A Pew report based on Census data shows an increasing willingness to forgo marriage. What’s going on?
Fortune, Yahoo, Aleteia, the Hill and other news outlets cited Pew. None of them offered any explanations. Nor did Pew.
But I will, and I think the reasons are clear.
The Pew Research Center reports a Record-High Share of 40-Year-Olds in the U.S. Have Never Been Married.
Report Key Points
- As of 2021, 25% of 40-year-olds in the United States had never been married. This was a significant increase from 20% in 2010, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data.
- In 1980, just 6% of 40-year-olds had never been married.
- A higher share of men than women had never married.
- Black 40-year-olds were much more likely to have never married than Hispanic, White and Asian 40-year-olds.
- The overall decrease in the share of 40-year-olds who have married is especially notable because the share of 40-year-olds who had completed at least a bachelor’s degree was much higher in 2021 than in 1980 (39% vs. 18%).
A Search for Answers
Five Explanations for What’s Going On?
- Changing lifestyle priorities.
- Student debt disparity and debt in general.
- Inflation – Wages have not kept up with inflation.
- Education and Safety
- Home prices are hugely unaffordable.
#1: Changing Lifestyle Priorities
Flexibility is in. Traveling is in. Raising kids is out for many reasons, cited below.
Not only are kids extremely expensive, they take a lot of time. Travelling with kids is expensive and a hassle as well. Factor in the rising cost of child care with the desire to travel more and see more places.
If you don’t want kids but do want a more flexible lifestyle, with more travel, why get married?
#2: Student Debt Disparity and Debt in General
Someone with no student debt is reluctant to marry someone with $80,000 in student debt.
Debt in general is a shared responsibility the moment you get married. Prenups do not change this fact. If expenses are shared, and increasingly they are, what happens when one person can afford to eat out and travel, but the other can’t?
The answer is no marriage.
#3: Wages Have Not Kept Up With Inflation
Wage Notes
- The total private wage series only dates to March of 2006.
- Wage data or production and nonsupervisory workers dates back to 1964.
- The deflator for all workers is the CPI-U (normal published CPI).
- The deflator for production workers is the CPI-W.
Adjusted for inflation (a dollar bought much more in 1973 than it does today), wages have barely risen.
In real terms, making $4.05 per hour in February of 1973 would be worth nearly as much as someone making $28.26 today.
That is how much inflation has destroyed the dollar. This also relates to the shared expense idea and thus attitudes as well.
Hoot of the Day
Please note the Minneapolis Fed President Says “Wage Growth Is Too High” for Our Two Percent Inflation Target
Four Statements By Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari
- “Wage growth is at a level that it is actually too high to be consistent with our 2 percent inflation target.”
- “We would like to avoid a recession but we know we have to get inflation down. Getting inflation down is job one.”
- “We would need to get wage growth closer to 3 percent to be consistent to our 2 percent inflation target.”
- “I don’t know how embedded [wage growth is] but it is our job to make sure that it does not become embedded.”
#4: Education and Safety
Schools are a huge issue. So is safety, especially in big cities.
Who wants to raise kids in a big city public school system? But if you don’t want kids, why get married?
#5: Home Prices Are Hugely Unaffordable
“But you would think expensive housing would have the opposite effect. It would encourage marriage because you need two incomes to afford it.”
I wouldn’t. This ties back to the idea that Millennials who have no student debt do not want to be responsible for someone with $80,000 in student debt. Debt, debt difference, and earnings differences are very big issues.
It’s a big deal when one person can barely afford a home or a condo but cannot because the significant other has too much debt.
For discussion, please see The Starter Home Is No More, Even in Second Tier Markets
The Great Debate: Are Americans Better Off Today Than in the 1980s?
The entire discussion above ties into The Great Debate: Are Americans Better Off Today Than in the 1980s?
Are we better off now? Two conservatives duke it out. One says yes, the other no.
I commented: Answers likely depend on student debt, ability to buy a house, overall debt, and ability to raise a family.
If your goal is to raise a family, this debate is not even close.
As a twice-divorced father of two adult never-married sons, the reason men are not marrying is crystal-clear: Western divorce laws. The second a man says, “I do,” he invites the State into his life. His wife now has every incentive to divorce and none to work out the inevitable rough patches in any marriage – as evidenced by statistics which show that 80% of divorces are initiated by the woman, 90% if she’s college-educated. She gets half of his stuff, control of his children, a long-term pension and the freedom to sample every boy’s goods in the county. For her, what’s not to like? For him it’s the riskiest behavior available. As the WOPR computer told its creator in “War Games,” a man’s only winning move is not to play.
Please search the Wheatly Institute study on divorce rates being linked to the number of premarital s*x partners. People who marry as v1rgins had almost zero divorce rate after 5 years. And most people who had 20 or more premarital s*x partners were divorced within 5 years. This study proves that the best candidates for long, healthy marriages are sexually inexperienced people. And it shows that people who’ve slept around for most of their adult life are less likely to form permanent marriage bonds with their spouses.
The reason college educated women initiate divorce more could be linked to their promiscuous s*xual behavior stretching from High School through obtaining their college degrees. It seems that having lots of s*xual partners and falling in-and-out of love many times before marriage ruins the natural bonding mechanism in humans.
If you want your kids to have excellent marriages, you should encourage them to remain v1rgins before the wedding and to marry other v1rgins. That is what most societies have done throughout human history.
