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Are Millennials Abandoning Marriage?

@freemanlafleur via Twenty20

Millennials are not getting married as early as their parents did.  Sure, they are still pairing off, but because living together is more socially acceptable — and they have more financial worries like debt and lower wages — marriage is only an option for those who are in a financially stable situation.   

Thirty years ago in the mid-1980s, more than half of people aged 25 to 34 were married.  By 2016, that number dropped to around 37%.  Along with this, in 1986 about 7% of non-married couples lived together, but in 2016 that number tripled to around 21%.

The Burden of Debt

One factor is that a growing population of these young couples are fresh out of college or grad school.  They probably only have a starter job for the time being that pays the necessary bills such as their house, utilities, TV, gas, and whatnot, and barely enough for others such as the rest of those leftover loans from all those years of schooling they went through to get to where they are now.  There is also a generational difference in play as well. For the millennials’ parents, love might have been what was seen in those sappy romantic movies, and marriage was encouraged by their parents, in order to fulfill a new generation for the future. But now marriage is being strategized and planned, and people are nitpicking what they want in their future partner.  Let’s say there is a balance scale for qualities in deciding a spouse, what would be higher, their charming looks and quirky personality, or that they got a masters in business from Yale University and they are now the Vice President of a big shot corporation? There really is no room for comparison there.

Money, Not Love

It appears that the concept of marrying for money is more encouraged than marrying for love, especially when two well to do people get together.  It seems that there should be a demand for a special kind of Tinder for rich folks, where users can swipe until they find someone that meets their wealth, stability, and educational levels.  The economic pressure to get married is putting a damper on those who don’t have their life figured out yet, or that they might have their life figured out, but are stuck with bills that put marriage on hold.

So sure, the more money the merrier, but it has speculated that marriage has become less of a loving choice and more of a tool to be sustained for life, “til death do us part”.  

 

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