The table given compares the proportion of adults aged 50 who were still single and had never married in Japan for the given 5 decades, while the line graph illustrates the rate of married and divorced individuals over the identical period.
It’s clear that the percentage of unmarried 50-year-old adults in Japan has continued to grow over the period. We can also tell that the marriage rate declined during the span of 46 years, whereas the divorce rate grew over the same period.
According to the table, the percentage of adults who didn’t marry experienced a steady rise of 2-5 percent gross each year, from the initial 2% in 1970 to 15% by the end of 2010. In the first two decades as well as from 2000-2010, the difference between the two periods was about 3 percentage points. However, over the course of 1990 to 2000, the rate climbed by 5%, which is the peak of growth.
By looking at the line graph, we can see that the marriage rate started at a high number of 1000 (000s) but experienced a decreasing trend, especially in the span of 1970–1980, when the rate decreased dramatically for 200 (000s) and continued to decrease except for a slight increase in 2000 of about 20 (000s). Conversely, the divorced line shows an increasing tread, starting from a low point at 100(000s) to the final 250 (000s), with the peak happening in 2000 at point 300 (000s). From the end of 2000, the rate slightly decreased and remained constant at 250 (000s) all the way to the end. Notably, the turning points for two lines happened in the same year.