Single Ladies, Single Longer: Rebecca Traister on the Rise of the Unmarried Woman

Point of Inquiry

For a very long time marriage was considered a foundation of American life. Adulthood and marriage came hand in hand, and shortly after marriage children were the next logical step. Breaking that mold wasn’t a socially acceptable or financially viable option for women. Today, however, marriage rates show us a very different picture of what is considered the norm. To lend some insight into these changing conventions, Point of Inquiry welcomes Rebecca Traister, an author and award-winning journalist who is the writer-at-large for New York Magazine and a contributing editor at Elle. Her new book is All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation.

In 1960, the majority of American women were married by age 29. Today only 20 percent of American women are married by then. For over a century the median age of first marriages for women in America had remained between 20 and 22, but in recent years it has jumped dramatically to age 27. Overall, fewer American women are married than ever before and Traister has investigated what’s behind this dramatic change, and what it means for a new generation of single women in America.