A new Pew Research Center analysis of census data finds that in 2019, roughly four-in-ten adults ages 25 to 54 (38%) were unpartnered - that is, neither married nor living with a partner.

This share is up sharply from 29% in 1990.2

Men are now more likely than women to be unpartnered, which wasn't the case 30 years ago.

The growth in the single population is driven mainly by the decline in marriage among adults who are at prime working age.

At the same time, there has been a rise in the share who are cohabiting, but it hasn't been enough to offset the drop in marriage - hence the overall decline in partnership.

While the unpartnered population includes some adults who were previously married (those who are separated, divorced or widowed), all of the growth in the unpartnered population since 1990 has come from a rise in the number who have never been married.

This trend has broad societal implications, as does the growing gap in well-being between partnered and unpartnered adults.

Looking across a range of measures of economic and social status, unpartnered adults generally have different - often worse - outcomes than those who are married or cohabiting.

This pattern is apparent among both men and women.

Unpartnered adults have lower earnings, on average, than partnered adults and are less likely to be employed or economically independent.

They also have lower educational attainment and are more likely to live with their parents.

Other research suggests that married and cohabiting adults fare better than those who are unpartnered when it comes to some health outcomes.

The gaps in economic outcomes between unpartnered and partnered adults have widened since 1990.

Among men, the gaps are widening because unpartnered men are faring worse than they were in 1990.

Among women, however, these gaps have gotten wider because partnered women are faring substantially better than in 1990.

The growing gap in economic success between partnered and unpartnered adults may have consequences for single men who would like to eventually find a partner.

In a 2017 Pew Research Center survey, 71% of U.S. adults said being able to support a family financially is very important for a man to be a good spouse or partner.

Similar shares of men and women said this.

In contrast, 32% of adults - and just 25% of men - said this is very important for a woman to be a good spouse or partner.

A growing share of adults are unpartnered

Americans' marital and living arrangements have changed considerably over the past 30 years.

The share of adults ages 25 to 54 who are currently married fell from 67% in 1990 to 53% in 2019, while the share cohabiting more than doubled over that same period (from 4% in 1990 to 9% in 2019).

The share who have never been married has also grown - from 17% to 33%. All of this churn has resulted in a significant increase in the share who are unpartnered.

The growth in unpartnered adults has been sharper among men than women.

In 1990, men and women ages 25 to 54 were equally likely to be unpartnered (29% of each group).

By 2019, 39% of men were unpartnered, compared with 36% of women.

In terms of their demographic characteristics, prime-working-age single adults are somewhat younger than their counterparts who are married or living with a partner.

Among adults ages 25 to 54, the median age of those who are unpartnered was 36 in 2019; this compares with 40 among partnered adults.

Some may assume that, as the median age of first marriage continues to rise, unpartnered adults are merely lagging behind rather than foregoing partnership altogether.

That might not be the case.

Among adults ages 40 to 54, there has been a significant increase in the share who are unpartnered from 1990 (24%) to now (31% in 2019).

There are differences by race and ethnicity in the share of prime-working-age adults who are partnered and unpartnered.

Among those ages 25 to 54, 59% of Black adults were unpartnered in 2019.

This is higher than the shares among Hispanic (38%), White (33%) and Asian (29%) adults.

For most racial and ethnic groups, men are more likely than women to be unpartnered.

The exception is among Black adults, where women (62%) are more likely to be unpartnered than men (55%).

Partnership status also differs by nativity.

Foreign-born adults at prime working-age were less likely (28%) to be unpartnered in 2019 than their native-born peers (40%).

This pattern is apparent among adults of each major racial or ethnic origin. For example, 29% of foreign-born Hispanic adults were single, compared with 46% of native-born Hispanic adults.

Some of this difference in partnership status may reflect that foreign-born prime-working-age adult are older than their native-born counterparts. Continue reading

But there are some contributing factors that might not have had the attention they deserve.

The demography of New Zealand is changing, with major implications for rugby, especially for player participation.

The impacts of immigration and a growing diversity help explain why rugby is losing ground as a sport in Auckland and other cities where immigrants and ethnic minorities reside, but there is a very different reason in the regions.

The numbers playing rugby nationally still look strong, but the arrival and success of girls' and women's rugby has tended to mask the challenges of maintaining a player base.

Take secondary schools. In 2000, rugby still dominated school sports, with nearly 31,000 players. By 2020, there were 6500 fewer players, a drop of 20 per cent, and the sport was third in the numbers playing, while rugby sevens had grown and involved 5000 players.

