In the early 2000’s, 30-34 y/o never-married white women (NMWW) had a ~34% chance of marrying within the next 5 years. This level was cut in half by 2007, to ~17%. Only 1 in 6 30-34 y/o white women had never married in 2000 but this level will likely double to 1 in 3 by 2017, a stunning increase. The 35-39 y/o NMWW cohort will nearly double from 11% in 2000 to ~20% by 2017. Younger cohorts are also marrying less frequently and risk missing out on their most attractive years to find a husband.
This post is an extension of the epic post by Dalrock, More grim news for carousellers hoping to jump at the last minute, that showed a slight increase in American NMWW up to 2007 and then a steeper slope from 2007 to 2012. Here’s the plot from his site and pay special attention to the difference in slope before and after 2007 for the top two lines.
He focuses on white women and since I’m using his data compilation as my source I’ll do the same. In addition to just looking at the percentages of NMWW, Dalrock pointed out that by comparing the never-married percent of a cohort 5 years later and 5 years older that you could see how things have changed. The commenter, Paul Murray, calculated what % of those NMWW got married in the intervening 5 years. And the results are stunning. Here is Paul Murray’s unsmoothed graph.
Stunning Drop in Marriage Rates
In the figure below, I show the 5-year marriage rates for NMWW from 20-39 y/o. The data was a bit choppy so I smoothed the 2000-2006 rates by simply doing a 3-year average centered at the year shown. However, the raw data shows the same basic trend as you can see in Paul’s link above.
Rate of marriage within 5 years for never-married white women. These were calculated by taking the never-married % five years later and dividing by the % in the year shown, then subtracted from 1.0. 2000-2006 consist of three year averages to smooth the data while 2007 is simply the 2007 data since it’s the last available. 25-29 y/o labels shown while 20-24 y/o are not to avoid clutter. Update: The 35-39 y/o rate is calculated from data that comes from smaller samples and has higher uncertainty and thus jumps around more so the 2007 point is likely lower than the true rate. The younger cohorts have larger samples (more of them were unmarried) and provide more reliable info.
The most striking things to notice are the 30-34 and 35-39 y/o cohorts. The 30-34 y/o cohort declined from about 1/3 in 2000 getting married by 2005 to 1/6 of the NMWW in 2007 getting married by 2012. Even more shocking is the 35-39 y/o 2007 cohort dropping to nearly zero. It should be realized that these older cohorts are smaller subsamples and so there is likely large uncertainty in the values. Thus it is my opinion that the 2007 35-39 y/o 0.9% value is likely lower than the true value. It’s also possible that the 30-34 y/o 16.8% value is aberrantly low but it seems much more plausible since it continues the trend of the previous years. In this post I will assume the 16.8% is accurate but that the 0.9% is too low.
While less striking, the 20-24 and 25-29 y/o marry-within-5-years rates were virtually identical in both their values and their decline. In the early 2000’s they were in the mid to high 40’s but then decline to the mid to high 30’s by 2007, just 5 years later.
To give you an idea of the effect of this, let’s look at what happens when you have two successive rates of 47% vs two successive rates of 37%. In the first case, that means 53% didn’t marry, and so you have 53%*53% = 28% of the original group not married after 10 years. However, in the 2nd case you have 63%*63% = 40% not married after ten years, a number that’s 43% larger–and that’s a lot of spinsters or voluntarily-single women, and the attendant men that stay single as a result as well.
Projecting the 2008-2012 5-Year Marriage Rates for NMWW
It will be very interesting to see the 2013 data come out and see if the trends continue or reverse. For now, we’ll content ourselves with making some reasonable assumptions in order to project what might happen over the next 5 years. The 20-24 and 25-29 y/o rates are declining by about 2% each year so I just decrease the projected rates by this amount for the 2008-2012 5-year marriage rates, taking them into the mid-20’s by 2012.
Continuing the steep decline for the 30-34 y/o cohort would have taken it to zero by 2010 and I don’t think this reflects reality so I choose a 1%/year decline, under the assumption that some of the younger procrastinators will get it together and marry in their 30’s and so this rate won’t decline as fast as the younger cohorts’. I also adopt this value for the 35-39 y/o cohort and choose 10% as the 2008 value, in line with the lower smoothed values from the early 2000’s (I think the 0.9% in 2007 was just an outlier).
The 20-24 and 25-29 y/o cohort’s rate was decreased at roughly the same trend of 2% per year while the two older cohorts were decreased at 1%, and the 35-39 y/o value was set at 10% in 2008 as a conservative assumption. 2008-2012 are projections, not measured data.
Applying The Projected Marriage Rates
Now comes the interesting and possibly tragic part. I apply those 5-year marriage rates to the appropriate cohort to calculate the never-married % 5 years later. Under the assumed marriage rates, the 30-34 and 35-39 y/o never-married rates are projected to double by 2017 in comparison to 2000. The 25-29 y/o rate rises by 70% and the 40-44 y/o rate by 66%.
- In 2000, only about 1 in 3 25-29 y/o women were NMWW. By 2017, it would be nearly 3 out of 5 if the decline in marriage rates continues as I’ve hypothesized.
- The 30-34 y/o NMWW rate would rise from about 1 in 6 to 1 in 3.
- For 35-39, it would rise from 1 in 9 to more than 1 in 5.
- For 40-44, it would rise from 1 in 12 to 1 in 7.
Projecting the never-married % for white women by using the marriage rates in the 2nd figure, above. 2013-2017 are projections.
Another Method
A sanity check and another way to project the next 5 years is to simply hypothesize that the same slope that existed in the never-married levels from 2007 to 2012 will continue from 2012 to 2017. Of course, this is just a guess and there may be a marriage surge in the next few years that obliterates this assumption but let’s see what happens. The results below are similar (thought slightly lower) to what happened above when using the projected declining marriage rates.
Simple projection of the never-married white-women % for the next 5 years (2013-17) using the same slope as between 2007 and 2012
A More Optimistic Scenario
The above gives more of a worst-case scenario of what might happen. Let’s look at a more optimistic scenario and assume that 5-year marriage rates will not decline but rather just hold steady for 2008-2012. I set the 5-year rate for the 2008-2012 cohorts to be what it was in 2007, except for the 35-39 y/o cohort that will show up as the 40-44 y/o cohort 5 years later which I set at 10%. So the marriage rates assumed are 37.8%, 35.6%, 16.8% and 10%, respectively for the 20-24, 25-29, 30-34 and 35-39 y/o cohorts that show up five years later as the 25-29, 30-34, 35-39 and 40-44 y/o cohorts in the graph below.
Assuming a constant marriage rate for the years 2013-2017. This was set as the 2007 value for 20-34 y/o but set at 10% for the 35-39 y/o cohort since it seems like the 0.9% value of 2007 was likely a low outlier. 2013-2017 are projections.
Here we see that the never-married %’s still rise a lot by 2017 but not quite as much as in the two previous scenarios. The 25-29 y/o never-married % is ~50% instead of high 50’s. The 30-34 y/o % is 30% instead of mid 30’s. These results are different because instead of assuming 2% decline in the marriage rate I am assuming 0% decline. The 35-39 y/o % is about 20% and the 40-44% is 14%, not too different than when I assumed a 1% decline rate per year.
