Open LINE (Japan's main messaging app) and the profile photos of your female classmates have turned into wedding shots, babies and family portraits.
The ones who were popular, who sat at the top of the school pecking order, who had the good looks, who always had plenty of romantic options, seem to be the ones who went straight down the marriage-and-baby track early.
At first glance, it looks like "whoever marries early wins."
But marriage doesn't end at the entrance.
You can get through the entrance on looks, chemistry, youth, infatuation and momentum. The real exam comes later: housework, childcare, money, work, how someone acts when they're in a bad mood, a sexless marriage, in-laws, free time, sleep deprivation, and the point when aging kicks in.
So people who marry young look like they're ahead. But it also means they entered the real, live version of daily life earlier than everyone else.
In this article I go through the statistics and research on young marriage, divorce rates, happiness after a child is born, and couples growing cold.
The short answer: getting in and keeping it running are two different scorecards
What matters in the early stage of romance is mostly the "getting in" scorecard.
- Good looks
- Good chemistry
- Fun to be around
- Popular
- Stands out in the friend group
- Young
- Full of momentum
- Everyone around you is getting married
These are strong factors. In fact, speed-dating studies show that physical attractiveness is strongly tied to initial attraction.
But what works over the long run in a marriage is the "keeping it running" scorecard.
- You're on the same page about money
- You can adjust who carries how much of the housework and childcare
- You don't attack your partner when you're in a bad mood
- You can actually talk things through
- You can still cooperate at a basic level on no sleep
- You can thank and acknowledge each other
- You can look after the marriage even when the kids become the center of everything
- You can still live together when you're both middle-aged
If you skip all that and go in thinking "I can forgive anything if they're good-looking," a very heavy review is coming later.
Looks are the entry ticket. But married life is long-term maintenance.
In Japan, the average first marriage now happens around 30
According to preliminary 2025 figures from Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the average age at first marriage is 31.0 for husbands and 29.7 for wives. The average age of mothers at the birth of their first child is also 31.0.
| Indicator | 2025 preliminary figures |
|---|---|
| Average age at first marriage, husbands | 31.0 |
| Average age at first marriage, wives | 29.7 |
| Mother's average age at first birth | 31.0 |
| Number of marriages | 489,119 couples |
| Number of divorces | 179,068 couples |
| Divorce rate | 1.50 per 1,000 people |
So if you're around 28 and watching classmates post wedding and baby photos, it's easy to panic, but statistically, marrying around 30 is perfectly normal.
On LINE, the people who post wedding and baby photos are the ones you notice. The people who are single and having fun, who've split up, whose marriages have gone cold, or who just don't post anything are much harder to see.
LINE isn't a life balance sheet. It's closer to a shelf lined with nice-looking covers.
People who marry young often come apart within 15 years
In the CDC/NCHS data from the US National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), you can see how long first marriages last by age at marriage.
One caveat: this is American data, not Japanese, and since the NSFG surveys people aged 15 to 44, there are limits to long-term estimates.
Even so, it's quite useful for seeing how marriage works as a human structure.
Share of first marriages still intact after 15 years
| Age at first marriage | Women: still intact at 15 years | Women: not intact within 15 years | Men: still intact at 15 years | Men: not intact within 15 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 20 | 46% | 54% | 46% | 54% |
| 20 to 24 | 60% | 40% | 60% | 40% |
| 25 and over | 73% | 27% | 68% | 32% |
"Not intact" includes divorce, separation and, rarely, the death of a spouse. But widowhood is rare in the younger age groups, so it's fair to read this as mostly divorce and separation.
Among people who marry at 20 to 24, about 40% are no longer together within 15 years.
That's heavy.
If you marry at 22 to 24, you're about 37 to 39 fifteen years later. If you have kids, they'd be somewhere between elementary and middle school age.
In other words, it's less that things collapse during the baby phase, and more that these pile up:
- Sleep deprivation in the baby phase
- The load of housework and childcare in the toddler years
- Schooling, money and who does what in the elementary school years
- A hollowed-out marriage around the time the kids hit middle school
- A sexless marriage
- Whatever compatibility is left once the kids need you a bit less
By around 35 to 40, it tends to surface.