In the same period, basketball had grown by almost 50 per cent to become the second most popular sport, while the participation in football had grown to nearly 21,000, supplemented by futsal (7000 players).

By 2020, netball had dropped slightly in numbers, but was the most popular sport, while cricket had collapsed (nearly 50 per cent fewer were playing in 2020 than in 2000).

These figures only reflect the numbers who played a sport for their school. Those who play the sport informally or non-competitively (neighbourhood basketball, badminton) or play for a club rather than a school (football) are not included.

Rugby too rough for newcomers?

What's happening? Rugby has to compete in a crowded leisure landscape, and there are reputational issues associated with the physicality of the game.

But the changing composition of the New Zealand population is also playing its part.

Immigration has been a major factor in the past 20 years, especially since 2013. We have added about 400,000 to the population from net migration gains - and these communities are not playing rugby. Look at Auckland.

The city is home to a third of all New Zealanders, and more than 40 per cent are immigrants. Thirty per cent are members of Asian communities.

These communities are especially apparent in the school-age population. And they are contributing to the decline in rugby numbers. Rugby participation at secondary schools experienced a 29 per cent drop in one two-year period alone, and a 20 per cent drop in the number of teams.

This is not simply confined to Auckland. In one large Wellington school with 1700 students, there were three rugby teams in 2020.

By 2018, rugby was not even in the top 20 sporting and leisure activities among all Aucklanders surveyed. Football, basketball, golf, table tennis and tennis were.

A decade ago, we were asked to explore the question of "why?". The answers were relatively straightforward: these new immigrant and ethnic minority communities placed much more emphasis on education, they had no prior experience, knowledge or interest in sports like rugby, and they were concerned at how "rough" the sport was.

In the smaller regional centres and rural areas, the numbers available to play rugby are in decline. The predominant reason is the ageing of these populations. In large parts of New Zealand's hinterland, the proportion aged over 65 now outnumbers those aged 15 or less.

There are a lot of ex-rugby players and supporters - but only a small pool of those interested in the sport or able to play. One indicator of population stagnation or decline has been the closure of almost 200 state schools in regional New Zealand since 2000.

In the Waitaki district, home of Richie McCaw, 14 schools have closed since 1990, while a number of others have been amalgamated. Where do the rugby players come from in these districts?

The combination of fewer school-age children and young adult out-migration, combined with the arrival of migrant workers, is simply not providing a sustainable player base.

A glance at the traditional print media or Sky TV, with their extensive coverage of rugby, tends to mask what is happening, both in participation and interest. Have a look online, or at the media that serve ethnic minorities in New Zealand, and a very different picture emerges of what sports attract interest and participation.

A lot has been made about the investment in grassroots and regional rugby that might be possible with the injection of private equity funds.

But surely there is an equally important issue that derives from the changing demography of this country. New Zealand Rugby is aware of the issues but has struggled to engage a younger and more ethnically diverse New Zealand.

• Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley is a sociologist at Massey University's College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the author of The New New Zealand. Facing Demographic Disruption (Massey University Press, 2020).
• First published by Stuff. Republished with permission.

Lord Jonathan Sacks said European society as it currently is "will die" because of a demographic crisis.

He warned that even mass immigration is not a solution because of problems integrating new arrivals into existing society.

Lord Sacks gave an interview to the Daily Telegraph after receiving The Templeton Prize for his work promoting religious understanding.

In the interview, he said similar falling birth rates had been the hallmark of the last days of the Roman Empire.

There was, he said, "no question" that this poses a serious threat to the future of western civilisation as it has been known.

"The contemporary historian[s] of ancient Greece and ancient Rome saw their civilisations begin their decline and fall, both the Greeks and the Romans attributed it to falling birth rates because nobody wanted the responsibilities of bringing up children," he said.

"They were too focussed on enjoying the present to make the sacrifices necessary to build the future . . . all the historians of civilisation have told the same story."

"Europe is going to die because of this because Europe can only maintain its population by unprecedented levels of immigration," said the former Chief Rabbi.

"Now those could be integrated into Europe but they won't be integrated into Europe because when a culture loses its memory it loses its identity and when a culture loses its identity there's nothing left for people to integrate into."

He argued that demographic change could be linked a loss of religious faith in the West, which for centuries has been associated with a high regard for the institution of the family.

"Contemporary historians . . . right now, have failed to find a single historical example of a society that became secularised and maintained its birth rate over subsequent centuries," he argued.

He added: "That's how great civilisations decline and fall."

Sources

• The Telegraph
• Image: Becket Fund