- Marriage is down by almost 100 per cent for young people in past 50 years
- Just 2 per cent of men are married by 25, compared to 62 per cent half a century ago
- 100,000 lost Covid weddings never rescheduled
Male pensioners are much more likely to tie the knot than men in their early twenties, according to startling new research exposing the scale of the collapse in marriage rates among men and women over the past few decades.
The marriage rate among men aged 66 and over is 5.6 per 1,000 compared with 4.1 per 1,000 among men in their early twenties. But as recently as 1997, the marriage rate among young men was five times that of pensioners (23.1 versus 4.8).
A new report from the influential Centre for Social Justice, I Do?, warns that England and Wales are facing a total collapse in marriage, particularly among young Brits.
The number of marriages has sunk from 400,000 in 1973 to 224,402 in 2023, despite the UK population rising by over ten million, 56 to 67 million. This is the lowest number of marriages in a year since records began in the 1850s, outside of the Covid years.
The CSJ is particularly concerned that 100,000 of the lost Covid weddings were never rescheduled. There was no post-Covid bounce in the numbers, instead the marriage rate is already back below the pre-pandemic record lows. This is at odds with previous shocks such as the two World Wars which saw spikes in marriage rates over the following years.
Marriage is down by 77 per cent for men and 73 per cent for women in just fifty years. Before the 1980s, the marriage rate had never fallen below 47.7 – which was during World War I – it is now 18.1.
The CSJ’s analysis reveals that this drop is especially stark among young men and women. Over the past 50 years, marriage for young people in their early twenties has almost completely disappeared.
In 1970, 62 per cent of men had ever married by age 25, by 2000 this was 11 per cent and it is now just two per cent. 25 was the average age marrying as recently as 1975.
Meanwhile, the median age at marriage for women has hit 33 years old for the first time. It had never exceeded 30 in recorded history at the turn of the century.
The think tank goes on to show how this precipitous decline has a serious negative impact on Brits and the nation.
It says that marriage is “a major protective factor” in domestic abuse. Cohabiting individuals are twice as likely to be victims of domestic abuse as married individuals. Those who are single are three times more likely to suffer than those who are married.
Cohabiting couples are almost twice as likely to separate during the early years of their children’s lives. No matter the economic background of parents, marriage makes relationships more stable. Previous CSJ research has made clear that kids’ lives and outcomes are far better off when parents are together.
On top of this, the CSJ says that marriage is greatly beneficial for the economy as lone parent households are over ten times as likely to be long-term workless households as couple parent households.
It is not all bad news though. A clear majority of Brits still want to get married, even among those least likely to be married nowadays. Among those under 30 and unmarried, nearly nine in ten (86 per cent) of unmarried women and eight in ten (80 per cent) of unmarried men want to get married.
At the same time, divorce rates continue to decline since their peak in the 1990s. The percentage of couples divorcing by their 10th anniversary is the lowest it has been for forty years (in 2023 it was 16.8 per cent compared to 16.7 per cent in 1983).
Dan Lilley, Programme Lead at the Centre for Social Justice, said: 
“This is devastating news. Marriage is one of the most important foundations of society with clear benefits across our country. Better outcomes for children, less loneliness, greater prosperity and birth rates. This is without mentioning the productivity and other economic benefits”
“People want to get married. We need to be helping foster good relationships and an environment where marriage is much easier.”
