May 17, 2015
The New York Times continued their research on how the place you grow up impacts your future in a recent study entitled "How Your Hometown Affects Your Chances of Marriage."
Taking a look at marriage rates among people under 26, the Times broke down every U.S. county and wether growing up there made you more or less likely to wed by that age.
The study found that for Philadelphia and the surrounding counties, young people are marrying at a lower rate than the national average. For Philadelphia County, residents are 6 percent less likely to get hitched by 26 than the average American.
Of the suburbs, Delaware County is the least likely place for young marriages at 7 percent below the national average. Camden County not only had the lowest "marriage effect" score in New Jersey, but also had the 8th lowest in the country, at 9.6 percent below the average.
Some other highlights of the study:
• Rural areas are more likely to promote young marriages than urban areas, a trend that can be seen in Pennsylvania. Despite a few outliers, and the Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Scranton metropolitan areas, most of the state's counties have a "marriage effect" score above the average.
• Politics matter. The study found with relative consistency that Democrats are less likely to get married young than Republicans.
• Pennsylvania's rural center evens out the major cities, scoring a "marriage effect" score as a state that's less than one percentage point below the average. That's not the case in New Jersey, where you're less likely to get married young in every county. The Garden State is the second to last in its "marriage effect" score at 7 percent below the average.
For more on the study, check out the full New York Times piece here.
