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  Young adults
delaying marriage
Updated
9/12/2007 4:42 AM
By Sharon Jayson and Anthony DeBarros,
USA TODAY
Almost three-quarters of men and almost
two-thirds of women in their 20s in 2006 said they had never been married, according to Census data released today that shows
a sharp increase in never-married twentysomethings in just six years.
Among men ages 20-29, 73% said they had never
been married in 2006, compared with 64% in 2000. For women, 62.2% had never married in 2006, compared with 53.4% six years
earlier.
The data also show the percentage of those
marrying in their 20s continues to decline. A USA TODAY analysis of the new Census figures shows that just 23.5% of men and
31.5% of women ages 20-29 were married in 2006. (The analysis excludes those who are married but separated.) Both the number
and percentage of those in their 20s fell from 2000, when 31.5% of men and 39.5% of women were married.
"These clearly are quite dramatic changes
by demographic standards," says demographer Peter Morrison of the non-profit RAND Corp., which studies public policy issues.
"The amount of change in six years is quite substantial. It's impressive in terms of the degree to which the institution of
marriage is evolving. There clearly is a process of social evolution occurring here, and one can speculate about where it
will end."
The trend toward delaying marriage has emerged
over several decades as economic and social forces have made it more difficult for those in their 20s to reach independence.
Sociologists and demographers say other factors are also at work, including increasing numbers of cohabiting couples, more
highly educated women who have fewer highly educated men of comparable age to partner with, and more choices open to women
than in decades past.
For those reasons and others, experts say
they don't expect this upward trend in the ages for marriage to reverse.
"The numbers suggest we haven't seen a slowdown
on this postponement of marriage," says Suzanne Bianchi, a sociologist at the University of Maryland in College Park.
A closer analysis of the data on ages 20-24
and 25-29 shows that among men and women in both groups, the percentage change between the never-marrieds and the now-marrieds
was relatively consistent.
"This suggests it's not just the phenomenon
of the college-educated who tend to marry later or the high school-educated who tend to marry earlier," says Andrew Cherlin,
a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University. "It's an across-the-board shift."
Bianchi questions the amount of change in
such a short period of time because the Census' Current Population Survey reflects a smaller change in the same time period.
Cherlin, however, says the large change is "not unbelievable, especially if living-together relationships are compensating
for some of the postponement of marriage."
The number of unmarried partner households
reported by the Census Bureau rose from 5 million to 6 million between 2000 and 2006.
Pamela Smock, a family demographer at the
University of Michigan, says about 70% of those who get married lived together first.
"Cohabitation is continuing to grow, and it's
become the modal way of life," she says.
The Census data also reflect continued decline
in the percentage of married-couple households, dropping from 52.5% of households in 2000 to 49.7% of households in 2006.
Census survey estimates released last year showed that unmarried adults for the first time represented more than half of American
households.
Cherlin says the new data about those in their
20s suggests a clear postponement of marriage, but not necessarily a delay in partnering.
"We can't tell whether this means there's
a longer period of singlehood or just more living together before marriage. It's probably some of both," he says.
source site: USA Today
 
Does Marriage Still Matter?
Talking with Young Adults about Marriage and Relationships
The Macarthur Research Network on Transitions to
Adulthood
www.transad.pop.upenn.edu
January 2007
Qualitative Study: Coming of Age in America
As part of the
current phase of research by the Network, researchers have fanned out across the United States to interview young adults in
their 20s, in both rural and urban areas, to better understand, first-hand, how these young adults in vastly different settings
are making their way into adulthood.
The researchers
selected five very different places - small-town Iowa, New York City, San Diego, and St. Paul, Minnesota, Detroit, Michigan
- on the grounds context is a major factor determining one’s future. Headed by Harvard sociologist Mary Waters, the qualitative studies are delving in-depth
into the broad demographic and societal trends uncovered in the Network’s first book, On the Frontier of Adulthood.
