Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Richard Fry

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    No Reversal in Decline of Marriage

    The number of Americans who recently wed has been declining for years, and 2011 was no exception, according to estimates from the American Community Survey. An estimated 4.2 million Americans were newlyweds in 2011, about the same as in 2010 and sharply lower than in 2008.

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    Record Shares of Young Adults Have Finished Both High School and College

    Record shares of young adults are completing high school, going to college and finishing college, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available census data. In 2012, for the first time ever, one-third of the nation’s 25- to 29-year-olds have completed at least a bachelor’s degree. These across-the-board increases have occurred despite dramatic […]

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    A Record One-in-Five Households Now Owe Student Loan Debt

    About one out of five (19%) of the nation’s households owed student debt in 2010, more than double the share two decades earlier and a significant rise from the 15% that owed such debt in 2007. A record 40% of all households headed by someone younger than age 35 owed student debt in 2010.

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    The Rise of Residential Segregation by Income

    Residential segregation by income has increased during the past three decades across the United States and in 27 of the nation’s 30 largest major metropolitan areas[1. For this report, the 30 largest metropolitan areas were measured based on the metro areas with the largest number of households, not based on total population.] , according to […]

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    The Rising Age Gap in Economic Well-Being

    Households headed by older adults have made dramatic gains relative to those headed by younger adults in their economic well-being over the past quarter of a century.

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    Living Together: The Economics of Cohabitation

    Cohabitation is an increasingly prevalent lifestyle in the United States. The share of 30- to 44-year-olds living as unmarried couples has more than doubled since the mid-1990s. Adults with lower levels of education—without college degrees—are twice as likely to cohabit as those with college degrees.

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    The Reversal of the College Marriage Gap

    In a reversal of long-standing marital patterns, college-educated young adults are more likely than young adults lacking a bachelor’s degree to have married by the age of 30.

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