Australia’s marriage rate is declining rapidly with the number of young Australians tying the knot having halved in the last two decades.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows in 1998, 26.2 per 1000 men aged 20-24 married, but by 2018 this plummeted to just 11 per 1000.

44 per 1000 women aged 20-24 married in 1998 but that fell to 18.5 last year.

Relationship expert Dr Karen Phillip tells Ben Fordham there are many reasons why people seem to be getting married at an older age.

“We have kids staying in university a lot longer, we have them living at home longer, they have less security in their work, they want to travel.

“I prefer kids being at least in their mid to late twenties before they even consider marriage… we’ve got this high divorce rate, one way to maybe lower it is to marry older.”

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Image: Getty/Olga Efimova/EyeEm