The project researchers are preparing to publish the findings from each site in a forthcoming
book, likely in early 2006. A second book, which will examine
trends and issues across all sites, is also forthcoming.
Below is are some excerpts
and background on marriage among young adults today.
Young adults today are delaying, but not abandoning
marriage, according to research by the MacArthur Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood
As recent headlines report, today for the
first time there are more unmarried women than men. Marriage is apparently taking a hit. Although the statistics might portray
a declining state of matrimony, our research with approximately 500 young adults in their 20s and early 30s in three cities
(New York City, San Diego, and St. Paul, MN) and one small town in rural
Iowa shows that while marriage is delayed, it is not abandoned.
The young adults we spoke with had high standards for marriage, and were more interested in developing a solid relationship
before they married and ensuring that their mate was the "right one" before tying the knot. They were also determined to have
all their ducks in a row before marrying (education, career, a house,
etc).
What we’ve found is that where once being
married meant you were an adult, today you have to be an
adult to be married.
The Changing Face of Marriage: Keeping a hold on your self
Sociologists and others have long viewed marriage as a "companionate" arrangement:
1 + 1 = 1 (we). Once into a marriage, the individual disappeared. You sublimated yourself and became a twosome. Today, that
no longer flies. One of the more prominent themes that emerged from our study was this notion of two individuals coming together,
and remaining individual.
The idealized couple dynamic today is something akin to a pair of choreographed
figure skaters. Each partner moves on the ice separately, and yet each one must always be aware of the other, somehow managing
to move in tandem. The new marriage math is 1 + 1 = 3: you, me, and us.
Over and over again, young people report that they are looking for partners
who fit into their lifestyles and complement their personal goals and individual needs. In all the talk of marriage, there
was almost no discussion of romantic love and widespread agreement that the features of friendship were singularly important
for creating a successful marriage.
Commitment is a process
Many young people are adopting what might be called a developmental notion
of marriage. For this generation, marriage is the culmination of developmental process in which young adults acquire maturity,
financial security, independence and a sense of themselves and only then do they find a partner with whom to spend the rest
of their lives.
Achieving personal,
educational, and career goals .
In urban areas, young adults see career and personal goals important to achieve before they
marry. A 25-year-old New York woman lists the accomplishments she views as prerequisites for marriage:
"I’m hoping
that in five years, I will have completed my Bachelor’s degree and my Master’s. I’m hoping to be employed
as a teacher…happy and satisfied in [my profession]. I’m hoping
that I will have my house, if not one of my own, one with my mother. I’m hoping that if I’m not married, that
I will at least be with somebody that I care about and with plans of marriage, but I don’t necessarily have to be married.
But, number one, the education goals and then two, I hope to be financially stable and content."
In highly competitive cities,
some young adults find relationships simply impossible to balance, let alone commit to. When a 23-year-old New York man’s
girlfriend pressures him for an engagement ring, his response is: "Talk to law school!’ cause I can’t make a commitment until I have a career." For a 25-year-old San Diego man, marriage will happen, eventually. Right now, he says, "I’d
rather concentrate on work and stuff like that..."
Getting to know you. Another step in this process is gaining intimate knowledge of one’s
partner, experiencing decisions and setbacks together, learning to communicate and develop a sense of mutual trust, and acquiring
a sense that their relationship has a kind of inevitability; that is, they are the "right person" for one another. All this
before they get married.
According to a
29-year-old St. Paul man, being friends with his future wife for several years made it possible for them to know what they
were "dealing with" in their relationships.
"I mean, we get
along well and part of that, I think, what helped was that we were friends for three, four years, and so I knew exactly who
she was …. I got to see the true side of her during that time period. It was the same for me. We knew exactly what we
were dealing with."
It is the more
predictable and stable dynamics of friendship (versus romance and romantic whirlwinds)
that they value in finding a partner for a lifetime commitment. As one St. Paul woman described her current relationship as:
"a place that’s comfortable,
exciting, empowering, and centering. All the pieces come together and I like who I am in the relationship. I don’t need
to change anything about myself to be better in this. That feels really good."
