【延伸阅读朗读版已更新在公众号“可可英语晨读”】免费领取500+期精美双语打印版讲义、加入晨读打卡学习群，微信关注“可可英语晨读”公众号，win the morning，win the day！

Why are people not getting married anymore?

A record number of people in the U.S., China, Japan and the U.K., are opting out of marriage. The decline is especially strong in the middle and working class – the socioeconomic groups that were once champions of marriage. In Japan and South Korea, marriage and birth rates are correlated and a downward trend may foreshadow a brewing population crisis.

Almost 90% of the world’s population now live in countries with falling marriage rates. In the U.S., marriage has declined by 60% since the 1970s, while the median age for first marriages has increased for both men and women.

“There are a couple of big factors here in play. One major factor is the changing economy,” said Brad Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.

The phenomenon affects many countries across the world but it’s most pressing in East and South Asia, where marriage and childbirth are highly correlated.

【延伸阅读朗读版已更新在公众号“可可英语晨读”】免费领取500+期精美双语打印版讲义、加入晨读打卡学习群，微信关注“可可英语晨读”公众号，win the morning，win the day！