Census 2021: Over 85 now a booming age for marital bliss

The post-war optimism that saw Australians marry younger and in greater numbers than previous generations has led to a curious statistic in the latest census.

Leading demographer Peter McDonald said World War II and the immediate post-war period saw a more exuberant attitude to marriage among Australians compared to the 1920s and 1930s. Picture: Getty Images

It was the marriage boom that heralded the baby boom.

That rush by young Australians post-World War II to marry is behind one of the more curious statistics to emerge from the 2021 census – the rapid decline in the proportion of Australians aged 85+ who have never married.

In 1996 there were 14,694 people 85 and over who had never married out of a total of 199,253, 7.4 per cent of all 85+ Australians.

But in the most recent census that percentage had more than halved to 3.5 per cent, with 18,725 of the 542,342 Australians aged 85 or more never having married.

Leading demographer Peter McDonald said World War II and the immediate post-war period saw a more exuberant attitude to marriage among Australians compared to the 1920s and 1930s.

“During WWII people started to marry in greater numbers and at much younger ages, and this lasted through the ’50s and into the ’60s,” Professor McDonald said. “This was the marriage boom that created the baby boom that created the baby boomers.”

He said WWII was the catalyst. “As men went off to fight there was an increase in marriage as couples thought it was a situation of marry now or marry never.”

It was thought the marriage trend among young people would end with the war, Professor McDonald said, but it didn’t. “It was a way they could express their independence from their parents.

“This was also an era of just absolute optimism after two world wars and a depression, and so people were just more inclined to marry, and to marry younger.”

But the era of marriage and babies wasn’t all sunshine and roses.

“In the 1960s, 25-30 per cent of women marrying for the first time were pregnant at marriage,” Professor McDonald said. “This group later had a very high divorce rate.”

Another statistic from the 2021 census reveals the era of the shotgun marriage is well and truly over.

 

The number of 15-19-year-olds who are married as a proportion of all Australians of their age has fallen 74 per cent in the past 25 years, and is even down since 2016 by 55 per cent. In 1996, 9178 15-19-year-olds were married out of 1.25 million, 0.7 per cent of the total. But in 2021 it was just 2417 out of 1.46 million, or 0.2 per cent of the total.

Females made up 70 per cent of the total in the 1996 census, but by last year male teens made up 43 per cent of the total.

There were significant disparities in the data by location as well. Of the ACT’s 26,348 15-19-year-olds, just 15 were married, or 0.06 per cent. In the Northern Territory 510 of the 14,183 15-19-year-olds were married, or 3.6 per cent.

“I think this can be put down to fewer teenagers falling pregnant, due to a more sensible and sophisticated approach to contraception,” Professor McDonald said.

“There is still a prevalence of younger marriage among some ethnic communities … but these numbers show it is … falling.”