Correction:
An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Kate Shorr, who until recently wrote a blog about her social life in Washington, as a lawyer and lobbyist. She is a 2010 law school graduate who plans to take the bar exam next year, and she works for a law firm now solely as a lobbyist. This version has been corrected.
“They’re pulling in two incomes, marrying and doing pretty well,” Cherlin said. “People without college educations are having a harder time finding jobs, and they’re reluctant to marry.”
W. Bradford Wilcox, head of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, said marriage is fading fastest in communities with many residents with the least education.
Explore U.S. Census population data for the Washington area by family type and marital status.
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“Half the births to high school-educated moms are out of wedlock,” he said. “Among that group, we’re at a tipping point. Marriage is losing ground among middle Americans. They were doing okay until the last decade or so, and now they’re the most at risk. College-educated folks have been doing pretty darn well.”
Matt Statler is one, and at 29, he is at the median age when men marry. “I’d like to get married, some day,” said the accountant who works as a DJ in the evenings at bars, clubs and weddings in the Washington area. “But I’m definitely in no hurry.”
At this stage of his life, he said, he wants to build his career, hone his photography skills and travel the world without feeling that he should be spending time in a committed relationship.
“It’s just easier to date around and not be as emotionally invested in someone when I have other goals in life right now,” he said.
Statler went home to West Virginia for Thanksgiving. His parents, who married in their early 20s, do not pressure him to marry, he said — although his mother has talked weddings and children with his sister, who recently moved in with her boyfriend.
“Living together, that’s a safer first step,” he said.
The generation born during a time of rising divorce rates in the 1970s and 1980s say that watching their parents split convinced them not to rush.
“I come from divorced parents, and most of my friends do” said Shorr, whose father advised her to stay single until at least age 35. “It’s a matter of not wanting to rush into something, get in over our heads and make a mistake. A lot of us saw our parents make mistakes. We’re going to take our time and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes.”
Database editor Ted Mellnik contributed to this report.
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