Mildly interesting
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I asked @Horace’s buddy.
Great question. The relatively high percentage of 40-year-olds who had never married in the early 1900s—around 15–16%—can seem surprising, especially given the perception of earlier generations as marrying young and universally. Here are some key historical and social factors that likely contributed to that pattern:
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1. High Male Mortality (e.g., war, workplace)
• In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, workplace accidents, infectious diseases, and limited medical care disproportionately affected men.
• Some men also delayed or avoided marriage due to economic instability or itinerant work (railroads, mining, etc.).⸻
2. Economic Constraints
• The early 20th century included economic uncertainty and hardship for many, particularly in rural areas. For men, marriage was often viewed as a financial responsibility they shouldn’t take on unless they were established.
• For women, financial independence was limited, but familial obligations (like caring for aging parents) sometimes led them to remain single.⸻
3. Social Norms and Immigration Effects
• Large waves of immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s (especially from Southern and Eastern Europe) sometimes married later due to economic necessity, cultural adjustment, or unbalanced gender ratios in certain immigrant communities.⸻
4. Urbanization and Changing Lifestyles
• As cities grew, people began to leave traditional family structures. Some individuals delayed marriage while pursuing work or education, which was increasingly available—especially for men.⸻
5. Data Considerations
• Census enumeration methods and definitions of marriage status in the early 1900s may have been less consistent or inclusive (e.g., excluding common-law marriages or counting widowed/divorced differently), possibly inflating the “never married” category slightly compared to later surveys.⸻
Why It Dropped Afterward
• From the 1930s through the 1960s, marriage rates soared. This era emphasized early marriage as a social norm, especially post-WWII during the “baby boom” years. That explains the dip in never-married rates among 40-year-olds (as low as 6% by 1980).⸻
So, while it may seem counterintuitive, the early 20th-century U.S. had many social and economic pressures that either delayed or discouraged marriage for a notable minority of the population.
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@bachophile LOL. I thought for the first few seconds it was real.
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@jon-nyc That is base on longitude lines?
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I’ve always wanted to visit Murmansk and Longyearbyen.
🪦
