Record low marriage rates are going to get a lot lower

Almost no one is getting married anymore. Well, not no one (which I will examine more below), but it's too low.

The statistics reportedly show that American marriages fell 6 percent in 2018, with 6.5 new unions formed out of every 1,000 people, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Sally Curtin, a statistician at the center and lead author of the report, told The Wall Street Journal that that's the lowest rate since the federal government started keeping records of marriage data in 1867.

"Millennials are in peak marriage years, their 20s and 30s, and it's still dropping," Curtin said. "This is historic."

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Why is that? It's actually real simple - too many poor men.

About seven-in-ten adults (71 percent) said it was very important for a man to be able to support a family financially to be a good husband or partner, while just 32 percent said the same for a woman to be a good wife or partner.
...Most American women hope to marry but current shortages of marriageable men -- men with a stable job and a good income -- make this increasingly difficult, especially in the current gig economy of unstable low-paying service jobs.

While society unfairly judges women on their looks, society unfairly judges men on how much money they have. The only difference is that we recognize that the former is wrong, while not doing the same for the latter.
And the gap is enormous.

Estimates were then compared with the actual number and distribution of unmarried men at the national, state and local levels to determine if there were imbalances in the marriage market.

Researchers found that women’s potential — and hypothetical — husbands would have an average income that is 58 percent higher than the actual unmarried men currently available to unmarried women. The hypothetical potential husbands were also estimated to be 30 percent more likely to be employed and 19 percent more likely to have a college degree.

In other words, what real unmarried men have to offer doesn’t match up to what unmarried women want.

58% is not something that is going to get fixed. This leaves men coming from wealthy families getting married at traditional rates, while men in the working class being completely left out.
More importantly, not only are things not getting fixed, they are going in the wrong direction at an increasing rate.
For marriage in the black community, high levels of male incarceration are the primary reason for the lack of acceptable men.
But for overall society, the reason mostly has to do with education, and that's why things will continue to get worse.

Women now comprise nearly 60 percent of enrollment in universities and colleges and men just over 40 percent, the research center reports. Fifty years ago, the gender proportions were reversed.

“We were already not doing so hot,” Ponjuan said. “This pandemic exacerbates what’s happening.”
...
While enrollment in higher education overall fell 2.5 percent in the fall, or by more than 461,000 students compared to the fall of 2019, the decline among men was more than seven times as steep as the decline among women, according to an analysis of figures from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

It's not secret that unemployment rates are higher and pay is lower for those without bachelor degrees. This has lifelong impacts that only grow larger as time goes by.
The reason for this trend begins long before college. Boys are 6% less likely to graduate high school than girls. While there is a gender gap in every area, it is especially large for the impoverished.
This is not healthy for society.

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Comments

enhydra lutris's picture

overpopulation will or will not be impacted by this trend. Is that good or bad? for whom?

Marriage is a boon only to those who make their livings off of the marriage industry, it is an antiquated, pointless ritual, or should be if assorted government and private agencies didn't demand permits for things like driving one's partner home from surgery, etc.

The elites require a permanent underclass. If the existing underclass fails to provide it, they will perhaps have to demote some of their peers.

The US doesn't produce very much, mostly lawsuits, loans, marketing campaigns and misinformation/disinformation. You don't need an advanced degree to be a plumber, and plumbers, when push comes to shove, are more important to society than economists, actuaries, statisticians, sociologists and the like.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

It has been decades since I dated, but saw something which was head scratching. "According to an OK Cupid survey, women find 80 percent of men unattractive. For every 10 men a woman comes across, eight of those are eliminated for their looks alone." For those 80% they were not even rated as average in looks. As one guy put it, 80% of men were simply invisible to women on the dating app. (Ok Cupid looks to have been taken over by match.com).

Which seems to have real world effects. Young men in particular report higher numbers going sexless or without hetero relationships.

Reminds me of an article I read some time ago where the Chinese Communist Party saw young single males as a potential "anti-party force" because the one-child policy had resulted in gender imbalance as tens of millions more boys were born than girls. The party solution was to ensure this huge group of males had jobs and other outlets. And would not turn on the party.