So even in the optimistic scenario the NMWW percentages rise a lot by 2017.
Once again, I’ll point out that these are merely projections but they use reasonable assumptions of marriage rates that either continue the decline of recent years or break the trend to stay flat. Of course, one could be highly optimistic and hypothesize that marriage rates will rise in the next few years and get less dire never-married results.
What’s Causing It?
I believe that most of this phenomenon is due to some women in their early and mid 20’s consciously postponing marriage in order to pursue education, work and fun, as the safe and wealthy environment allows them to do and as they have been indoctrinated by the feminist alpha mares (either directly or through their indoctrinated parents). There are likely some men who are also postponing this but a recent survey showed more young men wanted to get married than young women so it seems to be driven more by women than men. Then once women are out of their peak years of attractiveness, say in their 30’s or 40’s, those men who are still or newly single find such women less attractive than they were in their 20’s and the men’s sexual/marriage value has likely risen somewhat or even a lot in comparison to the women of their same age. Also, some men have probably become jaded after being ignored when younger.
Another possible factor is that the 5-year marriage rates for the 2006 and 2007 cohorts dropped a lot because of the Great Recession that occurred during some of the five years after these dates when whatever marrying they had happened. Things are a bit better now so it is possible that there will be a bit of a rebound. However, things are not so much better either so perhaps the “optimistic” flat scenario I came up with will be closest to reality.
Advice For Women That Want To Marry
If you want to marry and have kids, get married while in your 20’s. If you happen to be older you can still marry but you better stop being so picky and be open to men that are 10 or more years older (and yes, you might be able to find a man your age or younger but the odds say be open to older men). If you don’t want to marry and have kids then it doesn’t matter–carry on with your regularly-scheduled programming.
Advice For Men That Want To Marry
I’m not really sure what to say since it seems that many of the women you would like to marry are not interested in doing so while in their early 20’s and so the math just doesn’t work for all men. But, nonetheless, up your value as much as possible, learn game, and look in places where marriage-minded women frequent. Going to college and not getting a useless degree will likely help your odds. Since we see that a majority of women will still eventually marry there are a lot of women out there–just less than there could be.
Nice article on a critical issue for society as currently understood. A small correction of terminology, a question of where one issue lies (imho), and a number of non-contradictory comments.
‘useless degree’ -> ‘worthless degree’ ( h/t Captain Capitalism see below for link )
I’d be VERY surprised if that isn’t more relevant to women far more than men. Women with five figure debt for a degree that doesn’t help them get a job (let alone a career) are going to find that men willing to sign up to ‘socialise’ their debt (i.e. marry) increasingly few and far between as the recession continues to bite (or worsen). Would you marry a barista with $100k debt for a master’s in an ‘ology’ or ‘studies’ degree? And no foreseeable method of repaying that debt herself…?
MSM is beginning to recognise MRA issues, not always positively, but some of the issues are being aired. As this grows, more men are going to leave the marriage market place.
Increasing legal moves to regard cohabitation as marriage (for break up purposes in family court etc) will reduce the men doing that cohabitation. That must be one pathway to marriage further damaged for financial reasons, let alone the amorality of retrospective legislation.
As surveys show an increasing interest in marriage by young women (increasing the supply), they show decreasing interest by men (reducing the demand). The market, from a female point of view, is only going to get tougher.
Also, as the average age of marriage increases, the number of men just giving up on the whole idea will only increase. As they age men have more to lose, more experience in living without a woman, more time to find other interests
Captain Capitalism pulls a stunner with; “Yes, Men Do Leave the Market”
http://captaincapitalism.blogspot.com/2008/10/yes-men-do-leave-market.html
(in the comments he points to other of his articles)
Advice for men that still want to marry – LEAVE THE UNITED STATES FOREVER AND DO NOT LOOK BACK! Make sure to major in something like “Pilot” or “Diver” or some other skill that can be used in other countries. The women in the U.S. are absolutely the worst in terms of attitude, looks, quality, and kindness. You can easily find many attractive young women who want to marry in other places – just not in the U.S. Get out and let the beast die.
@ St Swithunus: “Would you marry a barista with $100k debt for a master’s in an ‘ology’ or ‘studies’ degree? And no foreseeable method of repaying that debt herself…?”
True. But that’s a good IQ litmus test. If someone is stupid and short sighted enough to waste too much money on a worthless degree, they aren’t likely to be good marriage material anyway. I obtained my RN basically for free (except for the books). Full scholarship, and small stipend. Starting salary around 50K (more if I wanted to work more than 36 hours a week).
@Liz – Sure, having a degree shows some level of intelligence. But honestly, depending on the degree it may simply come down to being able to memorize and regurgitate the correct information to get the paper saying you jumped through all the appropriate hoops.
And as someone that highly values information, I completely understand why someone might want to learn about a subject that won’t turn a profit. However, anyone with IQ and a bit of common sense should NOT end up with a degree that only qualifies them for a job at a coffee shop or department store. To be sure the school will tell you how much money you can make, and how great their placement stats are. None of them really tell the whole truth. My daughter just started her required classes for an RN degree, and a friend of hers started for a Vet Tech certification. The school insists they have a great placement record, but a quick search for vet tech jobs on Monster shows very little to be had around us. So, either the school is full of BS, or these kids are leaving town the day after they graduate.
I only bring this up because my daughter was/is contemplating changing majors. She’s been accepted to a program that will pay for her degree if she signs on for two years of employment, but that total program time is years versus one full year on the vet tech certification. But, if she went that route, she would have to pay for everything, which means taking out loans. It angers me a bit that the schools are so misleading when it comes to actual employment opportunities, but its no surprise either. They can’t drum up business by saying that only 10% of their graduates find and KEEP work in their chosen field.
So yes, a degree means some level of smarts. But, book smarts doesn’t count for much if it doesn’t make you money and comes with debt attached.
“But that’s a good IQ litmus test”
You are wise… (I knew that already TBH)
related – http://captaincapitalism.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/antioch-college-epitome-of-education.html
More people should read Captain Capitalism’s book ‘Worthless’ before picking a degree
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1467978302
Either that or ‘Enjoy the decline’
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1480284769
(in the interests of full disclosure, I have no financial interests in Cappy Cap…or his books)
not in any way surprising. i’m the only never been married, childless man in my upper-class suburban neighborhood. ALL the guys tell me i’m the luckiest bastard in the world. then the see, the girls coming by on the weekends and ALWAYS want to hear about my “dirt”.
marriage simply offers nothing to most men now (especially guys with game), and the risk associated with marriage is too great. besides, once a guy hit’s his 30’s, his options in the SMP increase dramatically.
@Danny – “marriage simply offers nothing to most men now (especially guys with game), and the risk associated with marriage is too great. besides, once a guy hit’s his 30′s, his options in the SMP increase dramatically.”
