Here’s How Often Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue Millennials Tie The Knot

SEATTLE — It’s no secret that millennials are waiting longer than their parents and grandparents to pop the question. The New York Times, citing an eHarmony study, reported that U.S. couples ages 25 to 34 knew each other an average of 6 ½ years before tying the knot — a full year-and-a-half more than all other age groups.

But a new analysis by Haven Life shows millennials in some places get married at a much higher rate than others, with twice as many millennials in some metro areas getting married compared to others. Out of 258 metros in the analysis, the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro ranked 50th in the country for highest millennial marriage rate, just ahead of Lima, Ohio, and behind York-Hanover, Pennsylvania.

Perhaps interestingly, across all 238 metros a variety of smaller areas than Seattle ranked higher on the list. The Olympia-Tumwater metro ranked 22nd, Bremerton-Silverdale ranked 30th, Wenatchee ranked 33rd, and Spokane-Spokane Valley ranked 48th.

Here’s the breakdown for Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue:

• Share of millennials who are married: 37.2 percent
• Share of married millenials who own a home: 49 percent
• Share of married millennial households who have children: 63.2 percent
• Median household income among married millennials: $94,699 percent

Millennials were defined in the analysis as people who were between 21 and 36 years old in 2017. Many of these adults were at or near working age during the Great Recession and ensuing recovery and held off on making major life decisions, including buying a house, having kids and, yes, getting hitched.

In fact, the median marriage age is 27.8 years old for women and 29.8 for men. In the 1950s, the median ages were about 20 and 23, respectively.

Among the most notable findings in the report was there’s a disparity in wealth between unmarried and married millennials. As you might expect, research showed that even after adjusting for the size of a household, married millennials tended to be wealthier than those who are single or living with a partner. In fact, from 2013 to 2016, the median total net worth among married households nearly doubled, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. For unmarried young adult households, wealth stagnated.

As such, it’s unsurprising that married millennials have higher household incomes and are more likely to own a home. About 56 percent of married millennials own a home compared to just 22.7 percent of unmarried.

Utah is home to the three metro areas with the highest share of married millennials, according to the report. The Provo-Orem metro, where 56.1 percent of millennials were married, paced the country. Among the married millennials in the area, just 68 percent had kids, a noticeably smaller share than the other metros in the top 20, where that number was consistently in the low- to high 70s.

Here are the top 10 metros across the country where millennials are getting married most:

1. Provo-Orem, UT — 56.1 percent
2. Ogden-Clearfield, UT — 53.5 percent
3. St. George, UT — 51.8 percent
4. Clarksville, TN-KY — 48.4 percent
5. Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR-MO — 46.4 percent
6. Midland, TX — 46.4 percent
7. Joplin, MO — 44.7 percent
8. Yuba City, CA — 44.1 percent
9. Bismarck, ND — 44.1 percent
10. Salt Lake City, UT — 43.2 percent

Meanwhile, you’re most likely to find unmarried millennials in Gainesville, Florida, or Ithaca, New York. Gainesville, home to the University of Florida, has the smallest share of married millennials at just 21.2 percent — less than half that of Provo-Orem. In Ithaca, that number was 21.8 percent.

The data used in the analysis comes from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2017 American Community Survey.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.