Pew research reports that, as of 2021, 25 percent of 40-year-olds in the United States had never been married. In 2010, the figure was at 20 percent. In 1980, it was at 6 percent.

The research indicates that more men than women had never married; more black 40-year-olds had not married than Hispanic, white, and Asian counterparts; and more 40-year-olds without a four-year college degree had not married compared with those who had at least a bachelor’s degree.

It’s not only social conservatives who are worried about this trend. As the marriage rate declines, so does the birth rate. The Economist reports that “in 2010, there were 98 nations and territories with fertility rates below 2.1 (known as the replacement rate) according to the United Nations. In 2021, that number had risen to 124, or more than half the countries for which data were available.”