Love and sex are separate. Yeah I know nobody agrees with that, but as someone who has loved a few, despite the non-sex, Im pretty sure everyone else is the same way. Your brain decides who you love, not any human activity. This is why the pretty rich girl from one side of the tracks falls for the heroin-addict leather biker from the other side. It’s why love is such a mystery, cause often it makes little sense. My original post, tho, was how with 40 years of doing everything possible to rise up the females and ignore the males, we have made a country so ridiculously expensive that LITTLE can get started.
Remember the Japanese housewife boycott? That STILL has impact. Without purpose or religion most people are existentialist about family. They don’t have kids because there is no point. And generally, unless you are lucky, no guarantee that the life you just dropped on the planet will be beneficial . In some cases the child is angry, violent or miserable. Why take the chance anymore, especially if your childhood stunk. I would wager that if you surveyed kids from the 90s into 2000s they are pretty much lost and depressed
You are probably right but sounds like a drag!
Probably since the 60s the self-absorbed American cares only about their ego and happiness. The family was a mess in the 70s and 80s. Those kids from Boomers are not well-raised either. The promiscuity accelerated from the 70s onwards and now we have curriculum that starts hammering on sex and sexual mores in 5th grade. There is also a trendy explosion of transsexuality, which is a clear indication that the population really doesn’t need more people. That’s either by pharma,chemicals,drugs or behavioral changes that point to decline in population. Sort of like fish that change sex when there’s too much of one gender.
Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy says the increasing rate of transsexuals could likely be linked to exposure to hormone-altering chemicals. He (and Alex Jones) cite studies in which male frogs exposed to high levels of atrazine turned into females. And Kennedy says our children are also exposed to high levels of this chemical.
I had two sons and they’re both grown. But if I were raising a daughter today, I would get her out of all co-ed schools after puberty, home school, surround her with marriage-minded friends (church social groups), limit her exposure to mainstream media and its hypersexual messages, and tell her about the scientific studies inking promiscuity and divorce rates.
The greatest blessing in the world is a solid, loving family. That means one of the greatest gifts you can give a child (especially a daughter) is the information and encouragement needed to avoid the horrors of adultery, divorce and fatherless children.
I think isolation form boys would be somewhat of a shame, though I would agree that public school’s mandates have changed so radically there isn’t that much to gain there.
One thing I would say is “social” media is a big big problem for girls. It creates a lot of envy and FOMO. Body image is destroyed by these internet influencer clowns. I have seen decently adjusted young 4th graders/5th graders go into middle school and get totally wrecked and overly sexualized without the cerebral selfconfidence to counteract it. Why the schools are jumping all over sexual preferences at age 9 onwards is beyond me.
As far as marriage, I think the low dating ratio does create a tolerance for other personalities and you are not prone to swapping people like cars in marriage. Although I would say finding a person you want to be with “forever” is best served by exposure to different people
MISH said: “In real terms, making $4.05 per hour in February of 1973 would be worth nearly as much as someone making $28.26 today.”
I think your example UNDERSTATES inflation. When you compare today’s wages to prices of things like cars, housing and gasoline from 1973, today’s prices could easily be 10X to 20X higher. That means $4.05/hr in 1973 could equal $40/hr to $80/hr in 2023.
I am looking forward to reading your future post on the CAUSE of inflation.
Here are a couple reasons
1. Emotional immaturity.
2. Singles are hooking up and dating longer.
3. Women are more career-oriented.
4. Marriage and kids are expensive.
5. We’re less religious.
Family court is just a giant wealth transfer machine that extracts capital and income from men to women and the legal industry. Men are wising up.
After all, women sleep with who they want, but marry who they can. Men sleep with who they can, but only marry who they want. And given the divorce cesspool that awaits ~60% of married men, marriage makes about as much sense as asbestos insulation or unfiltered cigarettes.
As a 56 year old I see no benefit to getting married at all. Today’s whack was a $3300 bill to repair the car, the upcoming $1500 root canal and the appliances which cost at least $1000 each and last no more than 8 years. 0% cost of livings for 2011, 12 and 13. Meanwhile, every one over the age of 70 has a pension, goes on Viking River Cruises, smokes and drinks like crazy but have all their long term care and health care costs covered. $40,000 weddings. The kids wont be there for you. A spouse is likely to be gone before the probs really start. Yeah, give me one good reason where marriage is anything but a big laugh.
As someone closer to 70 than 60 by a wide margin, my cohort don’t have a private pension in the main unless they were part of a union or worked at the same company for 30 years, which didn’t happen for the latter group unless one was extremely lucky.
Again, my cohort of limited friends that are still living do not go on cruises. They may go on vacations to Europe, Hawaii, if they can walk, don’t have COPD, don’t have a cardiac issue, and remained to stay fit. Only one person in my circle of aging boomers fits the aforementioned and latter category.
$40,000.00 weddings are a thing of the past. Two years ago, before the inflation monster kicked in my spouse and I went to wedding in Napa, CA and the wedding cost over $50,000.00. It was not extravagant either. Today, that same wedding would cost at least 60K if not more.
Some children will be there for you. It depends on how you and your spouse raised them and what kind of person they are.
Women in general out live men so they get to deal the grief, loss of a public pension, grief, etc. Men are generally the weaker gender. They cave in after the spouse has died. There are of course exceptions in every gender but for the most part what I wrote is accurate.
Benefits of marriage:
1) Joy and love of children
2) Joy and love of grandchildren
3) Sharing household expenses saves money
4) Companionship and personal support
5) Avoidance of internet dating cesspools
6) Less housework when shared by two or more people
I could go on and on…
Some might say that there has been a decline in the percentage of the general population that composes the pool of people worth marrying.