Even in Japan, "the older you marry, the worse your odds" isn't true
A study using Japanese panel data also finds that the relationship between age at first marriage and the probability of divorce isn't a simple straight line. It's U-shaped.
That means it's not the case that the older you are, the more likely you are to divorce. Up to a certain age, a later first marriage actually tends to make the relationship more stable.
This matches intuition pretty well.
In your early twenties, looks, chemistry, feelings and momentum can carry you all the way to marriage. But you often can't yet see things like work, income, housework, views on raising kids, how close to stay to parents, whether you want children at all, free time, sex, and what life looks like once you've aged.
Around 30, the momentum may have faded a little. In exchange, you can see your own self, your view of work, how you handle money, your lifestyle and what you want in a partner more clearly.
Going early isn't winning. Entering real life early also means hitting the failure conditions early.
"I want kids" and "I'll be happier after having them" are two different things
This part is pretty brutal.
Most people want children. Kids are adorable. You want a child with the person you love. You want a family. Being alone in the future feels scary. Everyone around you is doing it.
All of that is natural.
But "I want kids" and "I'll be happier after having them" are separate measures.
A Japanese study from Keio University's Panel Data Research Center (PDRC) reports that for married women, having children is negatively associated with life satisfaction. And that negative effect shrinks considerably once marital satisfaction is taken into account. This suggests that part of the way children affect women's life satisfaction may run through a drop in marital satisfaction.
Put roughly:
Kids are adorable. But your marriage and your overall life satisfaction can get worn down.
Both of these can be true at the same time.
Marital satisfaction tends to drop after childbirth
A meta-analysis (a study that pools the results of many studies) found that with the birth of a first child, marital satisfaction drops by a moderate amount from pregnancy through 12 months postpartum, and keeps declining slightly over the following 12 to 24 months.
On top of that, a study using Germany's SOEP (a large long-term household survey) reported that parents' subjective well-being fell by an average of 1.4 points on a 0 to 10 scale after the first child was born. A drop of 1.4 points is quite large.
So childbirth is a happy event, and it's also a serious stress test for the marriage and for each person's own happiness.
Japan's "postpartum crisis" numbers are pretty heavy
In a survey by the Benesse Educational Research and Development Institute, the share of people who answered "I really feel I love my spouse when I'm with them" drops sharply after childbirth.
| Stage | Wife to husband: "I truly love him" | Husband to wife: "I truly love her" |
|---|---|---|
| During pregnancy | 74.3% | 74.3% |
| Child age 0 | 45.5% | 63.9% |
| Child age 1 | 36.8% | 54.2% |
| Child age 2 | 34.0% | 51.7% |
During pregnancy, both start from the same place: 74.3%. But by the time the child is 2, the share of wives who feel love for their husbands has fallen to 34.0%.
That's heavy.
It's easier to understand this not as "she came to hate her husband," but as romantic feelings becoming hard to maintain under the combined pressure of childbirth, childcare, sleep deprivation, the housework load, too little appreciation, and a kind of audition over whether the husband will actually pull his weight.
For a living creature, it's natural for love to flow toward the child. But as a couple, if you leave it alone, the relationship cools.
What it means when the LINE photo is "wife plus kid" and the husband is nowhere to be seen
A common pattern is a LINE profile photo where the wife is pictured with the child and the husband isn't there.
Of course, that alone doesn't mean the marriage is in trouble.
Maybe the husband is the one taking the photo. Maybe he just doesn't want his face shown. Maybe a mother-and-child shot simply looks more natural as a profile photo.
But if you read it as a symbol, it's pretty clear.
Before marriage, it's "me as a girlfriend." Right after marriage, it's "me as half of a couple." After childbirth, it's "me as a mother, plus my child."
The cover of life changes from a couple unit to a mother-child unit.
That in itself is not bad. It's natural for love to move toward protecting the child.
