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This article is the first to explore variations in alcohol, drug overdose, and suicide deaths in the United States by marital status before and after the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. Using the Multiple Cause-of-Death file and the American Community Survey (2000–2021), we found the nonmarried exhibit mortality rates 2 to 3 times higher in alcohol and suicide deaths and 4 to 5 times higher in drug-related deaths compared to the married population, net of education. This magnitude of marriage advantage is comparable to educational differences in these deaths. The marriage advantages are more pronounced for males than females (except in suicide, where gender differences are minor) and for White individuals compared to Black and Hispanic individuals. Furthermore, the marriage advantage widened substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic. We advocate for viewing these deaths not only through an economic lens but also as manifestations of “social pathology,” urging consideration within broader societal shifts.

This visualization shows the relationship between completed fertility and education across five decades of cohorts in the United States using data from the General Social Survey. Across these cohorts, the educational gradient of fewer children for those with more education is stronger for women than for men. The gradient has become less steep across cohorts as the gap between people with medium and high levels of education has narrowed. Those without high school degrees have the highest fertility rates at all times, but this group represents a decreasing share of the population as educational levels rise over time. Thus, the educational gradient in completed fertility persists but has become less important for overall fertility patterns.

Marriage rates are falling in the United States. The authors ask whether today’s young adults are likely to continue this trend. Using Monitoring the Future Public-Use Cross-Sectional Datasets (1976–2022), this visualization presents U.S. 12th graders’ marriage expectations. It shows declining optimism that they will be “very good” spouses and declining expectations that they will eventually marry. Both trends are prominent in the last 10 years of the survey, and both are more dramatic among young women than among young men. If these trends hold, it may foretell further declines in marriage rates in the coming years.

In this visualization, the author shows the trend in the proportion of households that comprise only one person in 75 countries, representing 73 percent of the world’s population, using national data collected between 1960 and 2019. At the time of the latest observations for each country, the percentage of households that include only one person ranges from 2.6 (Cambodia) to 38 (Switzerland). Europe and the United States have the highest solo living rates, along with two African countries (South Africa and Botswana, both severely affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic), Israel, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. In all, 53 of the 75 countries exhibit increases in one-person households, including all European countries. Those with (generally much smaller) declines are disproportionately in Africa and Asia, including China and India.

In the social upheaval arising from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, we do not yet know how union formation, particularly marriage, has been affected. Using administration records—marriage certificates and applications—gathered from settings representing a variety of COVID-19 experiences in the United States, the authors compare counts of recorded marriages in 2020 against those from the same period in 2019. There is a dramatic decrease in year-to-date cumulative marriages in 2020 compared with 2019 in each case. Similar patterns are observed for the Seattle metropolitan area when analyzing the cumulative number of marriage applications, a leading indicator of marriages in the near future. Year-to-date declines in marriage are unlikely to be due solely to closure of government agencies that administer marriage certification or reporting delays. Together, these findings suggest that marriage has declined during the COVID-19 outbreak and may continue to do so, at least in the short term.