1970s, and the share has been roughly stable since the 1980s. The data are old, and the study period ends in 2003.

Combine that with the Census Bureau's marriage ages and the gap widens. If most people have had sex by about age 20 and the median first marriage occurs at 28.4 for women and 30.8 for men, the typical interval between the two is somewhere around eight to ten years. That is an illustration built from different sources and years, not a measured statistic, and individual experience varies widely.

Delayed first sex does not explain the gap. A CDC report notes a decline in the percentage of teens who ever had sex between 1988 and 2017, with male teens' share continuing to fall from 2011-2015 to 2015-2017 and female teens' share unchanged ^[5]. Fewer teenagers have had sex than in 1988, but the CDC summary gives no median age at first sex, so this article cannot measure how much of the widening gap comes from later first sex and how much from later marriage. The Census figures show that marriage itself has moved by about seven years since the mid-1970s ^[1][10]. Our article on premarital sex statistics gives current numbers on first sex.

Does later marriage increase cohabitation?

Cohabitation has grown alongside later marriage, and it now precedes or replaces marriage for many couples. Pew's analysis of the National Survey of Family Growth found that 59% of adults aged 18 to 44 had lived with an unmarried partner at some point, while 50% had ever been married ^[3]. In other words, more young adults have cohabited than have married.

The trend shows up in childbearing. The CDC reported that the share of births to unmarried women that occurred within cohabiting unions rose from 41% in 2002 to 58% in 2006-2010 ^[9]. Unmarried parents are increasingly partners living together rather than parents on their own, a shift described in our article on births outside marriage.

The sources do not show whether cohabitation delays marriage or the other way around. A couple may move in together because marriage seems financially out of reach, or because they want to test a relationship, or because they regard marriage as optional, and the surveys do not separate these motives. What they show is that, for a large share of Americans, the years between first sex and first marriage include at least one live-in relationship. Our overview of cohabitation statistics in the United States gives the national trend.

Divorce statistics add context without proving a link. The refined divorce rate, divorces per 1,000 married people, fell from 19.0 in 1990 to 13.7 in 2023, and the fall was steepest among the youngest married adults, from 47.2 to 19.2 per 1,000 for ages 15 to 24 ^[8]. The profile does not attribute the change to later marriage, and the sources consulted do not test that explanation.

How does the marriage age vary by place and group?

The marriage age varies by state by several years, with the Northeast oldest and Utah youngest. In the American Community Survey's 2024 one-year estimates, men's median age at first marriage was highest in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire at 32.4, while women's was highest in Washington, D.C., at 32.3 ^[7]. The lowest values were 27.2 for men in Utah and Arkansas and 25.2 for women in Utah ^[7].

The regional pattern is consistent. Seventy percent of Northeastern states for men and 80% for women were in the top quartile, midwestern states clustered in the lower half, and southern states were largely absent from the top quartile ^[7]. The study counts Washington, D.C., with the Northeast for analysis ^[7]. The data do not explain the differences, which may reflect education, income, housing costs, religion and migration at the same time.

Group differences also matter. As noted, Pew found that never-married status at 40 varies by sex, race and educational attainment ^[11], so a national median hides large differences in who marries and when.

What do these statistics not show?

The figures describe timing, not sexual behavior, and they should not be read as a measure of morality. The median age at first marriage is calculated for people who marry, so it leaves out the quarter of 40-year-olds who had not married by 2021 ^[4]. The share with premarital sex comes from a 2002 survey and from cohorts that may differ from today's young adults ^[2]. And the CPS and ACS figures, though consistent in direction, differ in level and in year ^[1][7][10].

The word "premarital" itself assumes an eventual marriage, which is not guaranteed. For people who never marry, sex outside marriage is simply the norm for adult life, and for those who marry late, it may last well over a decade. Surveys on the topic, including the Gallup series, record how acceptable people find these arrangements, and they have shown some retreat in 2026 ^[6]. Whether the marriage age keeps rising is a question the sources consulted cannot answer.

Frequently asked questions

What is the average age of first marriage in the US?

The median was 30.8 for men and 28.4 for women in 2025, according to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (2024: 30.2 and 28.6). The American Community Survey gives 30.8 and 28.8 for 2024, because the two surveys differ in method. In 1975 the CPS medians were 23.5 and 21.1.

Which states have the youngest brides and grooms?

Utah and Arkansas, for men, at a median of 27.2 in the American Community Survey's 2024 estimates, and Utah, for women, at 25.2. The oldest were Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire for men (32.4) and Washington, D.C., for women (32.3). The Northeast skews older and the Midwest and South younger.

Do religious Americans marry younger?

The sources consulted do not report marriage age by religion. Utah, where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has its headquarters, has the lowest median ages for women and ties for men, but state data cannot show whether religion is the cause.

Is later marriage linked to lower divorce rates?

Divorce rates have fallen as marriage has been delayed, but the sources do not show that one causes the other. The refined divorce rate dropped from 19.0 per 1,000 married people in 1990 to 13.7 in 2023, and from 47.2 to 19.2 among ages 15 to 24.

Do most Americans have sex before marriage?

Yes. A Guttmacher Institute analysis of the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth found that 95% of Americans had premarital sex by age 44, and 75% by age 20. Even 81% of those who abstained until at least 20 had done so by 44.

How many Americans never marry?

About one in four 40-year-olds, 25%, had never been married in 2021, up from 20% in 2010 and 6% in 1980, according to Pew's analysis of Census data. The share is higher among men, Black Americans and adults without a college degree.

Is premarital sex illegal anywhere in the US?

Not enforceably. A few state codes still list fornication or unmarried cohabitation offenses, as described in our overview of fornication laws on the books, but they are considered unenforceable against consenting adults in private after Lawrence v. Texas (2003).