But if the husband can't become a co-player at that point, he drifts out of the center of the household.
The child is the star. The mother is the one running the show. The husband becomes the photographer, the background, or an item under review as household infrastructure.
If you leave the marriage like that, the romance disappears from the cover, and behind the scenes dissatisfaction, a sexless marriage, affairs and coldness can grow.
The pressure on young husbands is huge too
If you marry young and have a child young, it's rough on the husband too.
He gets all of these demands at once.
- Earn money
- But also be at home
- But also do the housework and childcare
- But also take in his wife's anxiety
- But also don't get moody
- But also keep growing at work for the future
This is plainly hard mode.
Young men often haven't reached their peak income yet. Trying to raise it tends to mean overtime, more responsibility, job transfers and brutal hours. But brutal hours cut into family time. Spending more time with the family can slow down income and career growth.
From the wife's side, it often looks like this:
"I know you're working hard. But I'm the one dealing with pregnancy, childbirth, childcare, no sleep and career limits. Don't you care about me?"
From the husband's side, it looks like this:
"I'm working to earn money. But when I work, I'm told I'm never home. When I'm home, my income barely grows. Childcare, housework and emotional support are all needed. And I'm young and have nothing left in the tank."
Neither one is simply the bad guy. The way a young household has to run is just heavy by nature.
Some families stay together "until the kids are grown"
This is also really important.
Not having divorced doesn't mean the couple is warm toward each other.
While the kids are small, it's hard to get divorced even if things have gone completely cold.
- You don't want to disrupt the kids' lives
- Money is tight if only one person is earning
- There's a mortgage and a household budget
- There's family and what people will think
- There's daycare, school and drop-offs
- One of you has cut back on work
- The divorce process itself is a burden
- You put up with it until the kids are a bit older
In that case, the couple may have gone cold but keep going to run the family.
This isn't "a happy married life." It's closer to "staying together as a working partnership, because the household wouldn't hold up if it fell apart."
While the kids are small, you can cover it up with being busy. Once the kids are older, the couple itself is what's left.
And if what's left is:
- No conversation
- A sexless marriage
- No gratitude
- No sense of being teammates
- Built-up resentment
- No reason to be together without the kids
then it tends to come to the surface around age 35 to 40.
In Japan too, divorces cluster in years 5 to 15 and years 15 to 20
According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's 2024 vital statistics, the number of divorces by length of cohabitation looks like this.
| Length of cohabitation | Divorces in 2024 |
|---|---|
| Under 5 years | 51,634 couples |
| 5 to under 10 years | 35,594 couples |
| 10 to under 15 years | 23,291 couples |
| 15 to under 20 years | 19,606 couples |
| 20 years or more | 40,686 couples |
| Total | 185,895 couples |
The 5-to-under-15-year range alone accounts for 58,885 couples. That's about 31.7% of the total of 185,895.
Widen it to 5 to under 20 years and it's 78,491 couples. That's about 42.2% of the total.
If you married at 20 to 24, then 5 to 15 years later you're about 25 to 39. If you have children, they're anywhere from infants to elementary and middle schoolers.
That's exactly the period when childcare and a cooling marriage tend to overlap.
"I can forgive anything if they're good-looking" is a snapshot judgment from when you're young
When you're a college student or in your early twenties, "I can forgive anything if they're good-looking" sounds believable.
In fact, when you're young, looks, chemistry, how popular someone is and their general vibe carry a lot of weight. Early in a relationship, a little mismatch can be smoothed over by the bonus points for looks.
But marriage doesn't stay frozen in that state.
- You turn 25
- You turn 30
- You turn 35
- You have a child
- You're short on sleep
- Work gets heavier
- Your parents get old
- You and your partner both become middle-aged
What's left at that point isn't just a face.
What's left is:
- Can you run daily life together?
- Do they avoid attacking you when they're in a bad mood?
- Can you talk about money?
- Can you split the housework and childcare?
- Can you thank each other?
- Can you talk about a sexless marriage and differences in sex drive?
