This article shows statistics on the share of 30-year-olds in the U.S. who are both married and homeowners from 1960 to 2025. In 1960, 52% of people aged 30 were married with their own homes and dropped to just 12% by 2025.
Part of this decline relates to rising housing costs, stagnant wages and the fact that more people are delaying marriage until later in life. This information is relevant as it indicates that a critical milestone of early adulthood, home ownership and starting a family, has become more difficult to attain, and points to larger economic stresses and social stresses affecting younger generations today.
Prices on everything, job prospects are shit, no one is going out partying and drinking, and the gender wars. The genders genuinely don’t like each other anymore.
As a millennial, when I was younger, men and women actually wanted to hang out with each other in person. That was what our weekends revolved around. Going where the other gender was and hanging out. Now, people would rather just stay home. And yes, we were broke back then too and the economy was in a collapsed state.
PrivilegedPatriarchy on
1) Marriage is less culturally relevant, and less necessary for women due to increased economic opportunity (this is a good thing)
2) People live in urban areas more, and move for work more, both of which are less conducive to home ownership
Careless-Degree on
Women are educated and a lot of effort has been directed at providing them opportunities in education and corporate life. They don’t need a marriage and both men and women likely just see each other as competition for limited resources.
No kids and no reason for long term commitment. Date while it’s convenient and don’t when it isn’t.
TheLongestConn on
Why show just the ‘X and Y’ metric? Why not show the percent change in young homeowners, the percent change in young married, and then the combination of the two?
Statistics can be highly misleading / uninformative, when presented this way
peace2calm on
union busting.
so the MBAs and billionaire who bust unions and high five each other are basically busting the general fabric of the society.
The kids of the MBAs will not be able to get jobs to live like their parents did.
DisgruntledEngineerX on
Education. Back in the 60’s and 70’s you could get a job with a high school degree that paid decently. Or maybe you did a bit of college. Today, you likely need at least a undergrad degree for a lot of jobs and maybe more.
That’s pushed back the age at which people are able to start working, earn enough money to afford a down payment, and get started in life.
The other change to some degree was women entering the work force. As the prevalence of 2 income households grew it created a critical mass where single income households were competing against dual income households for everything and that added income pushed prices higher, virtually necessitating dual income households.
Dating culture has changed, so people get married later. It all kind of feeds together
BrightAd306 on
Adolescence has extended. High housing costs are partly responsible, but people don’t expect their kids to be full adults for a lot longer. I was born in the early 80’s and almost all my friends were married by 25, and out of the house with roommates or partner by 18/19. I think with smaller families and bigger houses, a lot of people don’t want or need their kids out of the house that young and the kids don’t mind staying either.
It’s not just $, rich kids are living with parents longer too. I work in a professional field where almost every single person under 35 still lives at home and they make plenty of money to live on their own or with a roommate.
Beneficial_Split_649 on
We stack kids with more debt, the push to urbanize everything so 80% of the pop lives in 3% of the land now, and the sheer size of the boomer demographic owning the labor market with experience. We’ve also had 4 seperate once in a hundred year events: y2k, 2008, covid, and now this contributed to 40 being the new 30.
TrexPushupBra on
People are waiting longer to form committed relationships worldwide.
That delays marriage. Which also delays home ownership as you can’t save money on rent by moving in with your partner.
Homeownership in general is declining, and the corporations buying up properties, to rent them to the married folks that cant afford to purchase a house because of it, isn’t helping.
serious_sarcasm on
A pregnancy, a year of tuition, and a down payment all cost over $10,000.
So you literally have to pick one, due to boomers fucking over their children to fund their retirements.
When women joined the workforce in the 20th century there was no equivalent movement to allow men to leave it.
Oligarchs have been using nationalism and police states (as always) to prevent workers from organizing.
JoePNW2 on
The current median age of first marriage in the US is 30-31 for men and 28-29 for women IIRC. And many people never get married.
So that’s a large part of it: Marriage happens later, if it happens at all.
Necessary-Eye5319 on
How about they’re damned expensive and people don’t make enough to buy one.
🖕🏼🤬🖕🏼 to anyone blaming women in the workforce.
Take a good look at private equity buying up affordable housing. Many are empty.
cartiermartyr on
I paid a $11 fee to pay my phone/wifi bill, and a $25 fee to pay my rent this month, and a $4 fee to pay my electricity bill this month. All normal, nothing late, and while I make the money to cover it, adding anything else to it would make me even more suicidal.
Savard-Lafleur on
its simple lol. wages stayed flat while house prices and student debt went to the moon. nobody can afford to start a life or get married when ur basically broke by the time u finish college tbh
16 Comments
This article shows statistics on the share of 30-year-olds in the U.S. who are both married and homeowners from 1960 to 2025. In 1960, 52% of people aged 30 were married with their own homes and dropped to just 12% by 2025.