Some might say that the change in cultural norms has been for people not feeling obligated to marry, so those louts and shrews from past generations aren’t getting hitched at the same rate as today.
Some might say the prospect of marrying has lost its appeal with the financial/legal entanglements that may arise in the future, in addition to the debt burdens that were cited above.
Oh boy did you miss the elephant in the room. What your your article describes are symptoms, not causes. Marriage rates are down for the simple reason there’s no longer anything in it for men. The rest is just noise.
The three main reasons (in the USA) marriage rates are tanking:
1) Alimony
2) Child Support
3) Welfare
1) I’ve read the modern failure rate for 1st/2nd/3rd+ marriages is currently running at 50%/67%75%. Approximately 80% of divorces are initiated by the female. Depending on the state, the male can be on the hook for alimony for a lifetime. Remind me why I’m not signing on the dotted line again?
2) Courts award custody, and resultant child support, 80%* of the time to the female. Unless your rich, with a battery of lawyers going to bat on a regular basis, men lose quality time with their kids, have to watch from the sidelines as someone else, with no vested interest, helps them grow up.
3) There is absolutely no incentive (financial, cultural and/or pragmatic) for women to work on a marriage. The moment they pull the pin, big daddy gov’t is there to ensure they’re taken care of. A relatively recent article on the annual dollar equivalent of total government assistance for a welfare family was in excess of 76k.**
4) The children have grown up.
This isn’t conjecture. Yesterday’s children are today’s adults. They grew up witnessing, living in, in real-time, what I’ve just described. Is it any wonder more and more of those kids, are weighing the pros and cons, and end up saying, “no thanks, I’ll find something else”.
– – – – –
There’s an old saying, describing the pursuit of women:
A hooker is someone you pay to have sex.
A girlfriend is someone you pay (date) in the hopes of having sex.
A wife is someone you pay (home) not to have sex.
An ex-wife is someone you pay (alimony/child support) to have sex with other men.
– No thank you, sir. I do not want another.
– – – – –
* 2017 US Census Bureau
** Heritage.org article 11/19/21
All of the reasons I provided are valid. Changing attitudes is the most important one. We can add your idea, obesity, drugs and many other things, but I suggest you have a jaded cynical view to state yours is the big reason.
Women want careers now they do not want to stay at home taking care of the kids. That’s a big attitude change.
I’ve been married 29 years, and I can tell you that you are WRONG about marriage. There is unlimited good in marriage for men AND women. If both parties are loyal to one another and committed to each other, marriage is wonderful. And so is family life. I am sorry that you never experienced that.
I believe the ruling elite are deliberately trying to destroy marriages and ruin families. Their strategy involves s*xualization of children, encouraging promiscuity among teenagers and college students, brainwashing women to believe that careers are more important than family, blatant anti-father bias in public aid (Public housing, for example), anti-male bias in family/divorce courts, and a constant drumbeat of anti-male rhetoric.
As a result of all this madness, the USA has one of the highest rates of fatherless households in the world. Fatherless children are many times more likely to go to prison, use drugs, become prostitutes, join gangs, suffer depression and commit suicide.
Divorce rates (and hence, fatherlessness) are directly linked to the number of pre-marital s*x partners. The more s*x partners before marriage, the higher the divorce rate. And after divorce, the children are much more likely to suffer horrible problems that are extremely expensive and detrimental to society. This is why almost every culture on earth for most of human history valued chastity before marriage. Strong families are the backbone of strong societies, and strong marriages start with s*xually inexperienced young people.
I don’t know if the ruling elite are true Marxists. But the anti-family aspect of their strategy certainly coincides with the writings of Karl Marx, who supported the destruction of middle-class families.
If you want to fight back against this evil, show the data to your children and encourage them to remain v1rgins until they’re married.
Sorry but this is a false positive so to speak driven by the dissolution of the nuclear family, with Blacks as the leading edge.
What changed in 1980 was probably reporting methods but also the insanity of the 1970s.
Obviously there are multiple vectors which are difficult to weight properly.
But the data set itself is marred: A lot of people who used to get married now live together or have some other form of cohabitation; the institution of marriage is not what it used to be, and the numbers are simply not comparable over time. This makes all further speculation a treasure hunt in the dark.
How do you explain declining birth rates worldwide? The number of women who never have kids is going up. Seems consistent with not having a male sidekick.
The Pill
Yes a global phenomenon. But also can be attributed to industrialization. You don’t need a lot of kids to WORK for you on the farm etc. Plus women’s rights. Most women in Western Countries have kids late too, when they figure out their jobs and careers are just as boring as being a Mom.
This is happening worldwide, so any explanation specific to the US probably has little impact. The corollary issue is lack of babies. Outside of central Africa, population is going down. Women who have kids have the same amount of kids as they did decades ago. The problem is too many women aren’t having any kids.
Women control population. Not men. So, I think women’s attitudes have changed. They used to get married young and start having kids at a young age. They stayed home to look after the kids while the husband worked. A system that had worked forever. Now, women work. So they depend less on a husband. And they marry at an older age. As women age, it gets harder to have kids. And even if the husband works, they have to work too. So, there’s no one to raise the kids.
Today, a lot of young women are simply not attractive. Obesity is common, tattoos, even nose rings. combine that with school debt, consumer debt, stds and their arrogance and marriage isn’t popular with young men.
Undoubtedly our culture of egoism and pleasure seeking plays a large role.
The ” lets make a baby” people are losing their kids to “other” religion.
The “let’s make a baby” people always win out in the end because the no kids genes are eliminated from the gene pool.
