It's Valentine's Day, and many couples are celebrating their love for each other today. However, several of those couples may not be overly eager to tie the knot: Americans aren't getting married at young ages as often as they used to.
We looked at data from the US Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, a survey of US households that investigates various economic and social aspects of people's lives. In particular, we used the individual-level Public Use Microdata Sample assembled by the Minnesota Population Center.
Using this data, we were able to estimate the number of people who identified as being currently married, separated, divorced, or widowed at each year of age. We estimated the percentage of the population who had been married at least once in 1962, 1980, 2000, and 2016.
In 1962, half of 21 year olds and 90% of 30 year olds had been married at least once. In 2016, only 8.5% of 21 year olds and 53.3% of 30 year olds had been married.
Here's the likelihood that a person has been married at least once at some point in their life for every year of age over the last few decades:
Business Insider/Andy Kiersz, data from Minnesota Population Center