Study documents decline of marriage in US.

A new study by the Pew Research Center documents the decline of marriage and the increasing acceptance of cohabitation in the United States.

The study finds that 39% of Americans believe marriage is becoming obsolete. Among the other key findings:

in 2008, 52% of adults were married (vs. 72% in 1960)
in 2008, 26% of adults in their 20s were married (vs. 68% in 1960)

only 32% of Americans believe that premarital sex is wrong (vs. 68% in 1969)
63% of Americans believe that a same-sex couple with children is a family

60% of mothers with children under three are in the labor force (vs. 34% in 1975)
41% of babies born in 2008 were born to unmarried mothers (vs. 5% in 1960)

29% of children under 18 live with parents who are not married (vs. 6% in 1960).

Source(s):

The Decline of Marriage and Rise of New Families (Pew Research Center)
Four in 10 say marriage is becoming obsolete (AP)
The First Vocation Crisis (Catholic World Report)


Meanwhile in the Philippines NSO statistics states that, marriages celebrated through civil rites in 2007 numbered 204,335 or 41.7 percent of the 490,054 total marriages reported during the year.

Wedding ceremonies in Roman Catholic churches was the second highest with 179,562 or 36.6 percent of the total reported marriages.

Compared to data a year earlier (2006), it can be observed that the number and percentages of marriages held civilly and in Roman Catholic ceremonies decreased in 2007.

On the one hand, it can be noted that marriages in Islam, tribal and other religious rites increased in number and percentages from 2006 to 2007.


The number represented a decrease of 2,612 marriages or 0.5 percent from the 2006 figure of 492,666.

Six regions, namely: National Capital Region (NCR), Region X, Region XII, Region VII, Region III and Region IV-A reported declines in the number of marriages. The biggest downward slope was recorded in NCR at 9.4 percent.

The rest of the remaining regions of the country reported increases in terms of number of marriages from the figures reported a year earlier. The highest increase of 13.4 percent was recorded in Caraga.