In “other” countries couples get married to create new life for god. For them most American are filthy sinners. They come here to spread their religion and superior way of life. Godless countries have a lot of singles over 40Y. Godless countries eliminate themselves. In UK the majority of new born babies have “other” foreign names. France suppressed “other” people way of life. That’s why France is burning.
There are few religious sects in this country that obey their own religious leaders
and ignore the filthy rest.
Those who really feel the need to be a parent start early looking for partners who want kids also. My two girls never lost time dating guys who didn’t want any or were uncertain. They were eliminated early leaving only the serious ones so by the late 20s they were already set up. Also they married men whose parents were still married. Divorce runs in families. Unfortunately TV, movies and culture in general now celebrates divorce and the fallacious search for a “soulmate”.
The financial angle is just an excuse. If you don’t want kids then fine. The gene pool is better off without your genes. The organisms that cannot adapt to the environment enough to pass on their genes are eliminated. It’s as simple as that.
Missing from these statistics is the proportion of people who live as a couple but are not married. For example, in my immediate family there are four young couples who have children and are in the process of buying a house. Only 3 are married (but in France we have an intermediate legal status between married and unmarried).
The main advantage in marriage (in France) is that the taxes are much lower when the difference in income between the two members of the couple is large (for example one of them does not work). . This is because the taxes are progressive. But nowadays in general both partners of a couple work, and their incomes are not very different.
In the US there is probably another reason for couples not to be married: the legal consequences, generally very harmful for a man, of a divorce.
France also pays couples or singles extra money monthly when they have kids. The “allocations familiales” are also progressive meaning that the payments are not linear.
I think that numbers 3, 5, and 2 in your list are the most important in that order. I would also add that since women have close to equal pay and have higher education than men (on average) that there are more women opting not to put up with the headache (or heartache) of a man on a commitment basis.
A successful marriage takes a lot of work (and compromise) and financial difficulties just add to the stresses. Labor’s share of GDP has been steadily decreasing. Increasing the share could help.
“Black 40-year-olds were much more likely to have never married than Hispanic, White and Asian 40-year-olds”
But I wager they have far more kids anyways.
Bad news for the Wedding Industrial Complex
One quarter of US 40Y …
In the early 1900 single over 40Y reached 16%. After WWI, during the depression,
and especially after WWII the value of life and creating life became more important than money in Europe & US : 70 million baby boomer were born.
The bottom was 1960, 1970 and 1980, since LBJ.
You are correct with your figures. There has always been a certain percentage who just don’t want to have kids.
Hi Mish, all reasons are appropriate but all are missing the point. I humbly submit the following without the concern of political correctness. It is really quite simple. Women for the most part are very independent and have worked hard and have accumulated their own assets. They are now in the role of the male when divorce happens. Their future spouse may get fifty percent of their hard-earned assets. The part that generally fell upon the husband. This newly found position female is simply not willing to share with their future partner and thus stays single.
They simply will not risk what the male just naturally did. If the women don’t figure it out they will surpass the males in being single as most of my friends will not, nor would they marry the older successful female for that attitude along with numerous other reasons. Mark my words-women will surpass men as the unmarried better half…..or at least they believe they are.
But this achievement need is supposedly tempered by womans overwhelming drive to bear children. Hormones can drive people to do all kinds of things that might not be in their best financial interests.
Another point is largely the guy has been on the hook for divorce. Not sure how that will look in the future.
The missing chart is how many Never Marrieds have children? The assumptions above seem to have forgotten the biggest reason for the woman to skip marriage is the generosity of government benefits for the SINGLE Mom. A few comments touch on this, but the men worried about alimony or property divides are the ones who have jobs. The commenter got it right, government through welfare and the courts has crushed marriage rates.
Oh yea, they’re lined up down the block for that sweet lifestyle… a squalid 2 bedroom full of shrieking children, with just enough extra for cigarrettes and party liquor every now and again. Livin’ large, baybee!
Actually often they are lined up around the block. If it were not so lucrative given their alternatives it would not be so widespread. There is a lot more income than you seem to think.
Actually, you’re making stuff up and believing it as gospel truth.
Obviously you live in an elite world. Watch the lines when the Section 8 vouchers are expanded. How many in your circle get $800 a month from social security for each child they get labeled as ADHD? When was your last visit in a lower to lower middle class school? Or when you last stood in line at WalMart behind someone using their EBT card? How about the State giving the grandparents a $120 month EBT voucher per grandchild for those they have living with them? Just because this is not your world does not mean it does not exist.
I also forgot to add that what is happening with marriage was predicted in John Nash’s game theory or the ‘Nash Equilibrium.’
In the movie, “A Beautiful Mind” there is a scene where Nash is in a bar and he visualizes the (failed) end state of all men chasing after the one beautiful blond woman in the room. He theorizes that the only way it can work is if each partner chooses a second alternative rather than everyone chasing after the most beautiful women. This is how you achieve equilibrium.
Today, most women are chasing after the top 1% of men which is mathematically impossible to achieve for all women.
“Today, most women are chasing after the top 1% of men which is mathematically impossible to achieve for all women.”
You make some good points today MPO45v2. Imagine the hypothetical implosion you mentioned happening on October 24, 2029. All of a sudden the 1% of men being chased are wiped out financially. The Women might just have to settle for the nice guy. Maybe that is the Grand design. Sadly, Financial Collapse and War are perhaps the two most democratic states of humanity that exist.
You mention student debt several times, but the largest group, of never-marrieds are people with a HS education or less – people with no student debt.
Yes but did you note what I also said,
“The overall decrease in the share of 40-year-olds who have married is especially notable because the share of 40-year-olds who had completed at least a bachelor’s degree was much higher in 2021 than in 1980 (39% vs. 18%).”
