[LMB] OT: about the ratio of unmarried to married people

[Dawn Benton]

I think one important factor for the increase in unmarried people that the 
article totally neglected is that with people living longer and many 
marrying later, they spend a proportionally shorter period of time as a 
"married person".  A census is a snapshot of the population.  So if you 
marry later, you are more likely to show up on an extra census as unmarried. 
Probably some of the unmarried people are divorced or widowed who remarry 
later and fall back into the "married person" camp.  Plus the article is a 
good example of the media frequently use statistics very sloppily to make 
exaggeraged claims.  The change in the unmarried percentage of the Canadian 
population from the last census was only a difference of 1.6%.  In the 
previous census 49.9% were unmarried, while 51.5% were unmarried as of the 
current census.  That is not a huge change over a ten year period.  Now if 
the change continues at that rate for the next ten censuses (censi?) that 
could be a huge social change.

I myself would expect the number to drop to a lower but consistant rate 
because in the US at least, the number of women who never marry does seem to 
be increasing.  That decrease to me seems to be due mainly to the simple 
fact that more women can survive economically as single people.

Dawn