I agree with you most of the time, and don’t necessarily disagree with this statement UNLESS a man wants to have children. As it is, men have very little legal rights to their own progeny. But, having them OOW is about as risky as it gets. At least a man married to his children’s mother has something on his side, even if it is a long shot.
Personally, marriage has a lot to offer me. I like routine, so going out to scope prospects isn’t on my list of favorite things to do. Also, I already have kids to consider, and a parade of women in and out the door just doesn’t strike me as a stable environment for them. In addition, having kids means more than just keeping after my own mess, and having another adult to help kick them in the butt to get their stuff put away helps a lot.
When it comes to my desires and wants, I truly do want someone to share my life with. Yeah, I realize it comes with a big price tag, but most things in life worth having comes with a cost, and its up to each individual to decide if the juice is worth the squeeze, so to speak.
My advice to young single guys: Don’t marry until you are positively ready to start a family, If that means spending a few years living together, so be it but cover your ass! Check local laws regarding “common law” and make sure that you don’t end up legally married without actually saying I Do. Keep your finances separate and combine effort to pay bills if necessary. Combining accounts (meaning putting all your and her money together) is a step towards marriage, and may count against you if common law comes into play.*
*note – I am not a lawyer and know very little about common law. Check it out BEFORE you move in with someone.
Who needs marriage? Men don’t need it. Women don’t need it. We don’t need it for healthy long term relationships. We don’t need it to have children. It either is becoming, or has become, a quaint institution that some people feel enticed by and others don’t. It’s no longer mandatory to live a normal, fulfilled life in society.
Marriage has always been an arbitrary social institution created and maintained by religious and political authorities. As these forces have waned, people are realizing more and more that marriage is not all that necessary after all.
We tend to think of marriage as this wholesome union based on love (“Leave it to Beaver,” etc), but that model has been the exception, not the rule. It had a good run during the late 20th century. But the rule through history (and in much of the world still today) has been marriage for pure economic, legal or political motivations. Love and romance were far down on the list of priorities.
European countries today have even lower marriage rates than the US. I think something like 80% of Swedish children are born out of wedlock. Yet society has not collapsed. It just evolves.
@Ted, I think she’d be better served getting an RN background rather than a vet tech one. It’s easy to build from an RN background (she could eventually become a nurse practitioner, or anesthetist, for instance, making a physician level salary, often paid for by the employer for a commitment). But if she doesn’t like the field, it’s best to go for something else. It definitely isn’t for everyone…but if she likes it, it is amazingly rewarding on many levels. And the knowledge always comes handy.
@ Introverted, “European countries today have even lower marriage rates than the US. I think something like 80% of Swedish children are born out of wedlock. Yet society has not collapsed. It just evolves.”
Yeah, it evolves to the state replacing the role once held by family. If one thinks that’s a step in the right direction, bravissimo.
@HS
The “C” word was mentioned briefly already, though not in Mr. Dalrock’s original article. But without disputing the data or trends observed, perhaps the cause may be cohabitation as a preferred alternative lifestyle?
“Yeah, it evolves to the state replacing the role once held by family. If one thinks that’s a step in the right direction, bravissimo.”
This more than anything is my problem with OOW births and the current trend of diminishing marriage. We are forcing everyone to support the choices of a few by redistribution of wealth. (taking tax dollars from working people and giving the money to non-working people to prop up the missing core family)
If that’s the model we are working toward, then our entire legal and tax system needs a revamp. Our tax system wasn’t designed for this level of redistribution, and legal rights to progeny are sadly outdated and unfair for married men, let alone unmarried fathers.
We should either shit or get off the pot. We are socialist, or we are not. We want the Fed to be our daddy, or we want to support ourselves. This half in half out crap is inefficient and frustrating.
“But without disputing the data or trends observed, perhaps the cause may be cohabitation as a preferred alternative lifestyle?”
Of course it is! Especially with the lower SES folks. I mean, its hella cheaper to just shack up than go official! And many men are under the delusion that by not getting the marriage certificate they are free and clear of any hassles should the relationship tank. Hope they don’t get their asses handed to them in the courtroom…
when cohabitation comes to have the same legal and financial negatives at breakup as marriage, but without the decency of asking man whether he wanted to commit in the first place, how long does it take the shift from marriage to cohab become marriage to living apart as boyly-girly friends?
The legal changes are happening in various places in the world, the word isn’t out yet, but it will be.
Interesting data, thanks for the analysis. I wonder: if it could be sliced by income or education level, would the results look any different?
“if it could be sliced by income or education level, would the results look any different?”
My gut instinct is absolutely. I’d wager that once you get to UMC and up, things are probably pretty stable. But the lower down the SES ladder you go, the worse it becomes. Not to say divorces don’t happen in the UMC+, but they tend to be fewer and farther between. I guess those folks have more to lose.
Liz:
“Yeah, it evolves to the state replacing the role once held by family. If one thinks that’s a step in the right direction, bravissimo.”
Well, those countries are doing better than the US on practically every social metric, so they must be doing something right. However, I do believe the state is too big in many of them.
@Introverted Playboy – “Well, those countries are doing better than the US on practically every social metric, so they must be doing something right.”
That thought has crossed my mind as well, but I think the secret there is scale. Most European countries are vastly smaller than the U.S. and can perhaps manage the framework for the “daddy state” to function. (although none of them are ripping up the finance charts right now, so perhaps they aren’t managing so well after all…)
I think scale is a real issue here in the States, as well as the fact that the Fed does not entirely run the show here. Each and every State has a say and stake in social welfare programs, and I’d wager that many do NOT see eye to eye as to how it all should go down. Plus, we are so far in debt we can’t afford to try let alone succeed in going full socialist, unless of course we intend to default on a shit ton of debt. (perhaps Morpheus can chime in. I’m no finance expert, but I can easily see we are in a deep hole right now.)
@Han Solo
Fantastic post, Han Solo! Interestingly Evan Marc Katz tends to encourage people to marry when you are in your 30’s. According to this article I found on his blog, people are waiting longer to tie the knot.
Also, as per that article, top income earners are more likely to be married than low income earners. I’d also like to know what David Foster suggested. Is that possible?
On another note, I feel that one reason for lower marriage is the following: several females are too easy. As many manospehere blogs have established, women are able to sleep with almost anyone above their league. Additionally, being able to ‘score’ / have encounters with better suitors boosts the females’ confidence which in turn fosters them to raise their expectations (sometimes exponentially) when looking for a potential partner. Females are no longer wanting to settle – not only physically, but financially and other areas. What these women fail to realise is that attracting better suitors in the short term doesn’t equate to them automatically improving their league.
On top of the aforementioned, plenty of women are willing to lower their boundaries as long as they score / have encounters with better quality men rather than maintaining their boundaries while focusing on a realistic goal. They may falsely believe it to be a great idea, not realising that lowering boundaries too much is a very unattractive quality which basically signals to other males how easy they are.
Some encounters may even progress into a relationship, but this doesn’t mean that those above-their-league men are planning to marry them. It may be that these females are just a side-kick until men find a marriage partner around their league.