Stunning
Increasing marriage tax penalties, start with the SALT tax deduction limit of $10k each if you are single and $10k total if you are married. That’s $2400 in extra tax right there. Add in the loss of benefits like welfare, food stamps, etc, at the low end of the income spectrum and higher tax rates at the very high end.
There is a popular You-tuber called Better Bachelor that explores some of these issues. While the videos tend to be misogynistic, in my opinion, there are some gems like the video in the link below where women outline their expectations of men and their relationship. Worthy of a watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52gkHbMWR3g
But this whole thing reinforces what I’ve been saying about demographics, the coming university implosion, the coming economic implosion and the social security / medicare implosion. It will all metastasize around 2030 or perhaps in the grand irony of the universe it will be October 24, 2029.
Got exit plans?
Guns and Butter were the solution for continuing the Vietnam war. With LBJ and the Great Society Welfare State, the US has devolved into a Harem Nation. . It is said that 20 percent of the single guys get 80% of the action from single girls. Then we hear from those same girls what creeps these guys are, how they are uncommitted, not attentive, etc.
Being a moral man I have turned down offers from these same women who thought I fit the profile of the 20% group of men. I would ask them if they ever had any Nice guys want their company, and turned them down. The answer was, “don’t get me started on all the men I turned down.”
Out of that 20% of men figure that I mentioned there is one man who is getting more action than anyone else. His name is Uncle Sam. Many women with children have chosen Uncle Sam himself to be their husband. They do cheat on him when needed, and have flings every once in awhile on the side.
As 1 person mentioned, the large # of HS educated does put some doubt on debt (student debt anyway). A big part of that is that studies show women only want to marry up or across. With more women in college … high school educated males may have slim pickins the spouse market.
Men who are less successful in making money are less likely to get married and have kids.
Evolution favors those who are economically successful. Who are most likely to be economically successful? Sociopaths and psychopaths. They’re the ones running the show right now.
Bingo,
dtj nailed it.
Mishes points are good too, but need more understanding of the cultural/DNA part.
And women do not want to marry men that can not afford to pay the bills after they have kids. Live together, yes, but not start a family. It’s in their DNA to find a Success Object to provide for them if they want a family.
Men wait until they achieve success to compete for the women they really want to marry. It’s all in our DNA.
So yes, inequality and flat male wages slows it down. Then since the GFC it all accelerated… no surprise.
But we also have a couple of generations of boys seeing where their dad ended up… divorced… wife got the kids (connections) and the house and their dad got to work to pay the bills with little connection to their kids. Why won’t they reject that future.
I talked to a 40+ never married hetro the other day. He balked at the thought of marriage.
So it is part economic, but also part cultural and driven by our DNA too.
What was in the DNA w… men hunt and protect, women raise kids and vegetables. Now you have massive blame it all on social upheaval. Women hunt and fugly is cool, while men think they can have babies and hide their junk in baggy shorts.
Especially in the arena of politics. Apparently 3% of males and 1% of females are psychopaths, but in the workforce, its estimated that about 10% of managers are psychopaths. A few years ago, a study concluded that about 24% of CEOs in great Britain were psychopaths. The higher-up the food-chain of power you go, the richer the concentration of psychopaths. I would estimate that at least 40 – 50% of Federal politicians in liberal democracies are psychopaths. This is one reason why the profession of “politician” routinely ranks near the bottom of the list of respected professions, along with used-car salesmen….
Five Explanations for What’s Going On?
You forgot to mention:
#6-Work ethics-This is the same generation that came up with quiet quitters. The same generation that makes up the most of the uber drivers. The same gen that play more hours of video games than they work.
#7-The internet-Not only does the internet create false expectations but it also creates the bad habits of instant gratification. Also like what Frilton Miedman said, Pornhub.
#8-The liberal agenda to breaking traditions
-I’d also like to add to PEW’s research that they didn’t include whether the single 40 year olds wanted to get married or is it that no one wants to marry them?
I’d also like to know the successful marriage rate among generations.
Billy, to #6 I’d note that Millennials & Gen Z grew up in the aftermath of ’08, some saw everything their parents worked for disappear. I’m sure more than a few resulted in divorces/split families.
This would also explain their zeal in crypto, wanting to create their own “wealth” that can’t be touched by the government, albeit misguided.
.
What is misguided about recognizing a Ponzi scheme.
Getting in early.
Then not being greedy and getting out early.
Thanks for giving me a good laugh at the end of a long day!
#9. Why are so many boys on Ritalin?
Because it has less stigma than Adderall.
This comment is purely anecdotal. Per a discussion with Gen X and Y females that graduated college , their future spouse has to have at minimum a similar or preferred better income than them. They also want a spouse that has a solid track-record of increasing income and a steady job history or progression in the ranks if job hopping, no children or only one child from prior marriages, and a homeowner – renters need not apply.
Marriages are delayed during economic challenging times. The last so-called boom times in my life were the 50s, 60s and the 90s – the latter more of pop gun that a boom. The 70s were an era of stagflation and the 80s were powered by debt at the household and governmental levels plus a demographic tailwind that hasn’t occurred since.
Well there’s always the MGTOW movement. Men not willing to risk their financial future or freedom at the risk of divorce lawyers for never ending alimony and child support payments.
Selfishness plays a part as neither men nor women are willing to “give up” and “settle” for something that doesn’t meet an impossible standard.
Debt though has to play a big part. No way I’d get married to someone buried in payments either student loans or massive CC debt.
