What does "in short supply" mean? Increasingly less people got married?

[NewHopeR]

Context:

When it comes to healing hearts, marriage may be powerful medicine, but it's in increasingly short supply, Idler says, which does not bode well for aging baby boomers.

 

[bhaisahab]

Re: What does "in short supply" mean? Increasingly less people got married?

Context:

When it comes to healing hearts, marriage may be powerful medicine, but it's in increasingly short supply, Idler says, which does not bode well for aging baby boomers.

If marriage is in short supply, there is not much of it available. It's an odd sentence.

 

[riquecohen]

Re: What does "in short supply" mean? Increasingly less people got married?

Regarding your title, people is a countable noun. For that reason you would have to say fewer people, rather than less people.

 

[BobK]

Re: What does "in short supply" mean? Increasingly less people got married?

And 'in short supply' doesn't mean 'increasingly' anything; there's just not much of it about. The quantity may indeed be decreasing steadily - but the phrase doesn't necessarily imply that.

b