New Issue Brief: America’s Marriage Crisis Is Deeper Than It Appears 

Immigrants are masking a stark decline in marriage among native-born Americans, but they’re also assimilating into America's downward marriage trend 

NEW YORK, NY – A new issue brief from Manhattan Institute fellow Daniel Di Martino reveals that U.S. marriage rates are in steeper decline than commonly understood. In 1960, nearly 85% of American adults were married. Now, that number has collapsed to under 55% and, according to Di Martino, immigrants are the only reason it is not lower.  
 
Among native-born adults aged 25-54, the marriage rate has fallen to just 51.6% today, meaning nearly half are unmarried. The overall national rate appears higher only because 64.1% of immigrants of the same age are married, bolstering the overall figure. Without immigrants, America's marriage crisis looks considerably worse.  

That said, immigration is not a panacea for marriage or birth rates. Key findings suggest otherwise: 

• The immigrant-native marriage gap, now nearly 13 percentage points, cannot be explained by age, education, or ethnicity. It is cultural. 

• Immigrants assimilate downward to U.S. marriage rates: the longer they live in the U.S. and the younger they are when they immigrate, the less likely they are to marry, converging toward native norms within one generation. 

• Children of immigrants marry at rates equal to or lower than native-born Americans of the same ethnic and educational background, meaning high-marriage immigrant cultures offer no lasting buffer against American trends. 

Di Martino finds that erosion of marriage norms is now so pervasive that it overrides the culture of communities with strong traditions of family formation, such as the Asian community or highly educated and religious Africans. The data suggest that no group of any origin appears immune from marriage assimilation once embedded in American culture for a generation.

Click here to read the full issue brief.