In contrast, in
rural Iowa, young adults marry earlier (average age of
marriage in Iowa is 23 compared with 27 nationwide), and they seem much more pragmatic about marriage, more
in line with the 1950s model than the model emerging today. As one young Iowan explained about marriage:
"You might as well [get married] because you guys
have been together for so long and it’s not gonna make a difference."
Or as this 25-year-old
Iowan, who married his high school sweetheart at age 22, says:
"I mean it’s
kind of a dumb thing, but I mean, I took pride in [the fact] that I had a schedule that I thought was a smart way to do it.
I thought I would graduate from high school, graduate from college, have a job and then get married and then have kids, two,
three, four years later. I took pride in that."
Marriage mentality: the Icing on the Cake
Young adults
in our studies insisted on gaining an education, economic security, maturity, and personal development before marrying. The
achievement of these goals leads to marriage in rural Iowa, but not in the metropolitan settings. In New York, San Diego,
and St. Paul, young people also require the "marriage mentality."
The marriage
mentality refers to a young person’s self-definition. With the marriage mentality, a young
adult decides he or she is emotionally and psychically ready
to take on life-altering responsibilities of becoming a husband or wife. No one who is unwilling to give up the carefree,
youthful ways of the single life, we were told, has any business making the lifetime commitment required of marriage unless, of course, they are willing to risk the likelihood of divorce.
Class, Ethnic-Racial, and Regional Differences in the Meaning of Marriage
Trend data from our larger national samples
reveals that higher levels of education lead to delays in marriage. Based on analysis of our interviews, however, the most
striking socioeconomic difference (that is, differences in income and education)
in how young people described their views on relationships and marriage centered on discussions about children among unmarried
parents.
Elites delay marriage and childbearing, while
those with lower incomes and less education tend to put off marriage, but not childbearing.
Children no longer represent a good reason to get married. Children, however, are not irrelevant to marriage either, because
a partner’s commitment and responsibility in caring for children becomes one of the many ways couples assess their readiness for marriage.
Although
our quantitative data show higher rates of marriage among certain ethnic groups, our analysis of the interviews found no significant
racial and ethnic differences in young adults’ views of the meaning of marriage.
Most young people see marriage as a desirable goal and very few said they see no reason to marry.
Regionally, the most marriage wary young people were in San Diego and New York, Minnesotans
were somewhere in the middle, and the rural Iowans held the most traditional views of marriage.
Regional differences
could also be explained by the fact metropolitan young people’s lives are filled complex array of activities that makes
marriage just one of many things that competes for young person’s time and interest.
There are also
more potential partners and less social pressure to view marriage as a necessary part of adulthood. Although marriage remains
a strong life objective, it is just one of many options that can command young adults’
immediate attention.
Regardless of region
or social class, when young adults discuss their apprehensions about marriage, they ground their fears about marriage within
the quality of relationships rather than the wholesale rejection of marriage.
Even among the most
skeptical, there was a sense that marriage could still be a possibility if the right partner and circumstances arise. For
the most part, marriage is something young people would like to do at some point in their lives, even if they are not clear
if they will meet the right partner or if they will ever be prepared to make such a commitment.
source site: click here
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| MARRIAGES DECLINE |
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The percentage of married people in their 20s dropped dramatically from 2000 to 2006:
Never married
2000
• Males: 64%
•
Females: 53.4%
2006
• Males: 73%
• Females: 62.2%
Now married1
2000
• Males: 32.9%
•
Females: 41.9%
2006
• Males: 24.6%
• Females: 33.9%
Widowed
2000
• Males: .2%
•
Females: .3%
2006
• Males: .2%
• Females: .2%
Divorced
2000
• Males: 2.9%
•
Females: 4.4%
2006
• Males: 2.3%
• Females: 3.7%
1 includes separated
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2006, Census
2000; USA TODAY analysis by Anthony DeBarros |
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