Also, I have nothing against cohabitation. Unless you know the man is very serious, why give away the milk for free? I personally find that those who do not cohabit are more likely to marry than those who do. There are exceptions to the rule, of course. Cohabitation is convenient. Once set in that type of lifestyle why would anyone want to change it for a piece of paper?
[Side note for newbies: the word league encompasses all areas such as financial, physical, personality, etc.]
@ Ted D
“Sure, having a degree shows some level of intelligence. But honestly, depending on the degree it may simply come down to being able to memorize and regurgitate the correct information to get the paper saying you jumped through all the appropriate hoops.”
I have to agree with you on that! Sometimes I wonder
a) how some passed Uni at all, their work ethic & knowledge equates to purely playing politics rather than using their brains. Not to mention that some can’t even write basic sentences properly.
b) why people bothered attending Uni in the first place if they did not care about actually learning something.
I can understand what your daughter is facing. I studied something that is not in demand – wish I had known this before; but as you well stated, Uni’s won’t tell you that – they want to fill as many vacancies as possible.
@Starlight – I’m not too worried. She’s smart and will figure it out. I think that only having one term under her belt, the next few years (and 2 years forced labor LOL) look rather daunting.
Back in the early to mid 90’s we had a term for “info regurgitators”: paper tigers. Because on paper they looked like they’d tear it up, but in practice you could punch them full of holes.
All full of certs and no real skills to be found…
Here’s a comment I left at Obsidian’s excellent post on feminists achieving their aims, maybe too well for the likes of many women that will find themselves marriage-less.
http://obsidianraw.bravejournal.com/entry/136403
“Women have to be careful for what the ask for because they got it and as we’re seeing, more and more are choosing to not marry in their 20’s and then are left behind as spinsters in their 30’s and 40’s. But that’s exactly what the radfems want: keep them from marrying when they’re hot and then their only option will be to keep on working for the greater glory of the fempire when they’re not.”
@Everyone
Thanks for the comments.
Will respond later this afternoon or evening so check back in for my response to you.
@MM
Cohabitation is taking up some of the slack in deed. If you have a good link about rates of currently married and currently cohabiting feel free to share it. I remember looking at such a report with you before and can find it if I search through my stuff but it might be faster if you have any reports you want me to look at.
[…] Marriage Rates Plummet–Projection of Never-Married Rates to 2017 […]
@Introverted: “Well, those countries are doing better than the US on practically every social metric, so they must be doing something right.”
The above statement is erroneous. As a whole, Europe is doing very poorly by comparison to us (yes, even now…we’re doing poorly and they are even worse off. Italy has around 33 percent rate of unemployment). Cherry-picking out of only the very best, there are three (mostly homogenous societies) where the above assertion generally holds.
Here is a link referencing the quality of life index for OECD countries: http://www.businessinsider.com/top-countries-on-oecd-better-life-index-2013-5?op=1
We’re number six.
Ted:
“That thought has crossed my mind as well, but I think the secret there is scale.”
Yes. Logistically, it’s much easier to manage a smaller organization than a larger one. There is also a greater sense of community and common identity in a smaller, more homogeneous society. That’s why much of the work is done by the states and not the federal government as you mentioned.
There is just much greater diversity among the states and localities in this country than in the European nations. Different states have different social welfare systems, and as a result the social metrics vary significantly.
@Introverted Playboy – ya know, your comments got me thinking: is the U.S. just a giant scale model of the EU? We have states, that for all intent and purpose are like the individual countries in the EU. They each have their own issues and agenda, while being “guided” by a larger organization. In the U.S. that is the Fed, but in Europe it is the European Union.
I’d say between the two, the Fed has more power here than the EU does across the pond, so the struggle may get a bit more intense as states fight for individual rights and to decide for themselves.
Not that this has much to do with the actual issue at hand, its just a very interesting thing to ponder on.
Liz:
I was referring to the primary social metrics. Most if not all Western European countries have lower crime rates, longer life expectancies, lower rates of obesity, lower teen pregnancy, lower rates of STD infection, and lower rates of mental illness compared to the US.
The OECD study you linked to measures a different set of variables: “income, housing, jobs, community, education, environment, civic engagement, health, life satisfaction, safety, and work-life balance.” Health is just one factor among them.
The one area where the US excels is in the economy (economic growth, unemployment). Although even there, the US has the highest level of income inequality in the developed world.
Ted:
True, the US federal government has more power than the EU (it’s a single country after all, rather than a coalition/ alliance). Although interestingly, the US started out as an EU-like federation of independent states, each with very different policies on immigration, taxes, and others. Some say the EU in its present form is doomed–it must either become a tighter union with more common economic and fiscal policies, or looser with more independence returned to the member countries. The UK is an interesting one to look at as well, as there the “nations” of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each have significant autonomy within the state. Some Scots are even trying to break away from the UK altogether. But yes, very off-topic
@ Introverted, I won’t argue about obesity, seems a foregone conclusion we’re number one and with obesity comes a host of health problems and lowered life expectancy.
Western Europe does not have lower crime rates, however. They have fewer gun homicides in particular (but the odds of being a victim to a firearm homicide are extremely low by comparison to most other crimes, here or there). Rates of theft, robbery, burglaries in particular are through the roof.
Just to add a link from nation master that offers a statistical breakdown. This link is to the number of crime victims in particular (many different types of crime to include robbery, burglary, attempted burglary, car theft, car vandalism, bicycle theft, sexual assault, theft from car, theft of personal property, assault and threats. There are other variables to choose from the drop list, however. Either way, it’s informative:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_vic-crime-total-victims
@HS
I had to dig around, but remembered that the CDC’s been tracking this shift for some time:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr064.pdf
Figure 1 shows what’s taken place over the last 18 years. Type of first union (but not overall rate) has flip-flopped. But the % of women reporting “non-union” (never married nor cohabited) is practically unchanged. That doesn’t seem to suggest that a larger % of women are totally single in their 30s and 40s than in the past. But I’ve seen no data prior to 1995.
Figure 2 shows which groups are largely responsible. For the college-educated, I believe they largely delay marriage and cohabit first. For working-class folks, they seem to just opt not to marry, but have kids anyway. That would explain the OOW birth rates rising, too. These SE groups have the highest divorce rates, so I suppose they’re rationally avoiding marriage due to high risk of economic disruption. Divorce hurts them a lot more in relative income dollar$ than other groups.
@MM
Thanks for the link. I’ll look at it and respond more later tonight.
One thought is that it would be nice to know how many of the cohabits are serious and marriage-like so that they could be lumped in with the marriage stats.
Because we know that many cohabitations end more quickly than marriages do and so I don’t want to simply equate cohabitation with marriage. So, if you have any way of finding out what % are roughly marriage-like that would be useful. Is it a 50/50 split or something else?
I think we can make some headway by seeing what % of cohabs end up marrying or living together for 3 or 5 or more years (and count them as marriage equivalents) and what percent breakup before some yet-to-be-determined time period (say 1 or 2 years) and count them as non-serious cohabiters.
