I think another thing that happens is that the people worth getting married to tend to get married – and to stay married. As one gets older, the pool of people available starts to contain a high percentage of people who aren’t married because they’re difficult to be married to (especially after removing from consideration the ones who don’t want to be married and know it.) This still isn’t everybody, of course – there are always going to be some who are widow(er)ed, or who married the wrong person the first time and have divorced and are looking for someone they fit better with. But the percentages get skewed.
I think that a lot of it is cultural; and many cultures do in effect train men and women in different languages, though the difference is often subtle. Many men get good at understanding the male version, many women get good at understanding the female version. Some of both manage to get good at both. Some of us are bad at both of them, though we may get better over time – and, having had to learn much of it with conscious difficulty, may be able to see things about one or both languages that those who easily learned them natively aren’t consciously aware of.
One thing to be noted is that the percentage of second marriages that end in divorce is greater than the percentage of first marriages that end in divorce. The percentage of third marriages than end in divorce is greater than the percentage of second marriages that end in divorce. Because of this, the percentage of marriages than end in divorce is greater than the percentage of people who get married who eventually get divorced, because the percentages of marriages ending in divorce is increased by those second, third, etc. marriages.
That’s interesting. I wonder whether it has to do with the previously-divorced people having in some cases been divorced for good reason, the reason being not just a bad fit between two reasonable people (which can happen) but an unreasonable overall attitude which they hadn’t learned to grow out of; or whether it has to do with some people being more willing to go through a divorce than others, and possibly finding it even easier with practice (though some of the stories I’ve heard sound more like anybody who’d done that once wouldn’t want to do it again.)
Here’s an example of this. Let their be 26 people in a group who get married one day. Call them by the letters of the alphabet. The marriages are A + B, C + D, E + F, G+ H, I + J, K + L, M + N, O + P, Q + R, S + T, U + V, W + X, and Y + Z. The first eight of those marriages last for the rest of their lives. The next five end in divorce. Then the following marriages happen: Q + T, S + R, U + X, and W + V. Those marriages all end in divorce. Then these marriages happen: Q + Y and S + Z Those marriages both end in divorce. So 16 people get married and stay married, which is 16/26 of these people, which is a little more than 61% of them. There have been 13 + 4 + 2 = 19 marriages, 8 of which didn’t end in divorce. So 13 of the 19 marriages don’t end in divorce, which is a little more than 42% of them. So about 58% of the marriages end in divorce, but about 39% of the people in the group get divorced.
And people Q through Z have only the other people Q through Z to choose from – all the people who stayed married weren’t available after the time (in practice after some point before the time) of the first marriage day in that example.
In reality, they’ll also have some number of People Not In The Original Group who didn’t get married and are still single as of the dates of Q - Z’s divorces. There’ll be reasons for that, too, though (unless, maybe, Q - Z got divorced quite soon after their marriages). Some of them were just late bloomers, and might make perfectly good marriage partners; some of them were just unusual, and might make perfectly good partners for some specific people even if they wouldn’t for most; but some of them have no intention of getting married to anybody, and some of them are so obnoxious that they’ve had trouble finding anybody willing to marry them.
I’m not sure how much effect the amount of time spent online is having. If most people of a certain age are doing it, they wouldn’t be left behind their peers in terms of socialization. Both my Gen Z kids spend more time interacting with their peers than I did at that age, even if some of it is online. I’d think that those without access to technology would be left behind, much like living on a farm without the opportunity to hang out with my peers hindered my social development.
My sense is that it is true and related to another couple of threads about inter-generation intervals, and also to many decades of significantly increasing life expectancy excepting a few recent years.
I posit that the stages of adulthood take many longer to go through in more recent cohorts, and further that such is on balance a good thing.
It is longer to finish education and to settle in a career path. (And women are now more commonly as focused on achieving those as much as men are if not more.)
People are financially and emotionally reliant on their families longer.
It is longer to settle in to stable long term partnerships, or to want to. Starting families begins and may even continue longer. More are becoming parents at the ages their parent’s parents became grandparents.
People retire later.
They live longer once retired.
I grant I don’t have cites for each of those. Maybe one or two could end up being a false impression. But overall it seems like the whole life cycle is stretched out. “Adulting” is a more prolonged process and the developmental stages of adulthood delayed.
This was my mother. She’s been married five times. Every time one of her numerous relationships failed, I paid careful attention to how it failed, and determined to not let my relationships fail that way.
I have been with the same guy since age 19. So, 21 years. We spent quite a lot of time feeling each other out prior to getting together, talking about the kind of life we wanted to live, how we would divide responsibilities, our approach to careers and child-raising, etc. His parents were divorced and it was a spectacularly bad marriage and divorce, even though his childhood wasn’t abusive like mine, he had his own share of issues related to his parents’ marriage.
One thing about me, I don’t do “subtext” in relationships. I am crystal clear about what I want and expect the same in return. I am fair, and when I’m not being fair, I call myself out for it, acknowledge my mistakes, do better. By the same token, I have incredibly high standards in men, particularly with regards to their character. The odds that I would meet someone who met those standards at the age I did is nothing short of miraculous.
We have done not too badly, all things considered. We hung in together during the long years of graduate school, we endured the challenges of my PTSD, we survived a miscarriage, for the most part it has been a fun and supportive marriage despite the maelstrom of chaos whirling around us.
We added a child to our marriage three years ago, we are now a small family. I could not have comprehended the stress this would add to the relationship, but there were some unexpected factors, like my son having a neurodevelopmental disorder and my work situation changing (I went from half-assed part time to fairly full-assed full time.) COVID, we couldn’t have predicted COVID. My husband started his own practice three months before COVID hit and three months before the birth of our child. I look at our lives sometimes and I don’t even comprehend how we’re doing it all. We have no logistical support, no grandparents, it’s all us. (Another important factor in young people’s decision-making that shouldn’t be overlooked - grandparents these days are significantly less inclined to help out than they used to be.)
