New data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that married couples now make up less than half of all households in the United States. In 2025, only 47% of U.S. households were married couples, compared to 66% in 1975.
The report also finds a decline in married-couple households with their own children under age 18. In 1975, more than half (54%) of these households included their own children, but by 2025 this figure dropped to about 37%.
Single-person households have become more common over the past fifty years. There were 39.7 million one-person households in 2025, accounting for 29% of all households, an increase from 20% in 1975.
Older adults are making up a larger share of householders as well. The portion of householders aged 65 and older rose from one in five in 1975 to over one in four by 2025.
The percentage of families with their own children under age 18 at home declined from more than half (54%) in 1975 to just under two-fifths (39%) by this year.
Americans are also waiting longer to get married for the first time. The estimated median age at first marriage reached nearly thirty-one years old for men and twenty-eight for women—up from ages twenty-three and twenty-one respectively fifty years ago.
Living arrangements among young adults have shifted too: more than half (58%) of adults ages eighteen to twenty-four lived with their parents in 2025, while only sixteen percent of those aged twenty-five to thirty-four did so.
“These statistics come from the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC), years 2025 and 1975,” according to the U.S. Census Bureau press release. “CPS ASEC has collected statistics on families for more than sixty years.”
The Census Bureau says its data detail household characteristics, living arrangements, couple types, and children across American society.
Further information on definitions, methodology, confidentiality protection, and error margins can be found within the technical documentation provided by the Census Bureau at https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/techdocs/cpsmar25.pdf.