I married a man with massive amounts of debt and lower income than me (at the time.) He was aware of his previous money mistakes and wanted to improve his situation. He was ambitious and most importantly loved me. I have no regrets, every year is better than the last. I was doing well before but he supported me in a way that allowed me to start my own business and make even more money. I joke that if we got divorced, he definitely deserves half. People would benefit from reassessing their decision making around marriage and money. Debt you can pay off. Personality is forever. Marry someone you can truly make a better life with. The checklist is not completely useless, but such a big decision requires deep thought about tradeoffs. Debt or height being a deal breaker is why so many women are unhappy – they married a checklist. Many people blame women’s liberation but unironically women are not liberated if they are still thinking about “marrying up” or “marrying down.”
Forgot another reason (we really need an edit button – LOL)
Women are graduating college at record numbers compared to men (more women graduate than men now). VERY few women will ‘marry down’ in terms of income or education. So I suspect the reason more men are single at 40 than women and that high school percentage of never married is so high is because college educated women aren’t marrying high school educated men. Meanwhile any man who graduates is in high demand and likely gets his pick of women to marry.
Now, why are more women graduating than men? Hint, they were effectively neutered in elementary school.
That may be true but I also think that a lot of the jobs these days that pay well that are male dominated don’t require a degree.
Plumbers, Electricians, HVAC, Carpenters etc can all pull in 6 figure incomes easily these days. My neighbor is a pool guy and he pulls in 6 figures just cleaning pools (his own 1 man business).
If your a guy and you don’t mind working hard, you can earn a very nice living without a degree and secure in the knowledge that your job can’t be outsourced.
I generally agree, but one thing not mentioned is the quality of degrees. STEM are still male dominated while women tend to get worthless Liberal Arts degrees.
They may get useless degrees but it doesn’t stop them from getting their noses in the air when it comes to marrying men without one.
For women, it’s all about status. When she’s with her friends who all have degrees she doesn’t want to admit to them that her husband doesn’t have one because they will look down on her.
1) Black women earn more money than most black men. 2) Shingle mums with kids
are getting paid to make love. 3) Dog mums : animals are better than men. 4) Artificial insemination, no rush.
5) Women lib, that destroy families for sixty years since the sixties, at peak.
And the winner is…. #5 The biggest upheaval in 2000 years.
Not that it is good or bad, but it changed things dramatically over three generations. BTW, one generation is enough to achieve siginificant social change.
The fact that high school or less education represents the highest percentage of unmarried 40 year olds (33% vs 18% of college degrees) would tend to rule out your #2 reason (at least the student debt part).
I’d like to offer another explanation. Marriage has become a raw deal for men thanks to divorce courts that heavily favor women. It’s almost impossible for men to get custody of their kids so they have to end up paying child support and get limited access to kid. Plus in many states they also need to pay spousal support potentially forever and women don’t remarry so they can receive this money forever even if they live with future boyfriends (I know quite a few women doing this). There is very little incentive these days for men to get married and a HUGE downside unless you have a solid prenup and that I suspect is why men are marrying far less often now.
Commercial showing happy/ dancing black men with a pretty white woman and kids
might be a myth, because most black men are hs drop out.
. 24%
You think that men are actually thinking of the divorce problems before marriage? I do not think so.
I was married for 27 years until my wife passed away a couple of years ago. I signed up for eHarmony. Mainly to see what’s out there. I’m on the fence if I want to date anyone. When I look at a profile, I do take into account likelihood of future divorce. I prefer a widow over a divorcee. People who have divorced are much more likely to divorce again. I think the pct is over 75%.
here’s my observation…
1) There are a lot of single obese black women. Probably over 50% of the pool. Nothing wrong with that. Just not my type. I suspect the numbers are high because they’re not anyone’s type.
2) Most single women have cats and/or dogs. Probably over 80%.
3) I would guess over 90% are divorced with kids. I’m older and women in my age group typically have adult kids.
4) Most of them have crappy jobs.
I’ve conversed with a few exceptions. Doctors and lawyers who seem OK. Frequently they live too far away. I don’t want to date anyone who lives an hour+ away.
seems to me you need to move into a cheap place close to where the doctors live
If they don’t, they are fools. It’s not hard to come by information these days on what happens to men in a divorce.
One other item, alimony and child support in divorce, one spouse usually the man gets to keep the clothes on his back and nothing else. Why take the chance and get married?
Agree. I hear this a lot. Divorce law is out of the 1950s.
Since 2015, same sex marriage is allowed in all 50 states. Deducting same sex marriages from the data will likely paint a bleaker picture. However, that’s only another outcome of women’s liberation.
IMHO, it’s not about student loans, or the cost of raising children, or high housing prices, or the desire to travel, or the availability of virtual reality porn; although a lot of people would indicate these as reasons to stay ‘separated’. Rather, it is liberation of the **feminine gender**, that brought far-reaching social changes. Reduced marriage rates is only one outcome. Other side effects, transgendering children, the decline of education, high divorce rates…
Family court hates men. In divorce, men routinely lose everything. The entire MGTOW movement is based on this. Young people in love don’t check out their spreadsheets to see if they can afford it. Also, thanks to LBJ really bringing back slavery through the welfare system in which the woman could get more money by stating the child didn’t have a man in the house, blacks have the lowest rate of marriage. Before LBJ, they were higher than whites. In other words, government destroyed marriage. Or rather, all the stupid slaves just thought as they were told. As usual.
Yes, the forty year olds have seen their fathers and formerly married friends financially destroyed in family court.