What will be our societal changes as we have greater and great numbers of ill educated, jobless, men with no social ties with no hope of stable relationships.

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@MrWebster
Women didn't get any prettier.
And visa versa.

The only thing that could have changed in regards to your point is women's expectations.

Could all of these things be connected - unrealistic expectations by young women for the opposite sex (both in looks and wealth), and the relatively fast decline in the status and outlook of young men?
Could it be as easy to explain as society favoring young women over young men?

What will be our societal changes as we have greater and great numbers of ill educated, jobless, men with no social ties with no hope of stable relationships.

That will certainly be the outcome in the short-run, but it'll be part of the outcome for women in the long-run too (no social ties with no hope of stable relationship).

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/12/dont-blame-the-frats-113...
For what it's worth, I actually don't agree with the headline: Of course it's wrong to blame them for a "rape epidemic" that never existed, but I see nothing good about the institution of Greek houses and support the drive to do away with them; my own alma mater never had any until recently, and we were better off without them.

The worst part of all this is, up until 2014, gender politics were one of the precious few things that were actually getting BETTER in this country - then suddenly, FEMINISM(TM)! Baby-Boomer pseudointellectuals with Sundowner's Syndrome who closed their minds in the '80s still view themselves as scrappy young system-fighters; they have no idea what they've become...or how my generation views them.

It's like the "hippies spitting on soldiers" gossip-lie-meme all over again (and we still haven't managed to iron that out!).

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

gjohnsit, because the transformation of young people's lives in this crisis filled era interests me, concerns me, and isn't talked about enough.

I know what some of my women friends would say. Population has to go down. Therefore, why form heterosexual families. There's no incentive to have children. Therefore, get rapturous about your job as a mortgage underwriter. Get financially independent and secure. The previous generation proved men couldn't stay clean and sober long enough to support their children, so we're on our own.

I sort of get it. But I still feel family formation is an important part of the future of our species, not just because without children there will be no future, but because in caring for each other we learn compassion, and without compassion we write Nuclear Posture Reviews in which all life is destroyed and that's considered normal.

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@Linda Wood
So I get that.
But at the same time, marriage isn't just about having kids. In fact, kids are not necessary.

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@Linda Wood

about what I wrote above because I do think men, especially young men, are being hammered in our recent social order. I'm amazed at how sane men manage to be when so many contradictory things are expected of them.

Cards on the table, I am a strong believer in marriage but mostly because I hope it leads to more individual care in raising our children.

Tangentially, Elizabeth Warren and her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi wrote an important book called, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke. They document how vastly less secure American families are with two incomes than their grandparents were with one income. Big subject, long discussion.

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if women made equal wages.
young people don't overwhelmingly marry here in Texas, but they do have babies. That does lead to setting visitation and child support, normally according to state guidelines.
Many years ago, our state had a 65% divorce rate. Most marriages end in divorce. The current rate, if lower, would be because they are baby Daddy/Momma cases where people didn't marry in the first place.
Many marriages are to get insurance for the woman and child on Dad/Husband's employer provided insurance. Marriage is not normally a construct of ancient tradition, but of practicality, and money-based.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

mimi's picture

@on the cusp @on the cusp @on the cusp
do they really earn different wages for the same kind of work? That is a real question, no snark.

May be it is not a matter of different wages, but more about blocking out women from getting certain jobs. May be it is that the employers are willing to pay amount xyz for a certain job/work and may be then the discrimination is that they block women from getting those jobs This would be a gender discrimination and not a wage discrimination. May be this is hairsplitting nonsense.

Trying to make it clearer. Here in Germany, there are the stories of women, who have gotten jobs, usually reserved for men, like fire truck or garbage truck drivers and operators These women are happy to have gotten the chance to show they can do the jobs as well as men. Now, do you think, if a woman hangs on right side from those trucks and a man hangs from the left side, that they get get different salaries?

???

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mimi's picture

if the man hasn't both, money and education, women believe solidarity with their male mate isn't worth their efforts.

