Sunday, February 26, 2012

Blog 6: Low marriage rate reflects changing relationships, more cohabitation


As with many countries, the age individuals are when they first marry has changed dramatically in the past 30 years. In the 70s the average age for women was 22.8 and men were 25.2. As of 2003 those ages have increased to 28.5 for women and 30.6 for men. One reason why the ages have increased is the new view young adults have of what they should be focused on in their early 20s. Where they use to focus on relationship development then career development after marriage, these views have been swapped. Young adults now focus on developing a promising career then the formation of a family. Along with this change in view came the acceptance of cohabiting. With both of these new perspectives at hand, it has led to a decrease in marital rates and an increase in single parent families. Since the 1940s the marriage rates have declined by approximately 6.2 percent. This has also made children more likely to experience some type of break-up between their parents.

The idea young adults have of developing their careers before a family is really good because once their family is developed they will have less risk of being unstable. However, if they continue to take on the idea of cohabiting and having children in the process, the risk will then in turn remain high of being unstable. When a child experiences a break up between their parents it can be very traumatizing or just have a negative impact on their emotional development. Cohabiting can also slow down the process of developing their family if both the man and woman get comfortable at that level and decide to continue to focus on their career only, they will then continue to push back the development of their family leading to a push back of getting married. This will then continue to contribute to the decline in marriage rates.

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