I have been kicking around starting a thread about the way my marriage has changed and how I’m kind of floundering as a result. Nothing bad is happening. We’re not fighting all the time. It’s just hard.
Is it worth it? Yes, without question. As difficult as it is to raise a child with a disability, there is no person I would rather have working on this project with me than him. Because I chose well. I chose someone responsible, strategic, hard-working, and deeply empathetic. We are the exact people needed for this task, it just worked out that way.
Could I have done this in my messy 20s? Probably not, at least not nearly as well as I’m doing it now.
Do I blame anyone for not wanting to get into this? No. And one of the upshots of being extremely online is that there are a million parents on reddit and Facebook and whatever else talking about how hard it is and I think young people can more clearly see what they are potentially getting into, even in the best case scenario (and I definitely consider my situation best-case.) I think one of the other upshots of that, though, is they only hear the people complaining the loudest, and aren’t privy to the moments of joy and pride and deep satisfaction which can also be a regular part of the experience.
I’m going to add to post with personal anecdotes to illustrate!
We have four adult children. The oldest is 37. He plans on getting married and having kids … but unsure if that will be with current girlfriend of two years. He finished college did a few years teaching English abroad, then doubled back to take science classes he never took to apply to med school, is now finishing a residency and to do a fellowship. He thinks of marriage and family as something he will do after that. His perception of his stage of life is where I was at 22.
Next kid always wanted a long term relationship and is living with a partner. They found each other during Covid. No interest in having kids.
Third seems to be romantic relationship adverse and in later 20s is still figuring out what he wants to do with his life.
The baby is 22. Living abroad as an au pair this year after college and no interest in having a serious long term relationship until she is settled on a career path, which will likely be after working in the states a year or so and after more education to come … she wants spouse and kids some day. Just no hurry to get there. Living to do first.
They are all working through similar stages my wife and I had. They are just feeling no urgency to get through them.
Again, I support that and despite the fact that I’d be thrilled to have grandchildren believe that on balance it is a good thing
For my part I am self-perceived as being at a much younger stage than my father was at this age (by then I forget what heart attack number he was on), and my senior partner had retired and died by my age. The next most senior retired by my age too. She is alive and vibrant though! Works with Habitat for Humanity, plays tennis, travels, and sees grandkids who are already getting to High School age.
To address the OP somewhat, my sense is that young singles are not relationship-averse as much as they are pessimistic about everything, including relationships.
People tend to not want to have children when they feel they are not going to be able to give those children an equal or better life than their own. Very few people of childbearing age presently believe this to be true.
Here’s a recent poll about the deep decline in optimism, particularly in the young: gallup poll
How old is the girlfriend? If she is, say, 25, he could argue that it wouldn’t be a big deal if he got married in three years and then they could try to have a kid.
Early thirties. But she is not moving with him when he goes for his one year fellowship. Maybe they will stay as a couple. I hope so; I really like her. FWIW he’s not relationship averse. He’s usually been in one, for two years at a time.
And FWIW many women have a first child in their 30s now. Even if it takes some technical assistance.
The conceptual grounding of the biological clock has its alarm ringing later than it used to.
And I think those are all good takes. If young singles are relationship-averse, then the more important question is why (which has been examined here more than the “if” question), and then is that ok? I say it is, because it would seem to be a rational response to the situation(s) at hand.
A YouTuber who I like and respect, in no small part because he’s analytical and thoughtful, said that you can’t be considered fully “grown up” if you don’t have and raise a kid. Dogs and cats don’t count. I was rather taken aback at that statement, and my knee-jerk reaction was “fuck you, you don’t get to decide that.” It’s basically a case of “well that’s just like, your opinion, man.” Because in this day and age, that seems like a rather antiquated notion, especially considering the quotes above. It comes across as selfish, bringing children into a harsh world just to tick some checkbox on your own scorecard of maturity.
FWIW, “pessimism” is not the same thing as less optimism. The former implies that things will get worse while the latter is just not expecting further improvements.
Maybe there is more pessimism but decreased expectations of improved standard or living housing education is not evidence of expectations for things to worsen.
Personally I think it is fashionable to be pessimistic.
I really wish this was balanced by parents talking more about the positive aspects of having kids. So much of what I saw online and in the media was negative - the difficulty and risks of pregnancy and childbirth, unsupportive partners, how hard it is, and the idea that as a parent your life is basically over. It definitely influenced me to not want kids for most of my life. Yes, pregnancy really sucked, and raising kids is hard work, but it’s been amazing watching my daughter change and grow, master new skills, seeing her personality develop, and sharing experiences with her. I’m happy everyday that I changed my mind, and just wish I’d done so earlier so I could have had one or two more.
We don’t tell young people not to go to college because it’s hard work, or not to travel because it may be uncomfortable or make you sick. I think it’s a shame if they are getting the idea having kids is not worth it.
People tend to not want to have children when they feel they are not going to be able to give those children an equal or better life than their own
Not being optimistic about doing better than your parents doesn’t mean you are afraid of doing worse.
Those in households with lower incomes are significantly more likely than those in higher-income groups to expect the next generation to do better.
Kind of obvious . It was a lot easier for my husband and I to do better than my working class parents than it will be for our kids to do better than us.
There’s another Gallup poll regarding pessimism. There’s not as much breakdown by age, but the trend is down down down. Republicans are considerably more pessimistic than Democrats, however.