So given the odds of financial ruin for 20 years, why take the risk? You want this to change figure out how to strong-arm the courts to get men custody 50% of the time. The divorce rate will drop like a stone once it’s not guaranteed tax free money for her.
One possibility not mentioned is that available woman may be demanding higher standards of income or looks before committing to marriage.
China currently has this problem due to their past one child program and the associated abortion of females, as Chinese parents thought if they only get one kid, a male baby would be a better provider to them in their old age. So there are now a large excess of males to females in the typical marrying ages, allowing woman to be more demanding of their partners.
The USA, not having had China’s restricted birth problem may be suffering from inflated expectations due to TV shows and excess news coverage of billionaires.
Their is also the possibility of religious factors as more people turn from religion, which is one of the places in the past that people met each other.
“A Pew report based on Census data shows an increasing willingness to forgo marriage. What’s going on?”
Pornhub – I’m kidding, or, am I?
As to the cost of housing, and inflation, it seems a big factor for inflation is labor shortages.
In light of that, the Fed is restricting demand, hilarious while at the same time our southern borders are brimming with hungry refugees looking for work.
And – DeSantis is running for president, hilarious.
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I was once (twice?) advised:
“Why buy the cow when you can get milk for free?”
Perhaps this philosophy might have had some effects.
6. The US capitalist class has done everything it can to lower wages and benefits, break and weaken unions, and cut or eliminate the social wage in the form of Social Security payments, unemployment benefits, and social programs.
You need to to clear your thinking about what capitalism is or isn’t.
I suggest we actually try it.
Respectfully, he’s not wrong, the donor class has destroyed unions, used campaign funding as a back door to self regulate, modify tax code, export US jobs and reduce consumer choice, all with no say from the average American.
2008 was a perfect example with the Banking lobby, re: Glass-Steagall & the CFMA of ’99, Big Tobacco, Big oil (foreign policy), the opioid crisis, to name a few more.
I believe in capitalism, but as with all things it has to have rules that are fair to ALL participants, not just the biggest “donors”.
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We don’t have free market capitalism which has enriched more people worldwide than any other economic/political system. What we have in the US is corrupt crony capitalism where politicians are beholden to their money masters and rule accordingly. Maybe AI will eliminate politicians unless someone figures out how to bribe a computer.
If we did, it wouldn’t last. Whoever ended up with capital first would deploy it buy the government to take out the free part. Efficient capitalism demands this.
“Free-market” capitalism BY ITS NATURE evolves into the forms that we see today, dominated by monopolies, increasingly using the state and its institutions to temporarily quiet the crises it’s prone to, writing the laws to its interests, including “labor laws”. Did the “free-market” write the Railway Labor Act that Biden just used to impose a contract on rail workers unions (almost completely on the terms of RR companies “final” offer)? The free-market” is a fetish for true believers that can’t actually see what capitalism is and does.
When did we ever have free market capitalism to evolve?
“buy the government to take out the free part.”
Nothing wrong with that, as long as government is properly sized and limited; couldn’t do anything anyway.
HMK, The US and the world has never had free market capitalism anywhere in the world. What is commonly defined as “free market capitalism” is middle 19th Century versions as practiced in the US and Great Britain. These versions were in fact mercantilism i.e, the government putting their finger on the economic scale in favor of manufacturers they preferred and/or politically connected. In the US Labor strikes were not tolerated and brutally crushed. Farmers and ranchers were largely ignored. Banks in the US were largely “free” to accept deposits and create loan/deposits by issuing their own currencies backed by gold or silver, which you can imagine created boom and bust cycles, speculation, severe recessions and depressions locally, regionally and at times nationally. The early 20th Century promulgated some reforms and regulations to the mercantilist system that had created Robber Barrons and the Gilded Age of wealth and income concentration. These reforms and regulations were mostly concentrated outlawing child labor, implementing worker’s compensation laws for on the job injuries, regulation of food processors, the removal of the Treasury and the insertion of the Federal Reserve as the provider of liquidity or tightening mechanism of the front end of the lending curve and vigorous enforcement by the DOJ of antitrust in certain industries and sectors but leaving the banking cartel largely alone until President Taft. The 20s were a reactionary movement by the rich and their allies to the Progressive Era which resulted in a return to speculation and a boom both industrially and financially. The 30s resulted in regulatory capitalism where banks, industrialists, agriculture, wholesalers and merchants could still manage their operations but they had to do it within an environment that the government set up more guardrails and entered into the labor market to fill the employment void created by the deflationary Great Depression. The early 40s were largely a setting where the government was the direct or indirect employer, funder of industry and regulator of industry so much so that rationing was common and the Federal Reserve manipulated the yield curve to keep interest rates low. Post WW II, that is the late 40s, 50s and early 60s were the so-called golden age of US “capitalism” where the middle class grew and both supply side and demand side sectors were in relative balance. The middle to late 60s and 70s can best be characterized as a return to the government favoring the supply side or a reaction to the New Deal reforms. The 80s through today was the implementation of neoliberalism. It can largely be characterized as the financialization of the US economy, Carter’s deregulation put on steroids, and the deepening of the National Security State.
So, no free market capitalism in the history of the world since Adam Smith wrote Wealth of Nations.
Unions met their match with global competition, not evil companies seeking to destroy them. The same competiton and technology wiped out middle managers and manufacturers generally. Talk to GM about their legacy costs, which is one of the reasons why foreign manufacturers are so successful. add in the Federal regulation cost, litigation, etc and it is a wonder companies stay in the USA.
If blame is to be placed it is on self-serving politicians, on both sides, a public too dumb to vote intelligently, and a singular lack of vision from the head cheese.
