Marriage is rapidly becoming a high-quality luxury good.

Marriage is getting rarer, older, and more stable. Consider the typical 25-year old American woman. If she was born in 1940, she had an 80 percent chance of being married. If born in the 1990, she had a ~20 percent chance of being married. That’s an enormous shift in the typical life... See more

One thing happening in the background here is that marriage rates are declining most among low-income and low-education groups. That means the marriages that do happen are more likely to involve higher-education, higher-income couples who have always had a lower divorce rate.

Marriage is getting rarer, older, and more stable. Consider the typical 25-year old American woman. If she was born in 1940, she had an 80 percent chance of being married. If born in the 1990, she had a ~20 percent chance of being married.