The story is here. 

For what experts say is probably the first time, more American women are living without a husband than with one, according to a New York Times analysis of census results.

The studies are clear, the story claims, but if you read it carefully, only if you use some very creative math.

For one thing it is based on this equation:

Among the more than 117 million women over the age of 15, according to the marital status category in the Census Bureau’s latest American Community Survey, 63 million are married. Of those, 3.1 million are legally separated and 2.4 million said their husbands were not living at home for one reason or another.

Age 15?  Why the heck are they counting high school kids and saying "look they are not married".

Well duh.  Why should they be married?  Sharia Law and forced marriages maybe?

That brings the number of American women actually living with a spouse to 57.5 million, compared with the 59.9 million who are single or whose husbands were not living at home when the survey was taken in 2005.

Not the kicker:  Husbands not living at home (when the survey was taken".  No account of why, where they are, how long they will be gone, and whether they will be returning. 

This by the way includes happily married military spouses whose husbands are deployed and similarly married civilian women whose husbands work overseas part time as contractors.  I would have a hard time equating this to a choice by the woman.

Some of those situations, which the census identifies as “spouse absent” and “other,” are temporary, and, of course, even some people who describe themselves as separated eventually reunite with their spouses.

So what is the point?

“Since women continue to outlive men, they have reached the nonmarital tipping point — more nonmarried than married,” Dr. Frey said. “This suggests that most girls growing up today can look forward to spending more of their lives outside of a traditional marriage.”

And I think that is a faulty piece of logic.  But it depends on how you define it, which summarizes the whole piece.

The proportion of married people, especially among younger age groups, has been declining for decades. Between 1950 and 2000, the share of women 15-to-24 who were married plummeted to 16 percent, from 42 percent. Among 25-to-34-year-olds, the proportion dropped to 58 percent, from 82 percent.

Maybe that’s because we encourage girls to actually grow up first.  Again the use of girls 15 and up is grossly skewing this.  The article does not list it, but I have to wonder if the men’s stats used included 15 year old boys.

The graphic that accompanies the article breaks it down this way:

• married with spouse at home 49%
• Married but spouse not at home (military included) 2%
• Married but separated (assume legally or pre divorce) 3%
• Widowed 9%
• Divorced 11%
• Never married 25%

Looking there, there is no breakdown of how many divorcees. single women, widows and women heading for divorce intend to marry or remarry, which is the real factor that matters.  The raw numbers are just crunched together in  lump to prove the point. 

This is a great case of pre-conceptual science.  They author started with the premise that most women lived without a spouse and then smushed the numbers to make his hypothesis work.  In doing so he ignores the reasons why and the actual attitudes of women about marriage, even though many of the women interviewed are carefully chosen as ones who do not want marriage.

Funny, I don’t see any of the 15 year olds interviewed.

According to a radio host the percent of single women who have never married (25%) and never intend to marry is about 6%.

The author apparently has a predisposition against marriage and this is not his first hachet piece against it.

And as has happened before, the NY Times doesn’t seem to care about journalistic integrity, and runs a misleading story without comment or disclaimer. 

A book I read years ago summarized it:  Figures don’t Lie, but Liars can Figure.

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