The Best Places to Find a Husband in Michigan
A new map shows that Holland has the highest marriage rate, but Livingston County has the best ratio of eligible men to women
The country is facing a marriage crisis. Marriage rates in Michigan have fallen by half since the 1970s. Blame social media, the high cost of living, atomization, the high divorce rates of yesteryear, whatever, but this is a massive liability for the state.
Michigan is not producing enough children, because it isn’t producing enough married couples. We are worse than the national average at turning singles into spouses.
But if you live in a few parts of the state, the odds of finding a husband or wife are much better than others.
A new map from the Institute of Family Studies uses the 2024 American Community Survey to identify areas with high annual marriage rates and large pools of employed marriageable men.
The winners in our state? West Michigan and Oakland County.
Holland and the surrounding environs, in particular, have the highest marriage rate in the state. That idyllic Lake Michigan town is a little like marriage-leading Utah: religious and employed, with people marrying in their 20s.
In Southwest Michigan, 7.6% of never-married people ages 22-39 get married every year, the highest rate in the state. On the other side of the state near Troy and Rochester, 9.1% of 30- to 39 year-olds get married every year.
But all is not well in the Michigan marriage market. Detroit has real troubles. In some parts of the city, there are only 39 employed men aged 22-39 per 100 single women. There is simply not enough husband-making material there.
From Dearborn down to Trenton, things are somehow even worse. Only 3.4% of young people got married there last year, bottom 10 in the country. Warren and the Grosse Pointes don’t fare that much better.
If women want the pick of the litter, they’d be better off trying Livingston County, the only area in the state where employed single men outnumber single women. The U.P. could also be a good option.
The thing holding marriage rates back in Michigan is not a lack of men, it’s a lack of good job and decent wages. But in the parts of our state where those things exist, marriage rates are much better.
Ladies, if you’re looking for a God-fearing and productive husband, you might just have to move out to Lake Michigan (tough, I know), leave for the suburbs, or head for the hills.
