Declining Marriage Rates

People are putting off marriage to later ages. People are more likely to think that premarital sex is morally justifiable. People of marrying-age are more active participants in the work force.Historically, if you were a median woman you needed marriage to have access to a stable income. If you were a median human, you needed marriage to have socially-acceptable sex.Nowadays, people in their 20s have many paths to wealth and sex that do not require the commitment of marriage.People can

Personally, I believe that it has to do with the role of women in the current society, not exactly with the race. I don't live in America, but I think the trend is present in most western countries anyway. We're jumping from the "dependant housewive" to the "independent worker". I remember my mom used to say when I was a kid that I had to find a good husband. But now I have my own house and a good job... I don't need to marry a man to provide myself.It sounds cruel, but I don't think people m

It's not a sexist thought. It's an explanation for why marriage rates are lower among poor adults. Do you have a better explanation?

Since you're posting on Hacker News you're probably in a pretty high income bracket, and your married male friends probably are as well. High income brackets have seen pretty steady marriage rates, and as someone also in this bubble, they tend also to have men with more egalitarian views on marriage. But the flipside is that high-earners tend to delay childbirth-- they have to, because you need a lengthy period of education and work experience to get to that high bracket.It's l

Here is my pithy theory that explains a lot of this, which in my opinion seems to fit the data and is backed up by copious anecdotal evidence."Men put more work up front -- making the first move, taking the women out and showing them a good time, etc. Women put more work once the relationship gets going (i.e. after much sex has been had). They put up with their guy's frustrating habits and work to advance the relationship forward."Now, this is a description of the MAJORITY o

I didn't mean to imply that the "prospects" were referring to the quality of the other partner, but rather to the probability of being married at all. There's a well-documented marriage rate gap based on educational attainment. This is a recent trend.https://www.brookings.e

I'm not a woman hater or pro-man.Maybe because marriage isn't as beneficial as it was 50 years ago? Young people can't afford to buy a home and start a family. So why rush to get married and bring kids into the world. Women are working a lot more and having great careers they don't want to leave.

From the Wiley press release [1], not the blogspam:> “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,” said lead author Daniel T. Lichter, PhD, of Cornell University. “Marriage is still based on love, but it also is fundamentally an economic transaction. Many young men today have little to bring to the marriage barg

It is actually about freedom. Basically when you have more choices, marriage is not something you do automatically when you reach the age. Marriage is stronger when people are financially weak. In poor countries, marriage can happen in very young age because of the financial benefit of it.

Women marrying up is historically the biggest driver of equality in Western societies (poor people becoming richer). Economist have identified it as a problem because as women get richer and they don't want to marry down, that mechanism for "equality" is increasingly lost.So there have been studies about this phenomenon (women not wanting to marry down), but I am too lazy to Google for them.Also, financial troubles of the husband are the strongest indicator for impeding div