That’s what tariffs are for.
We passed Labor and Environmental laws which sounded solo good and virtuous… And then we said ” well it’s too expensive to manufacture in the US do we’re just going to have to ship it all out to China where there are no unions and week Labor and Environmental laws.”
Making Free Trade with China permanent in 2000 was a collosal mistake.
I agree. Unions have died mainly because they make their company less competitive.
Japanese are always the leading edge since their economy went into a debt deflation ages ago. Youth of marrying age don’t even want SEX. Relationships, civility and behavioral patterns point to unsocial activity. Kids would rather watch porn than diddle each other in cars like the old days. Japanese youth are into…robots and sex dolls. Demographics point to a “Children of Man “decline as , like with animals, lack of prosperity(food for animals) creates a decline in breeding.
Even in Europe, with favorable child policies and subsidized college tuition, they are BEGGING native Europeans to have kids. People are saying, “Screw off.” Long-term prospects for humanity are poor, nevermind your little nuclear family. Don’t reward the rich and governments. Do not have kids!
Free markets and capitalism are getting conflated with illegal activity and corruption. Capitalism and Communism are all prone to corruption. This is a law enforcement issue and governance issue. Capitalism is the process of lending money for interest as investment. Free markets mean competition unfettered by rules and collusion between larger entities. We have anarchical capitalism or kleptocracy. Near feudalism I would say.
Free market capitalism has never been tried since Adam Smith wrote Wealth of Nations.
The way to simultaneously rejuvenate capitalism and reverse and end inflation forever is a 50% Discount to the consumer at retail sale all of which is rebated back to the merchant granting it to the consumer by the monetary authority mandated to do so. That single policy is a paradigm change that benefits every economic agent individual and commercial except private finance.
All the libertarians and conservatives (and probably most of the liberals) who’ve been acculturated to despise the false claim that this is “wage and price controls” cannot countenance it despite the fact that it resolves the major problems that capitalism is limping along with since forever.
Poor things cannot think a new thought…even if it would fulfill all of their wet dreams for profit making economic systems.
The problem with consumption taxes….
A millionaire/billionaire eats the same amount as a 30K janitor, wears the same clothes, granted more expensively, but not proportionally…lets say the millionaire who makes $500K/year & spends 3x that of the janitor.
That means, if the millionaire pays $30K/yr, he pays 6% of his income.
The janitor, at a third his consumption, will pay $10K/yr, 33% of his income.
This is why very few economists suggest consumption taxes, they depress consumption.
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The problem with consumption taxes is that what whether you help some old lady across the street or not, and whether she gives you a piece of chocolate as a thank you for letting her consume a unit of safe road crossing, is exactly no business of any even remotely legitimate government whatsoever.
It has nothing to do with “rich people” vs “poor people.” Nor any such petty childishness. How much “money” some dunce has, is exactly no business of any even remotely legitimate government whatsoever, neither. The fact that government even knows, is exactly a major part of the problem.
What IS, or at least conceivably could be, some business of a legitimate government, is what private property you expect said government to count as yours and protect for you. Protecting property, which even libertarians of largely all stripes seem to agree is an acceptable role for government, IS NOT FREE. It costs.
What is specifically NOT legitimate, is for anyone other than those who want government to protect their property, to be forced to pay for this protection. As well as for anyone else, to have government spy on what they “earn”, what they pay others, what they buy and sell etc.
Instead, the only even remotely legitimate way to fund a government tasked with protecting private property, is for those who want such protection, to pay for it. All of it.
Meaning: No activity taxes (sales, income…). All those require insane, STASI+ – levels of spying on everything people do. Which will never, ever, be legitimate.
Instead: Directly tax property. If you want government to protect yours, pay for it. It’s not free. Otherwise, choose not to pay, and try your luck defending it yourself. Against anyone who may want it, as well as the government those anyone’s may pay to do the fight for them.
No spying required. No “reporting.” No idiotic “tax evasion” Mickey-Mouse “laws.” Just “you didn’t pay for a service. So you don’t get said service. Duh!” ANYTHING else, any other form of supposed taxation; is largely plaily illegitimate right from the outset.
What you propose is unfettered inflation. Your 50% rebate comes from printing money. What a great idea! I’m surprised it hasn’t been tried before!
The alternative is the 50% rebate comes from taxes collected, removing income from some consumers and ‘gifting’ it to others.
Even the f*(king idiut Keynes knew better. Short term kick start, maybe, NOT long term subsidy.
Your “solution” to the problem is a band-aid on a broken arm; it comes too late after the damage is done and doesn’t fix the problem.
The only “cure” to inflation is abolishing the bank-controlled money system. All bank debts need to be zeroed-out (debt jubilee). Government must stop requiring taxes to be paid with bank-created money. And a debt-free, interest-free money system must be created.
yes Mish, I see comments like these all the time.
Sorry Mish. You aren’t wrong but Bbbbbb… isn’t either. This is the capitalism we have. I don’t know, but I would bet that capitalism always devolves to what we have today. The moneyed class will always seek to capture all of the gains in society.
If you substitute elites his point is valid. Unfortunately the elites in many industries have captured the regulatory agencies or government agencies from the FED on down.
I grew up in Pittsburgh and unions were a big help there (if you were looking to destroy the city). Living thru the excesses and corruption of unions and the damage they did to key cities … I have to laugh a little when folks suggest unions as the answer. Sort of like saying marxism is the answer. Maybe killing 100 million in the 20th century was just a starting point.
Democide was the largest cause of unnatural death in the 20th century. More than all the wars combined. Thank god for the 2A in the US.