Married couples, whose numbers have been declining for decades as a proportion of American households, have finally slipped into a minority, according to an analysis of new census figures by The New York Times.
The American Community Survey, released this month by the Census Bureau, found that 49.7 percent, or 55.2 million, of the nation’s 111.1 million households in 2005 were made up of married couples — with and without children — just shy of a majority and down from more than 52 percent five years earlier.
The numbers by no means suggests marriage is dead or necessarily that a tipping point has been reached. The total number of married couples is higher than ever, and most Americans eventually marry. But marriage has been facing more competition. A growing number of adults are spending more of their lives single or living unmarried with partners, and the potential social and economic implications are profound.
There are huge implications for this shift and the Times interviews various wonky-wonks on the subject. But they missed the biggest ones.
It means less money going to education. People are putting off marriage and clustering the child-years for the 30s and 40s. There’s less of a spread with some people having kids younger and others putting it off until later. Fewer people are going to be willing to pull the level for the local budget initiative to increase the school budget.
A friend of mine has been dating a guy who’s very anxious to get married. Since he’s probably on the way out, we’ve been talking about the pros and cons of marriage without have to deal with love. She’s very worried about getting stuck with the lion share of housework drudgery if she gets married. She likes just taking care of herself and doesn’t want to pick up after a man.
I don’t think that getting married necessarily means picking up after a man. There has been some evolution in that department. With some negotiations, ground rules, and outsourcing, things can be divied up just fine.
The biggest problem for inequities come when the kids come around. Not because guys are evil, but because there are very few flexible careers that enable an equal division of labor. And taking care of kids is so much labor intensive than cleaning the tub. I silently mock some of the younger feminist bloggers for writing so much about housework and so little about childrearing. They just don’t get it. But even here, there are ways to get around the problem of one partner working too many hours and making the majority of the cash.
I like being married. Being married had no real change on my life. We had better kitchen appliances, but other than that, Steve and I maintained the same lifestyle we had when we were dating, until Jonah arrived. I like the companionship and the partnership. It’s really the only way to go, if you really want kids. I’m a social person, who would probably have found some other alternative communal living situation, if I hadn’t gotten married. Living in Manhattan also means never having to get married.
However, other friends aren’t as thrilled and daydream about their days in their slummy studio apartments.
Question of the Day Why get married?
Apt. 11d 
For me there was a desire to stick with one person for a lifetime. I always snidely referred to this as “building equity” in my relationships; I disliked starting over all the time and covering old ground again with a new guy. When you’re 20 it’s fun to meet a new person and navigate the gauntlet of meeting his family, figuring out how much time to spend together and how much alone, who cleans up after the cat, blah blah. The tenth time you’ve done this, however, (or twentieth, or hundredth) the thrill is TOTALLY gone. It’s like making a lateral job move. Instead of moving on to new and interesting things, you’re just re-covering old ground.
On the totally pragmatic side, once I was married I immediately found that only married people with two incomes can afford to buy a house. Call it a big side benefit of marriage.
I will say, though, that I was unwilling to get married and quit my day job, even after the kids came. This much I learned from watching my mother and sister: quitting your day job is an instant ticket to picking up after your husband. And I think your friend is right to be worried about it, Laura.
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“quitting your day job is an instant ticket to picking up after your husband.”
Not necessarily. It’s true that I was Suzie Homemaker from the time our first child was about 3 months old, until she started crawling. I cooked, I cleaned, I did dishes, etc. However, once the baby started moving, I had to be less house-centered and more baby-centered. There was also a natural movement further away from housework once I was pregnant with our second baby. Cooking made me nauseous, dishes made me nauseous, eventually I couldn’t really bend over, I couldn’t get close enough to the sink to do dishes, and I was falling asleep all the time. And once the second baby was born, it was all hands on deck. Things have calmed down some now that the oldest is in full-day pre-K and the youngest is 19 months old, but the bottom line is that I now do a lot more childcare than my husband, but housework is very equitably split. What isn’t split at all (and I don’t want to split it) is the intellectual/managerial side of home administration.
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“I silently mock some of the younger feminist bloggers for writing so much about housework and so little about childrearing.”
Amen. We both work full-time, and my husband is great about doing housework – washing dishes, doing laundry and cleaning the tub are his responsibilities (not his only ones, but the standard ones that I hate to do). I still do my share of housework (maybe less than half), but feel like the “child-rearing” part falls mostly on me. Who makes sure the kid is fed? entertained? dressed? disciplined? Me, most of the time.
And, to answer your question, I got married because I loved the guy and wanted to spend my life with him. Did we need the piece of paper? Not really, after living together for two years already. I also kept my maiden name, so some folks might not even realize we are or aren’t.
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Oh, yeah. I think she should be worried about it, too. Didn’t mean to discount those concerns entirely. It is easier when you’re newly married, in a tiny city apartment, and without kids to navigate those waters, but you still have to hold your ground and marry the right guy.
I think that remaining in the workforce does help in the equity department, but it isn’t a guarentee. If you make less money, you might as well be making no money. Your job will always be the expendable one. Even in the equal earning couples, I see do see a lot of women doing all the playdate arranging, childcare finding, weekend erranding, and party throwing. The guys use their weekends for “me time.” Two jobs isn’t a sure thing to gender equity.
I’ve got another post brewing on this topic.
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Moderately OT, how much of the relative decline of married couples as a share of population is due to the increase of one-person households late in life? Marrying later is part of the equation, but living independently after the death of a spouse has got to be a pretty big part of it, too.
Count me, as freelance writer and editor, on the side of flexible career choices. Though that also often means work when the kids are asleep or other ways of making sure clients’ deadlines get met.
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Well, I say get married for various religious, moral, and cultural reasons, but not all of those, or even most of those, are going to appeal to the average person who is “daydream[ing] about their days in their slummy studio apartments.” I will say, however, that socially and psychologically speaking Jen’s reasons make perfect sense. That studio apartment ideal will restrict most of the people who seek after it to lives of repetition. You meet someone, you date someone, you leave someone, you repeat the process. After a while, a boring and not infrequently depressing routine. You get married, you make a commitment to staying with another human being, because while there is no limit on the stuff you can accumulate and learn as a single person, there is a limit on the ways you can live.
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Number of households is a weird statistic because there are two adults in a married household and one adult in a single household.
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1. Good conversation with your best friend, in immediate proximity for the rest of your life (hopefully).
2. Free, safe, regular sex.
3. Who said better kitchen appliances aren’t a good reason to get married.
4. I really liked the public declaration of vows; that was important to me.
I’m lucky in that my husband is much cleaner than I am, which makes him unlucky I suppose. WE also split the kitchen duties: i do all of the cooking and most of the shopping and he does all of the cleaning.
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I don’t pick up after my husband (much). And I don’t hear my other at home friends complaining about that either. But the kid stuff is definitely done by the moms. In very few families would the childrearing look the same if there was a different woman in charge. It *is* hard to save the world with a toddler clinging to your leg. It’s hard to manage a conference call with your two-year old getting closer and closer while calling out “I poopy!” Young and childless feminists need to hear:”It’s the kids, stupid.” But kids need some level of consistent care. Besides, although it’s a lot of work, I’m the boss, and sometimes, it’s kind of fun. How’s that for not answering your question! I’m not sure it’s why I got married (it probably isn’t), but I can’t picture being a stay-at-home mom with only a small income and an even smaller “career” if I didn’t have the commitment of marriage attaching me to the family salary earner. And I think he and I agree that although not perfect, this arrangement is pretty darn good.
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