- Will you still want to be together once you've both aged?
Looks are a still photo taken when you were young. Married life is a video review of year 10 and year 15.
The danger of charging ahead on an image of "wanting to be married"
What many people are looking at isn't married life itself but the image of marriage.
- I want to get married
- I want kids
- I want family photos
- Everyone around me is doing it
- I like them, so it'll probably work out
- I want to get going while I'm young
- Having a family is just normal
That's all natural.
But what you really need to ask is this:
"Can I run daily life, housework, childcare, money, health problems and aging together with this person for 30 years?"
If you move forward without thinking that far, it's easy to end up saying after the wedding, "this isn't the marriage I imagined."
"I want to get married" is a wish. "I want to keep this marriage going" is operational design. "I want to keep our home from going cold" is ongoing maintenance.
The three look alike, but they're different games.
Marrying young isn't a mistake in itself
This is important.
Marrying young is not bad in itself. Some people are good at running a household even when they're young.
- They can talk things over as a couple
- They share housework and childcare from the start
- They have a plan for money
- They've settled how close to stay to their parents
- They handle bad moods well
- They protect time as a couple even after kids arrive
- They thank each other
- They leave some breathing room in daily life
Households like that are strong even if the couple is young.
The problem is that in a young marriage, it's easy to confuse strength at the entrance with strength at keeping things running.
Good looks. Good chemistry. Love. Wanting kids. Everyone around you is getting married.
These alone don't guarantee that the household will run well over the long haul.
What to check before you commit
If you're thinking about whether to marry, "do I love them?" isn't the only thing to look at.
At the very least, the following are really important.
1. How they act in a bad mood
Plenty of people are kind when they're in a good mood. What matters is how they treat you when they're tired, short on sleep, or when things don't go to plan.
2. A realistic view of housework and childcare
If they say "I want two kids," then who does how much of the housework and childcare? You need to look at overtime, income, daycare, help from parents and how weekends get used.
3. How they use money
Splurging, saving, investing, housing, education costs, insurance, support for parents. Money shows what a person believes.
4. How they treat free time
How will you keep some personal freedom after marriage? Once you have a child, free time shrinks all at once. If you can't talk about this, resentment builds.
5. Mismatches in affection and sex
A sexless marriage can be a strong driver of a household cooling off. But after childbirth and during the childrearing years, sex drive and energy change. That's exactly why you need to talk, appreciate each other, and understand each other's physical condition.
6. Distance from parents
How close you stay to your in-laws and your own parents matters after marriage. Especially once a child arrives, relatives tend to get more involved.
7. Views on work
Overtime, changing jobs, income, where you work, parental leave, career. Working hard cuts into family time, and spending more time with family can affect income and career. What matters is whether you can handle that trade-off.
The bottom line: marrying early doesn't automatically mean winning
People who marry early look like they're ahead. On LINE, they look happy. Baby photos are powerful. Family portraits look like the right answer to life.
But when you look at the statistics and the research, you see a rather different picture.
- In Japan, the average age at first marriage is 31.0 for husbands and 29.7 for wives
- The average age of mothers at first birth is 31.0
- In US data, about 40% of first marriages begun at 20 to 24 are no longer intact within 15 years
- Japanese research also finds that, for divorce, it's not simply "the later the worse"
- Marital satisfaction tends to drop after childbirth
- Wives' feeling of love for their husbands falls from 74.3% during pregnancy to 34.0% when the child is 2
- Some research links having children to lower life satisfaction among married women
- Even when couples haven't divorced, some families stay together coldly for the sake of the kids
In other words, marriage isn't about getting through the entrance. It's long-term operation.
Looks, chemistry and youth help at the entrance. But to keep a household from cooling off, you need a working system for daily life.
There's no need to panic when you see someone marry young. Those who go early have simply entered real life earlier.
What matters isn't marrying early. It's checking, in advance, the things that will cool a marriage down later. And choosing a partner with whom your freedom, security, money, compatibility and daily-life system all come out in the black.