Liz:
You’re somewhat right about crime. The US is “in the middle” on burglary, theft and assault relative to the developed European countries. In 2011, US had higher burglary than Ireland, France, Germany, Norway and Spain for instance, but lower than Netherlands, Sweden, Austria among others. However the US is in the top few for auto theft and robbery.
It’s not just gun homicide though. In 2011 the US had a total homicide rate of 4.7, more than double that of the next country (Norway, at 2.25). This was higher than all Western European countries.
My source is the UN office on Drugs and Crime: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime.html
(I don’t use Nation Master, I’ve seen too much questionable data there.)
Needless to say, there are shortcomings in international comparisons like this, but the data overall is informative.
[…] Likely the fastest growing Game site in the Manosphere, Just Four Guys has a new post up reworking the never married data I shared here. I haven’t gone through the numbers close enough to vouch for them, but I think you will find their analysis interesting. Check out Marriage Rates Plummet–Projection of Never-Married Rates to 2017. […]
Comparing the US to the EU or individual nations is like comparing apples to bacon. Very different beasts that evolved out of different circumstances.
The United States is a collection of colonies in a distant land that successfully won independence from a foreign power and promptly set up an extremely loose confederation. We had a common cultural heritage and language with sectarian lifestyle differences that were based more on economics and to a lesser extent religion.
There’s been a lot of tension on certain issues. Ohio beat the crap out of Michigan, Wisconsin had to give land to Illinois, New Jersey and New York got involved into some shooting matches, and Oklahoma and Texas practically started a war right before WWII.
But the story of the US is more or less of a pre-packaged enlightenment thought process in an Anglican society overlaying an expanionist society with a few different economic structures and a strong centralizing tendency.
Europe? Europe came out of a mixture of feudal estates and are building nations on top of that. Their struggle is more serfs against the Lords and the Church and the King, while creating that common identity.
The EU did not emerge for the same reasons as the US federal government. We created a federal government to further the perpetual union we wanted. European integration was more to off-set Soviet and, to a lesser extent, American influence, and to a large extent, to prevent Germany from rising again. And a lot of was pushed by De Gaulle, who was less interested in a more perfect union and more interested in French dominance.
They also are extremely disparate groups whereas the US is homogenous. The AMerican North vs. South divide is far less substantial than Greece vs. the Netherlands. I dare say it’s less than Italy’s sectarian divides, and certainly less than either British or Spanish divides, where they have had active insurgencies into the 1990s trying to secede.
Also, while certain Nordic societies marignally outperform the US, come on. Denmark doesn’t have a minimum wage because it’s literally pointless to them. There is a lot of social solidarity there that simply does not exist on a national scale in the US.
We are certainly beating the fuck out of Portugal, where only 1 in 4 people have graduated high school: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704076804576180522989644198.html
Beta guy:
“Comparing the US to the EU or individual nations is like comparing apples to bacon.”
Maybe. But comparing an apple and a strip of bacon has tremendous utility: caloric content, fat, saturated fat, sodium, protein, carbohydrates, and so on.
The value of international comparisons is the same. It gives us information on how well countries and governments do with respect to universal standards of human well being.
My state just adopted the most ridiculous transgender law ever. Fuck my life.
@Swithunus
I just made a long comment but it got eaten by goblins. And didn’t ctrl-A ctrl-C like I often do before hitting the button for cases exactly like this.
Brief version:
I agree that women need to worry about worthless degrees, even more than men but I was just giving advice to men and having financial freedom will be good for both them and still will be important to attracting women (though just one of several factors). And it can be useful if the man wants to move overseas and follow Remo’s advice.
More attention to MRA issues will be good, even if it starts out as negative attention. At least it will get some people thinking.
Turning cohab into marriage will make many men a bit more careful too.
And I think that for the last 40 or 50 years it was more women that were driving the increase in marriage postponement. Men have a lot more inertia because they’re responders to the market signals sent by women (except for the market setting apex alphas) and with so many conflicting messages and behaviors it’s taken a while to figure out what’s going on.
The Capt. Cap. article was interesting and points out how many men have less incentives and haven’t appreciated being ignored in their teens and early 20’s and so some of them GTOW, either for a time or forever.
Okay, ctrl-A, ctrl-C
@Remo
Leaving the US is a sensible option for some men. The global laws of supply and demand for men and women and reduced “trade barriers” and barriers to “entry” make it easier for men to do so. I spent a lot of time in Latin America where it seemed that there was a higher % of players than in the US and so there were more women that were romantic and looking for a good relationship. It’s not easy to just move somewhere else but it might be a good option for some.
@Danny
For the man with game (of one form or another) that can attract lots of women and is disposed to do so it’s a great world out there.
Most men have terrible game and don’t even improve much when they try because it actually is hard for most men to change and remove the antigame. For these men, having a steady and loving partner is the best way to get some sex. Plus, as Ted pointed out, many men are romantic and do want a deep and loving relationship. Of course, marriage isn’t exactly needed for that. The substance of the reln. is more important than the title.
And incentives matter, as you mention. There really are just less incentives for men to marry these days.
I personally want kids so I will likely marry but I might want to just cohabit if the legal situation seems better that way.
@Introverted Playboy
Marriage hundreds and thousands of years ago was “needed” by women and men and the rulers enforcing that type of culture benefited society by getting men to invest and be there to provide for and protect their wives and children instead of just checking out or worse going about rebelling and committing crime or treason.
Right now we’re in a safe and rich environment so women don’t need men at the individual level to stick around though it does benefit their kids and they are wired to want it.
Of course, the actual title of marriage isn’t the important thing. Very-long-term or lifetime cohabitation serves the same function as marriage once did. If both parents stay invested in their children then splitting up isn’t as bad as if there’s an acrimonious split and where dad gets kicked to the curb.
@Ted
I think we need to revamp society so that people are not incentivized to sit on their ass and do little. And paying people for being single mothers is insane. But that’s how the liberal overlords want it. It sets up dependents and keeps them voting for the liberal overlords.
@David Foster
Thanks and you’re welcome. Sliced by income and education, things will bifurcate, I believe. In the underlying data that Dalrock compiled the data is available by income. You can download the spreadsheet at Dalrock’s post I link to.
Maybe this can be the topic of a future post. To give a taste, the 30-34 y/o NMWW % by income in 2012 was:
Earnings….% NMWW
None………..19.5
5k- or Loss..21.5
5k-15k………23.6
15-25………..29.3
25-40………..28.1
40-75………..26.0
75-100………28.9
100+…………26.4
Not sure if it says that much, just that white women with earnings over 15k are more likely to be NM. I imagine many of the low earners are married and SAHMs.
@Introverted Playboy
The US as a whole has worse metrics than many European countries (such as gun homicides) but when you just look at whites in the USA then most of those metrics (I believe) are pretty much in line with the European countries.
I really would like the minorities in the USA to be better off. I think part of that requires them to stop the excessive victimization narrative and get on with making the most of their opportunities while also trying to right any structural injustices. I also think that blacks should stop voting so overwhelmingly for democrats. The dems just take them for granted and don’t do much of anything for blacks. R’s should make a more concerted effort to reach out to minorities.
