Almost three-quarters of men and almost two-thirds of women in their 20s in 2006 said they had never been married, according to Census data released today that shows a sharp increase in never-married twentysomethings in just six years.

Among men ages 20-29, 73 percent said they had never been married in 2006, compared with 64 percent in 2000. For women, 62.2 percent had never married in 2006, compared with 53.4 percent six years earlier.

The data also show the percentage of those marrying in their 20s continues to decline. A USA TODAY analysis of the new Census figures shows that just 23.5 percent of men and 31.5 percent of women ages 20-29 were married in 2006. (The analysis excludes those who are married but separated.) Both the number and percentage of those in their 20s fell from 2000, when 31.5 percent of men and 39.5 percent of women were married.

"These clearly are quite dramatic changes by demographic standards," says demographer Peter Morrison of the non-profit RAND Corp., which studies public policy issues. "The amount of change in six years is quite substantial. It's impressive in terms of the degree to which the institution of marriage is evolving. There clearly is a process of social evolution occurring here, and one can speculate about where it will end."

The trend toward delaying marriage has emerged over several decades as economic and social forces have made it more difficult for those in their 20s to reach independence. Sociologists and demographers say other factors are also at work, including increasing numbers of cohabiting couples, more highly educated women who have fewer highly educated men of comparable age to partner with, and more choices open to women than in decades past.

For those reasons and others, experts say they don't expect this upward trend in the ages for marriage to reverse.

"The numbers suggest we haven't seen a slowdown on this postponement of marriage," says Suzanne Bianchi, a sociologist at the University of Maryland in College Park.

A closer analysis of the data on ages 20-24 and 25-29 shows that among men and women in both groups, the percentage change between the never-marrieds and the now-marrieds was relatively consistent.

"This suggests it's not just the phenomenon of the college-educated who tend to marry later or the high school educated who tend to marry earlier," says Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University. "It's an across-the-board shift."

Bianchi questions the amount of change in such a short period of time because the Census' Current Population Survey reflects a smaller change in the same time period. Cherlin, however, says the large change is "not unbelievable, especially if living-together relationships are compensating for some of the postponement of marriage."

The number of unmarried partner households reported by the Census Bureau rose from 5 million to 6 million between 2000 and 2006.

Pamela Smock, a family demographer at the University of Michigan, says about 70 percent of those who get married lived together first.

"Cohabitation is continuing to grow, and it's become the modal way of life," she says.

The Census data also reflect continued decline in the percentage of married-couple households, dropping from 52.5 percent of households in 2000 to 49.7 percent of households in 2006. Census survey estimates released last year showed that unmarried adults for the first time represented more than half of American households.

Cherlin says the new data about those in their 20s suggests a clear postponement of marriage, but not necessarily a delay in partnering.

"We can't tell whether this means there's a longer period of singlehood or just more living together before marriage. It's probably some of both," he says.

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