Age of marriage can have a significant impact on population. In recent years, we have seen that the way marriage patterns have developed have created potentially long-term structural problems in different societies. 

Baby Boomers 

During and after World War II, a high growth rate in pregnancies produced a great number of new children. Officially, a baby boomer is a person born between 1946 and 1964. Nearly eighty million children were born during this time period. This was also a time period when the average age of first marriage was significantly younger than it is today. Both men and women during this time period typically got married in their early twenties. 

The high number of babies born during this time period has created structural problems in the United States as the baby boomers have aged. Since the height of the baby boomers, the number of children being born in the United States has decreased significantly, creating a situation where there are a lot more aging adults than younger children. This has put pressure on programs such as Social Security, which require younger people at the bottom to pay into the system in order to support the people on the top. However, since there are so many aging baby boomers, this has created an overpopulation issue in terms of how Americas can pay out this structural benefit. Fewer younger people are supposed to pay the costs for a greater number of aging baby boomers. This overpopulation issue has helped create a Social Security crisis. 

In America today, the age of marriage is also rising significantly, in large part due to a poor economy that has significantly hurt the youngest generation of adult Americans. With marriage delayed and a poor economy, many twenty-somethings do not hold full time jobs that are particularly lucrative. This exacerbates the issue further, with less money available to support aging baby boomers. Often marriage is a sign of economic stability, which would help reduce concerns of overpopulation.

Age of marriage can therefore have a very big impact on population issues. While having a large population of baby boomers may not be deemed overpopulation, marriage age that is disparate across generations can create structural problems that have long-term consequences for the future of the United States of America. The Greatest Generation fought World War II and helped save the world, but their young marriage age and high fertility rate has produced issues in America that must be resolved.