Statistics show that the proportion of unmarried adults in the United States will soon be higher than the proportion of married people, a development that will have profound social and economic implications.
In an opinion article published by the American newspaper "The New York Times", writer Charles Blow says that when he was born in 1970, the proportion of Americans between the ages of 25 and 50 - who had never married - did not exceed 9%, but when he became an adult The percentage is close to 20%.
According to the newspaper, this October, the Pew Research Center published a statistical analysis that showed that the proportion of unmarried American adults who do not live with a partner rose in 2019 to 38%.
Although this group "includes previously married adults (separated, divorced or widowed), the rapid increase in the unmarried population since 1990 mainly includes those who have never been married.
Data issued by the US National Center for Health Statistics last year also showed that marriage rates fell to an unprecedented record in 2018.
According to Pew Research Center data, the proportion of the unmarried and unmarried population in the United States varies across ethnic groups.
Among the age group between 25 and 54 years, the proportion of black adults not associated with a partner in 2019 was 59%, compared to 38% among the Hispanic population, 33% among whites, and 29% among Asians.
For most racial and ethnic groups, the proportion of men without a partner is higher than that of women, except for black adults, where the proportion is 62% for women and 55% for men.
Men get more benefits and fewer risks from marriage than women (Getty Images)
Are current policies effective?
The writer wonders whether it is right - in light of these numbers that prove the collective reluctance to marry - to continue the current policies that encourage marriage through tax exemptions.
Should singles continue to pay a seclusion tax, or what Lisa Arnold and Christina Campbell described - in a statistical analysis published by The Atlantic in 2013 - as "institutional celibacy".
Arnold and Campbell found that "over a lifetime, single people can pay over $1 million more than their married counterparts for health care, taxes, and more."
The writer believes that the matter should remain within the circle of personal convictions and choices, saying that he tried marriage previously before he separated from his wife, and is not currently thinking of repeating the experience, but he does not want to convince anyone that marriage is a failed project.
The proportions of the unmarried and unmarried population in the United States vary by ethnic group (Getty Images)
Paul Dolan, a behavioral scientist at the London School of Economics, says that marriage affects men and women differently, with men reaping more benefits and fewer risks than women.
But this does not mean, according to the author, that a man necessarily needs to marry in order to achieve happiness, and that a woman may be much happier when she marries and starts a family.
The most important point - from the writer's point of view - remains that marriage, as the dominant social model, has begun to lose its grip in the current era, which forces the government to ease its policies that reward married couples and punish singles.