tween 1960 and 2000. The estimated life expectancy
in 1989 was seventy-nine years for women and seventy-
two for men. In 1980, the comparable figures had
been seventy-seven for women and seventy for men.
Immigration During the 1980’s, immigration was
responsible for more than one-third of U.S. popula-
tion growth, and it changed the ethnic makeup of
the country. From the end of World War II until
1965, the number of immigrants had averaged fewer
than three million per decade, with about 70 per-
cent coming from Europe, Canada, and Oceania.
The Immigration Act of 1965, however, ended the
quota system that had given preferences to those
ethnic groups that had entered early in the nation’s
history. The new system was based primarily on three
considerations: family reunification, labor skills, and
providing asylum for political refugees. By the 1970’s,
an increase in nontraditional immigrants was be-
coming quite noticeable. Additional legislation in
1980 and 1986 attempted to clarify the new rules, as
well as to reduce a growing stream of illegal immi-
grants entering the country.
From 1980 to 1989, 7.3 million legal immigrants
entered the United States, which was the highest
number since the first decade of the twentieth cen-
tury. In comparison with the size of the country’s to-
tal population, however, the volume of immigrants
in the 1980’s was smaller than in earlier periods. In
the 1980’s, the average annual rate of immigration
was 3.2 immigrants per 1,000 people living in the
country, which was less than one-third the average
annual rate during the first decade of the 1900’s.
During the earlier period, however, there had been
relatively few illegal immigrants, whereas an esti-
mated two million illegal immigrants entered the
country during the 1980’s, with more than one-third
of them crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico.
The change in the origins of the immigrants was
even more consequential than the increase in the to-
tal numbers. In contrast to the pre-1960 situation,
only about 13 percent of U.S. immigrants came from
Europe, Canada, or Oceania. More than half came
from Latin America, with half of this number com-
ing from Mexico. More than one-third came from
Asia, with the largest groups immigrating from
the Philippines, Vietnam, Korea, China, India, and
Laos. For many Americans, the increasingly multi-
cultural nature of their society first became notice-
able in the 1980’s.
Marriage and Family At the end of the 1980’s, the
U.S. Bureau of the Census reported that 57.9 per-
cent of persons fifteen years of age and older were
married. That number represented the continua-
tion of a long-term decline in the percentage of mar-
ried persons in the United States. In 1980, the rate
had stood at 60.8 percent, and it had been 69.6 per-
cent in 1960. In all of these years, there was consider-
able variation between populations of different
races and ethnicities. In 1990, the percentage of
whites who were married stood at 60.4 percent, com-
pared with 47.9 percent of Hispanics and 38.8 per-
cent of African Americans.
The Bureau of the Census also reported a trend
toward people getting married later in life. In 1960,
the median age of a person marrying for the first
time was 22.8 years for men and 20.3 for women. By
1980, the median age had increased to 24.7 for men
and 22.0 for women. By 1990, the median age for
men had increased to 26.1; for women, it was 24.4.
There was also an increase in the number of sin-
gle adults in the United States. In 1960, only 8.2 per-
cent of white women and 12.7 percent of African
American women did not marry before the age of
twenty-nine. In 1980, the proportion of white
women of this age who had never married had in-
creased to 13.6 percent, whereas the proportion for
African American women had grown to 29 percent.
By 1990, the comparable percentages were 19.2 per-
cent for white women and 52.0 percent for African
American women.
Despite a significant overall trend toward increas-
ing divorce rates during the second half of the twen-
tieth century, there was a modest decrease in the di-
vorce rate during the 1980’s. From 1960 until 1980,
the divorce rate increased by a factor of nearly three.
In 1980, it stood at 22.6 per 1,000 married women,
whereas it was down to 20.9 per 1,000 married
women in 1990. There was substantial regional varia-
tion in divorce rates. In both 1980 and 1990, the
highest divorce rate was in the Rocky Mountain
states. In 1980, the lowest rate was in the Middle At-
lantic states; in 1990, this region was tied with New
England for the lowest rate. Among individual states,
the lowest rate in 1990 was in Massachusetts, com-
pared with Alaska, which had the highest rate.
Closely associated with the divorce rate was the
number and percentage of children directly affected
by divorce. While the number and percentage of af-
fected children rose dramatically from 1960 until284 Demographics of the United States The Eighties in America