PORTLAND, Ore. — Three mornings a week, when Becky Leung gets ready for work, her boyfriend is just getting home from his overnight job. When her mother drops hints about her twin sister’s marriage, she laughs it off. And when she thinks about getting married, she worries first about her career.
Leung, 27, lives in a Portland, Ore., townhouse with her boyfriend but has no plans to wed, a reflection of the broader cultural shift in the U.S. away from the traditional definition of what it means to be a household.
Data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau shows married couples are no longer the majority.
It is a trend that has been creeping along for decades, but in the 2010 census, married couples represent 48 percent of all households. That’s down from 52 percent in the last census and, for the first time in U.S. history, puts households led by married couples as a plurality.
“I see a lot of people not having the typical 8-to-5 job, or couples where one person is employed and one isn’t. There’s other priorities before marriage,” Leung said.
The flip in the 2010 census happened in 32 states. The reason, said Portland State University demographer Charles Rynerson, is twofold: The fast-growing older population is more likely to be divorced or widowed later in life, and 20- somethings are putting off their nuptials for longer stretches.
Fears of not being able to keep a job, a widening labor market for women and a shift from young people having kids have proved to be disincentives for people in their 20s and early 30s to marry.
