FIGURE 9-1 Percentage of women aged 25-34 who have never married. SOURCES: U.S. Bureau of the Census (1992b:Table 34; 1983b:Tables 100 and 121; U.S. 1973a:Tables 2 and 3; 1973b:Tables 89 and 203; 1963:Table 20; 1953:Table 102; 1943:Table 4).

time, but the fact that the percentage was lower for American Indian women than for white women in 1940, yet higher than for white women in 1960, does match the historical pattern for the nonwhite population in general (Cherlin, 1992).

Because of limitations in the published data, we shift from an age-specific rate to the general rate and look at women aged 15 and over to compare different segments of the Indian population. According to Table 9-3, a higher percentage of women on reservations and in the Alaska NVSAs have never married relative to those in the U.S. Indian population and all women. A smaller percentage of women in the Oklahoma TJSAs have never married relative to all women. A portion of these differences is undoubtedly due to the substantially lower median age on the reservations (22.4) and in the Alaska NVSAs (23.1) than among the other groups (e.g., 33.0 among U.S. women) (see Table 9-1).