@Starlight
Thanks and thanks for the link. An interesting part in it was this:
“while marriage rates have fallen for most women since 1980, those for the highest earning women have increased, to 64 percent in 2010 from 58 percent in 1980. Women in the top 15 percent of earners are now more likely to be married than their lower-earning counterparts.”
I think that article has a lot of PC dogma as well, though, such as that traditional-minded men are more likely to divorce. But I think it’s not getting at the root causes and it’s likely that those with more traditional ideas about gender roles are marrying earlier or don’t have as much education. With any of these studies and even my work, anyone should really think about what is being said because it is very easy to mislead with correlations that don’t necessarily get at causality.
The point about easy women driving down the price for sex for some men and thus making them less desirous to marry is true. And some women preferring to live the hypergamous dream of having higher-status men in their beds also keeps some of them from marrying as early as they would have. It’s usually a mirage because they can’t keep them around but they keep trying for a while and sometimes for a long time.
Lowering their boundaries and having lots of sex partners does tend to make women less attractive as marriage partners to many men. Having boundaries won’t really make women more attractive to out of their league men but it will keep them from being pumped and dumped and will make them more attractive to in-their-league men.
I think that those that don’t cohabit but marry have more of a mindset to make marriage work. So I think that such people could actually cohabit and still stick together. I think cohabitation can play a secondary role in people just sliding into marriage out of habit but not being so compatible and then divorcing. Age of marriage has to be factored in though.
That guy that says to marry after 30 because there’s less likelihood of divorce ignores the point that so few are marrying after 30 for the first time. So, yeah, those few who marry after 30 will be more stable but the odds of actually marrying are shitty. lol So, probably the best blend of maturity plus still being attractive enough to attract lots of men is around 25.
Han:
“Marriage hundreds and thousands of years ago was “needed” by women and men…”
Exactly. The culture has changed, and the role/ meaning of marriage and other old institutions with it. Early America “needed” slavery in the same way for its economic vitality. Today nothing could be further from the truth.
Marriage was also a way for the kings to minimize competition. If most average men could get a wife, then they wouldn’t be so jealous of the king with his harem.
“but when you just look at whites in the USA then most of those metrics (I believe) are pretty much in line with the European countries.”
Um… why would we do that? Blacks are part of this society too. If you’re just going to compare white people, then you have to make huge adjustments to the European statistics too, since all those countries have tons of nonwhite people themselves. I guess if we ignore all the poor people, then statistically, there is no poverty in America either.
Speaking of which, why are you only focusing on white women in the article, when all projections indicate the population will become much more nonwhite in the coming years?
@ADBG
Interesting thoughts on the histories, differences and similarities between Europe and the US.
@Nemesis
“My state just adopted the most ridiculous transgender law ever. Fuck my life.”
Is there something you haven’t been telling us?
lol j/k
@ Han
lol. I saw a beggar in Berkeley once with the following sign: “Petite lesbian in man’s body. Please help.”
@Int. Player
Yeah, giving the betas a woman while letting the omegas go without and killing a bunch of men in war allowed the top men to have more women while maintaining enough stability.
When you have vastly different behaviors or conditions for different portions of the population then it offers more information to look at those portions separately. But it’s true that as a whole country the rates are what they are.
Dalrock’s focus was on white women and since I used his data compilation as the source of my analysis that’s what there was.
However, one could take all the original census data and repeat this for other races or the country as a whole.
Since blacks have had higher never-married rates for a longer time now and it’s a more recent phenomenon among whites then that is another reason to look at whites.
Breaking it up by education level would be interesting and may be subject for a future post.
We will be having a guest post at some point by Sir Nemesis that analyses some of these topics for all US women as a whole.
@Sir N.
Well, that was quite the sign and even if true, certainly tailored to the audience.
Yeah, we totally made socialism work….
Mwuahahahaha…
Um, no.
The birth rate per woman in Austria is 1,45 , in Germany it is 1,35, does not look that much better
With the exception of Ireland and Iceland, all of our birthrates are under the replacement level.
As to France and Sweden, theirs would be too, but, massive immigration of people of a Mediterreanean background or whatever the official designation is these days, i,e, Muslims.
Soooo…
We die out, those two countries get replaced and the welfare state collapses because not enough men are born to act as beasts of burden.
Han:
“vastly different behaviors or conditions for different portions of the population then it offers more information to look at those portions separately”
Only when comparing the portions to each other. Whites vs blacks, for instance, is very useful. But comparing country vs country is different.
“Dalrock’s focus was on white women…”
Fair enough.
“Since blacks have had higher never-married rates for a longer time now…”
Indeed. Many argue that the black population is the canary in the coal mine for many broader social indicators in America. There’s something to that.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the racial differences disappear altogether once you factor in education and income. Just to confuse things more
@Int. Playboy
This link has a lot of tables and charts and shows the various races marriage and divorce rates over time.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p70-125.pdf
@MM
I see that the no-union level is flat over the 3 periods listed.
In Table 3 of http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr064.pdf we see the outcome after 1 and 3 years of cohabitation. To make it consistent with just analyzing whites in this post, we see that for whites (non-hispanic) that we have in 2006-2010:
Time…Intact..Marriage….Dissolution (%)
1yr……64.4……21.2………14.5
3yr……32.2……40.3………27.4
Now if we look at the 2009 1 and 3 year rate of divorce for married white women in 1st marriage http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p70-125.pdf (Figure 5), we see that:
1 yr ~1.5%
3 yr ~6%
Although maybe we should allow for some time for the divorce to happen (say 6 months beyond when the cohabiting couple would dissolve) so that would raise the rates to the following (I’m just roughly reading off the chart):
1 yr ~3%
3 yr ~7%
But then again, many of those divorces had cohabs before so I think for now we should just not adjust for time since part of the cohab is likely not considered to be that serious yet. So we’re back to the
1 yr ~1.5%
3 yr ~6.0%
So we see that the cohabitation dissolution rate after 3 years is about 4.5x higher than the first-marriage divorce rate. And the white divorce rate for first marriage only reaches 27% by about year 15 in Figure 5.
The median rate of marriage after cohabitation for whites is 19 months (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr064.pdf, Table B).
I’m kind of rambling and brainstorming now. But basically, I think we can say that the 40% after 3 years that married could be counted as marriage-equivalent cohabs at some point earlier, though not likely right at move-in day. These marriages will show up eventually in the stats, just 19 months after (median) beginning cohab.
And I think it’s safe to say the dissolved by 3 years cohabs should not be considered marriage-like (or we could count 6% of the overall cohabs as marriage like since that many first marriages divorced by year 3).
Anyway, this gets really complicated because really want to add on the cohab time before marriage to the time before divorce.
I think that perhaps we want to define some threshold time for cohabs to become marriage equivalent, or allow the same portion of divorces after a certain time to be included as serious cohabs for the dissolved cohabs.
To cut through all the complexity, perhaps we can take off about 1 year from the age of first marriage to account for the time of serious cohab before marriage.