Part of this decline relates to rising housing costs, stagnant wages and the fact that more people are delaying marriage until later in life. This information is relevant as it indicates that a critical milestone of early adulthood, home ownership and starting a family, has become more difficult to attain, and points to larger economic stresses and social stresses affecting younger generations today.
Related analysis on marriage and homeownership trends: [https://ifstudies.org/blog/no-spouse-no-house-marriage-decline-and-homeownership-among-young-adults](https://ifstudies.org/blog/no-spouse-no-house-marriage-decline-and-homeownership-among-young-adults)
Prices on everything, job prospects are shit, no one is going out partying and drinking, and the gender wars. The genders genuinely don’t like each other anymore.
As a millennial, when I was younger, men and women actually wanted to hang out with each other in person. That was what our weekends revolved around. Going where the other gender was and hanging out. Now, people would rather just stay home. And yes, we were broke back then too and the economy was in a collapsed state.
1) Marriage is less culturally relevant, and less necessary for women due to increased economic opportunity (this is a good thing)
2) People live in urban areas more, and move for work more, both of which are less conducive to home ownership
Women are educated and a lot of effort has been directed at providing them opportunities in education and corporate life. They don’t need a marriage and both men and women likely just see each other as competition for limited resources.
No kids and no reason for long term commitment. Date while it’s convenient and don’t when it isn’t.
Why show just the ‘X and Y’ metric? Why not show the percent change in young homeowners, the percent change in young married, and then the combination of the two?
Statistics can be highly misleading / uninformative, when presented this way
union busting.
so the MBAs and billionaire who bust unions and high five each other are basically busting the general fabric of the society.
The kids of the MBAs will not be able to get jobs to live like their parents did.
Education. Back in the 60’s and 70’s you could get a job with a high school degree that paid decently. Or maybe you did a bit of college. Today, you likely need at least a undergrad degree for a lot of jobs and maybe more.
That’s pushed back the age at which people are able to start working, earn enough money to afford a down payment, and get started in life.
The other change to some degree was women entering the work force. As the prevalence of 2 income households grew it created a critical mass where single income households were competing against dual income households for everything and that added income pushed prices higher, virtually necessitating dual income households.
Dating culture has changed, so people get married later. It all kind of feeds together
Adolescence has extended. High housing costs are partly responsible, but people don’t expect their kids to be full adults for a lot longer. I was born in the early 80’s and almost all my friends were married by 25, and out of the house with roommates or partner by 18/19. I think with smaller families and bigger houses, a lot of people don’t want or need their kids out of the house that young and the kids don’t mind staying either.
It’s not just $, rich kids are living with parents longer too. I work in a professional field where almost every single person under 35 still lives at home and they make plenty of money to live on their own or with a roommate.
We stack kids with more debt, the push to urbanize everything so 80% of the pop lives in 3% of the land now, and the sheer size of the boomer demographic owning the labor market with experience. We’ve also had 4 seperate once in a hundred year events: y2k, 2008, covid, and now this contributed to 40 being the new 30.
People are waiting longer to form committed relationships worldwide.
That delays marriage. Which also delays home ownership as you can’t save money on rent by moving in with your partner.
https://www.childtrends.org/publications/trends-in-relationship-formation-and-stability-in-the-united-states-dating-cohabitation-marriage-and-divorce
Homeownership in general is declining, and the corporations buying up properties, to rent them to the married folks that cant afford to purchase a house because of it, isn’t helping.
A pregnancy, a year of tuition, and a down payment all cost over $10,000.
So you literally have to pick one, due to boomers fucking over their children to fund their retirements.
When women joined the workforce in the 20th century there was no equivalent movement to allow men to leave it.
Oligarchs have been using nationalism and police states (as always) to prevent workers from organizing.
The current median age of first marriage in the US is 30-31 for men and 28-29 for women IIRC. And many people never get married.
So that’s a large part of it: Marriage happens later, if it happens at all.
How about they’re damned expensive and people don’t make enough to buy one.
🖕🏼🤬🖕🏼 to anyone blaming women in the workforce.
Take a good look at private equity buying up affordable housing. Many are empty.
I paid a $11 fee to pay my phone/wifi bill, and a $25 fee to pay my rent this month, and a $4 fee to pay my electricity bill this month. All normal, nothing late, and while I make the money to cover it, adding anything else to it would make me even more suicidal.
its simple lol. wages stayed flat while house prices and student debt went to the moon. nobody can afford to start a life or get married when ur basically broke by the time u finish college tbh