It is still believed by women that education of a man gives him the opportunity to provide more money towards a relationship and the babies that seem to pop up out of nowhere. Women don't have to get pregnant these days, they do have the control over it, at least if they can afford and have access to anti-baby pills. (Back in the seventies I learned that it was much easier and without costs to get access to anti-baby pills in Cameroon and other African nations than it was in the US)

Education is so expensive, men without money won't get the education. Without education a man is believed to more certainly remain poor. Logically women have less interest in men without education.

I apparently see it differently from most around here. It is not the women that get the bad deal, it is the men. Too poor, too uneducated and that for reasons the majority of men can't control. So many things are wrong and bad in your society, most people looking from outside in, wouldn't even start to think about why it is so wrong. hey stop thinking, as it is too disgusting in their minds.

It would be interesting to compare the statistics with those from countries, where education is free of cost (France, Germany). You don't need money to get an eduction. It is still an advantage to have that education in those countries, as it is often the pre-condition to get a higher paid job.

To summarize what I believe is true. You can be poor in France or Germany and get an education for free. With that education you can get a higher paid job. It is worthwhile to get the education. If you are poor in the US, you can't get an education. Even ir you were able to get the education, it is not a pre-condition to get a higher paid job, nor is it a certainty.

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@mimi

I apparently see it differently from most around here. It is not the women that get the bad deal, it is the men. Too poor, too uneducated and that for reasons the majority of men can't control.

It's just that society has been trained not to consider the idea that young men might be getting screwed on a structural level. If a man fails then it must be his fault. Victim blame.
The thing is, this will eventually have a negative impact on women too.

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as a diploma these days. I'm seeing more women learning the trades historically male dominated. Mechanics, carpenters, electricians, equipment operators, etc. all have more female apprentices in their fields. And trade schools train more gals every year. Most guarantee jobs upon completion.

As for marriage, it seems mostly a financial decision. There are "marriage penalties" in many assistance programs. I know older folks 'living in sin' so as to not lose their benefit levels.

As for kids, they are also expensive to raise. Potential parents struggling financially are more hesitant to go down that path.

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@QMS

and also vice versa, i.e., when a longterm unmarried couple decides to marry so they may both receive medical insurance coverage through one employer.

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Low Fertility in Japan - No End

INTRODUCTION | After more than 40 years of very low birth rates, Japan now has one of the oldest populations in the world. Sustained low birth rates mean that there are few children in the population and eventually few working-age adults to drive economic growth and support the relatively large proportion of elderly, who were born in a previous era when fertility was higher. But why are young Japanese having so few children? One reason appears to be the uncertain employment prospects for young men, which make them poor candidates for marriage. The persistence of strong gender differences in housework and childcare also make the "marriage package" unattractive for Japanese women. Over the years, the Japanese government has introduced and expanded several programs to encourage young Japanese to marry and have children, including parental leave, monetary assistance to parents, and highly subsidized childcare. So far, however, these programs appear to have had very little impact.

The factors are similar in the US, primarily insecure employment and high housing costs, -- with one exception. The unmarried birth rate in Japan is negligible; whereas in the US it's 40% of live births. The US population is aging more slowly than Japan because US life expectancy is 78.54 years compared to 84.21 in Japan. On the plus side for Japan with its low birth rate, it also has the lowest in the world infant mortality rate.

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Feminism really has crushed the working class
And men want no part of a legal system where they have no reproductive rights and get robbed financially?
Raising kids. Whodda thunk it meant a nuclear family required a woman to stay home and a man to be the wage earner?
I know this is gonna raise some flak, but biology doesn't give a fuck about politics or feminist idealism.
If women raised kids the work force would shrink, wages would increase, but the pandora's box of two earner families is irreversible, permanent damage to the nuclear family now.

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@Battle of Blair Mountain

So you're saying women really are hard wired to be prostitutes

yeh, that's what I was saying.
I was also saying whatever misogynist, racist, and bigoted thing that you want to apply to me.
Sheesh.

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