Then we need to add on some percent of the intact cohabs that have lasted longer than say 5 years or some value.
Bottom line is that by including the serious cohabs that are either intact for a long time or lead to marriage that the picture of long-term partnerships is not as bleak as the marriage-focused numbers portray but I don’t think that cohab completely makes up for the delays and lack of marriages.
Here’s an interesting article that says http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/17/older-couples-cohabitation/1630681/
And in this article we see that 51% of American adults in 2010 were married
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/12/14/barely-half-of-u-s-adults-are-married-a-record-low/
So, it doesn’t seem like cohabiting is a huge factor but it could probably be used to shave off a year or so of the age when first marriage-like reln was formed and could drop the percent of never-married white women by a couple points to convert it from never-married to never-married-and-never-seriously-cohabited.
@orion
Good points about the birth rates in some European countries.
@Int. Playboy
I think that some things are comparable for poor whites and blacks but violence and crime are still higher for poor blacks than equally poor whites.
Han:
Actually, I was referring to marriage and non-marriage rates once income and education are controlled for. But yes, you might be right about that. That shows the influence of culture and lifestyle.
Not exactly referring to marriage rates by race and poverty but interesting nonetheless.
This article points out that child poverty is similar for blacks and whites
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2001/05/understanding-differences-in-black-and-white-child-poverty-rates
And here it shows that poverty is much lower for all races when married.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/09/marriage-americas-greatest-weapon-against-child-poverty
Han:
There you go. I think I heard about these correlations years ago from Ann Coulter of all people.
It makes sense that two incomes are better than one. More money for the kid. Of course by that logic, everybody should be supporting polygamy–five incomes are even better!
I think it’s not marriage per se that is the great contribution, but just having multiple adults committed to the well being of the child. Walking down the aisle in a fancy dress–irrelevant. What matters is commitment and love. I mentioned earlier that Sweden has a very high OOW birthrate, I think right on par with black America. So why such a difference in social outcomes? Because the couple still stays together and has a stable relationship, they just don’t get married because it is an obsolete institution for them.
As I was reading that analysis, I was reminded of a story I read about Egypt a while back (before the revolution). It was saying how marriage carries massive social and religious significance there, but in that culture it costs a pretty penny. So you end up with thousands of single young men too poor to afford to marry a girl. A lot of sexual frustration en masse (many of them are virgins of course), and many social problems.
Then I read this from the article:
Bingo. The fetishization of marriage. Even people who can’t get married are obsessed with it. It becomes out of reach culturally, psychologically and, often, financially for these low-income people. If marriage could be much more accessible and more easily done, maybe it would be more common.
Maybe turn the current fixation on the wedding into a fixation on the “ten-year anniversary family party” or something. Either that or change the culture in low-income communities so that children are seen as a more serious undertaking, a la Europe.
@HS: “Of course, the actual title of marriage isn’t the important thing. Very-long-term or lifetime cohabitation serves the same function as marriage once did. If both parents stay invested in their children then splitting up isn’t as bad as if there’s an acrimonious split and where dad gets kicked to the curb.”
Anyone who doesn’t trust their partner enough to make an official commitment with them doesn’t trust them enough to have children with them. Children require a far far far far far higher level of trust and commitment than marriage (assuming one gives a damn about one’s progeny).
@Liz
True, but that doesn’t make it a smart move for a man to get married though.
Men bear the majority of the risk with little to no benefit, women the vast majority of the benefit with little to no risk.
Society isn’t even addressing that, all the while screaming that men should ‘Man up’.
Until men force the issue, nothing will change because society is perfectly happy right now (except where they want to make things worse for men; cohabitation as marriage).
Once men in general understand the cohabitation thing, I think there’ll be a lot of break ups just prior to cohabitation for two years (or whatever the cut off is). In the same way that I believe there is a divorce spike for service men just after the ten year mark, where the ex wife gets a life long benefit from his medical care and pension. Danny can probably provide links.
Incentives and disincentives matter, though the market might take a while to react.
Men love the blue-pill, they tend to only take the red one after a hoof to the dangleberries. But they do get the message and react to the market. Dalrock had a post about that kind of issue; http://dalrock.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/why-arent-men-responding-to-economic-signals/ (spoiler – they are starting to)
Whether it’s a smart move to marry or not, men who don’t trust their partner enough to marry them don’t trust them enough to raise children with them. Children aren’t “a smart move” either, unlimited risk (far more than marriage) and the benefit is subjective (just like marriage). Marriage is comparatively very easy and risk free. If there aren’t children there really isn’t much point to being married anyway.
Though to add, I guess there are the benefits gay marriage advocates cite which don’t involve children, but really those are peanuts by comparison…it’s all about the kids. And it’s hard to leave for a reason. I think it should be harder. It’s feminists who have made it easy and pushed for no fault.
Another issue about marriage for men is.
Hey guy, you’re 30 (say), you’re looking at a marriage lasting 50 years, or so.
What contract are you signing up to now and what might that contract look like in 10, 20…50 years?
If you compare the realities of marriage (and more particularly divorce) now, with those of 40 to 50 years ago…wow! Things sure did change didn’t they? Look at that divorce rate climb, false DV to remove men from the household, imprisonment for men for failing to pay the imputed required level of support, alienation from children when women defy parental contact orders (without legal penalty) etc etc And they changed retrospectively, with no consent asked for, didn’t they?
Even if divorce were reformed today, just what would guarantee that they wouldn’t be changed back (or worse) in the time frame of your marriage, guy?
Society exists as a trade based on trust. Trust that if I forego personal revenge I can trust the police and courts to deliver justice. Trust that I agree to pay taxes into a pension/health scheme when young, and that the state will deliver back when I’m older. Trust that taxes taken from me at threat-point will, generally speaking, be used wisely.
Society needs to stop dousing trust in petrol and playing with matches, because society will go the same way as trust does. Stop shitting on men who trust society, particularly when you rely on those men to provide society’s trappings.
Marriage, for men, is the ultimate trust in partner and in society…don’t continue to let them down. They don’t like it and you may not like their reaction.
@ St Swithunus, marriage is far more about trust in your partner than in society. This is an official link one is making for better, worse, richer, poorer…to be maintained even if and when society at large goes to hell in a hand basket. Two people are united as one. They are a family, they are going to make little people and place them on the earth and create a legacy (the only one that lasts, material things turn to rubble and you can’t take it with you anyway).
If you’re married at thirty there’s no point in worrying what legalities will say about that pact in 50 years…you’ll be eighty, lucky if you aren’t soiling diapers.
“Whether it’s a smart move to marry or not, men who don’t trust their partner enough to marry them don’t trust them enough to raise children with them. Children aren’t “a smart move” either, unlimited risk (far more than marriage) and the benefit is subjective (just like marriage). Marriage is comparatively very easy and risk free. If there aren’t children there really isn’t much point to being married anyway.”
Yeah, I’ll let you know if/when I start disagreeing with you. Got nothing much for you so far
I’m just painting the MRA-ish* / MGTOW-ish** view of the issue. Not sure that many here share that/those views, but the views exist and I’m certain that they contribute to the marriage rate drop.
