The average American woman today will get married by age 27, and 29 for the average American man. But that’s the national figure–in Baltimore (and other urban and/or liberal places), the typical marriage trajectory looks pretty different.
Once again, the New York Times has a nifty data map ready for you to explore. The question this time? Where in the U.S. are people more and less likely to be married by age 26. Researchers found that cities, particularly in the northeast, make marriage by 26 much less likely — by as much as 9 percentage points in Baltimore City and 12 percent in Washington, D.C. (Good thing Baltimore is such a paradise for single people… or some single people, at least.) The effect is slightly less strong — though still in the same direction — in nearby counties:
Montgomery County – 7 percentage points less likely
Prince George’s County – 9 percent less likely
Baltimore County – 6 percentage points less likely
Harford County – 4 percentage points less likely
However, young people who grow up in Western Maryland (Carroll County, Frederick County, and points west) — that is, the more rural, more right-wing part of the state — are all more likely to get married by the time they’re 26. This fits in with the national trends: “One of the most striking relationships we found in the data was between political ideology and the marriage effect: The more strongly a county voted Republican in the 2012 election, the more that growing up there generally encourages marriage,” the Times notes. (The same holds true for metropolitan places, too.) Other interesting (but predictable) factors: small towns encourage marriage. The Deep South is weird. And if you grow up in Provo, Utah, there’s basically no way you’re not getting married, stat.
Read the full article here.