(* as I also claim MGTOW-ish** views, I cannot see myself as an MRA exactly)
(**I go MY own way, which departs from MGTOW whenever, and wherever, I wish. Specifically I forego the monkish views on sex and am quite willing and able to interact with women on fair and equitable terms)
@Liz (@8:24 which I didn’t see until making this comment)
“This is an official link one is making for better, worse, richer, poorer…to be maintained even if and when society at large goes to hell in a hand basket. Two people are united as one.”
SRSLY? you have seen the divorce stats, right? lmao
If you were right (right in the real world, I’m leaving your moral correctness unchallenged, mainly because you’re right) then marriage would still be worth doing.
Have you visited Dalrock’s blog covering real world marriage from a Christian perspective? In tone and content he’s quite like Han, but he’s been doing it for longer.
Anyway, I’ll leave you to it, the local contingent will be on the case soon. Things to do. Be well
Hey, I am right! That’s the standard vow and I for one have taken it seriously.
Haven’t seen Dalrock’s blog. Take care, back at ya. Going on a road trip…see you soon.
@ Playboy
Yeah, I think maybe the message I was giving on Europe vs. US was a bit too simplistic and made the two groupings look like polar opposites. Really, we’re more similar than different, especially compared to the rest of the world. The cross-country comparisons are definitely useful and since Europe is one of the richest parts of the world, we should be taking ideas from them on occasion.
My biggest point is that these two groupings of nations aren’t really the same. Social evolution is a lot like biological evolution, and while there can be a lot of genetic similarities between two groups, no one would be suggesting that horse social structure should perfectly resemble pig social structure.
Similarly Europe and the US are different, and even within Europe there is a LOT of difference. I would count the US model as vastly more succesful than any European model, though the European models do have a lot to recommend them.
And, obviously, Europe has its substantial downsides. Their banking systems are even more out of control than ours. Sweden had a huge banking crisis in the early 1990s that was relatively easily resolvable, because Sweden is so small, but cost the Swedes qutie a bit and started their trend towards shrinking their welfare state (which is actually smaller than France’s now!)
They have low birth-rates, as previously stated.
Economically, they are not as viable as you may think. A lot of the European nations that are doing well are doing it by exporting to the South…who obviously can’t pay anything back (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain).
Militarily, they are relatively weak states, particularly when it comes to logistics and power projection. The UK is an exception but these are not states that can maintain the balance of power, and that’s important as Korean-Japanese tensions rise and China and India develop blue water navies and next generation fighters (I’d say the indian air force is quite capable of mopping the floor with most of the European air forces).
To bring a little more color to the discussion (pardon the pun), see this survey where more brothas wanted long-term partners than sistas.
@Int. PlayB
“What matters is commitment and love.”
I cosign that.
It’s interesting how marriage seems difficult for many young men to obtain in the middle east. Birth rates are very low in Iran as well.
@Liz
I’m more concerned with the actual substance of commitment that two people have than some official commitment that may or may not have much substance backing it up. Marriage today can be dissolved at any time for any reason (subject to however long it takes to get the divorce) and so it’s not much of a binding commitment at all and so it’s very easy for people to enter in without actually having much commitment because they can get out of it so easily.
And it’s usually women who file for divorce (about 65% is the figure I saw in a study) and since women on average earn less but the assets are split 50/50 that’s more of an incentive to divorce for women than if it were split according to what each put in; and divorce laws are in favor of giving women more child custody and thus the man has to pay more child support that the woman doesn’t have to show was used for the children (due to earning more on average and also due to the woman getting a higher % of custody time). So the incentives are set up to encourage women to divorce more than men.
Women ought to be quite worried about this. More and more men are refusing to marry (I’m married now but if I ever find myself single I’ll never, ever do it again).
As a rule, women need men much more than men need women. Right now we live in a safe, rich environment. But that’s not going to last. It is getting more and more difficult. Ask the women living alone in the ghetto, where gangs rule and drugs and black market trading are the dominant economic forces.
Ask the single mom barely getting by on a minimum wage part time job, and food stamps and medical card.
Ask the Starbucks barista with her degree in Women’s studies from Barnard or Oberlin or Vassar, now having to pay back about $85,000 in student loans.
Women are starting to feel the pain. And it won’t be pretty.
I’m swimming in those never-married 30-34 y/o women. A lot of masters degrees, non-profit work, “creatives”, “marketing”, and yoga teachers moonlighting from makework jobs. I understand the women who have been prioritizing the career (and have something to show for it), but it is the rest that puzzle me. The women who have neither career stability, savings (and/or debt free), home ownership, or domestic skills.
I mean, what did they do in their 20’s? Most of them were not on the carousel (though many were: see OKCUPID “…those day’s are behind me” comments), but neither were they building anything – creating that surplus, the cup spilling over, that all of this obsession equality would suggest is within their capable grasp. And with women dominating education, advanced degrees, and getting plenty of leg-up in typically male dominated fields, their choices seem to be falling into a void; they aren’t building domestic skills, working on being more feminine, attractive – positioning for the MRS, nor are they building a career – in fact most “career” women I meet seem to be tolerating their jobs while they probe for rationale to pul the ripcord and indulge in something more fun, easier, or more meaningful/fulfilling (insert: yoga teacher, blogger, artisanal baker).
I used to date a woman, masters in nursing. Could work anywhere and pull $80-$120k+ for a 36 hour week, always in demand, highly mobile, etc. Yet she was always broke, always in a bad lease, behind in bills, and always looking for something better. Now she’s 34, still broke, but bailed on the $100k for a part-time job teaching yoga. Ok, dream chasing is a woman’s prerogative, but she also wants badly to be married and have kids. And in her nearly 20 years of adulthood has almost nothing to show for it, but a long string of attractive boyfriends, some nice vacations with them, and an unwavering sense that she deserves ‘happiness’, oh and a highly attractive man. Yet she can barely cook, can’t keep finances, knows almost nothing about the world outside of her circle, still has debt, and has turned away from the only career that made sense to chase a dream. But not the “dream” of being a wife and mother.
Men who make those choices and who chase those dreams (that are not pre-approved by the feminine imperative) are called fools, immature, unstable, unreliable, and a host of other things that make them unattractive to women looking to marry. At the end of the day, all of this equality and opportunity is frittered away. This is the second greatest generation of navel-gazers ever. Whatever “pain” they are feeling is not instilling an aversion to this kind of flawed thinking. I just don’t see it out there.
What I do see are more waves of 29/30 y/o women falling in step. I’ve got a 30 y/o friend who dates constantly, plows through men as if they were abundant and solely for her selection and entertainment. Makes no money (masters in communications $50k in loans) at a makework jobby-job (her second year of a real job in her entire life) and wants to be married to a tall guy and have tall babies (and probably stay at home at least part of the time) – oh and he must want to move back to her home flyover state too. And she won’t SETTLE! She’s not out there banging those guys, but she she isn’t dong anything to improve her lie either. She comes from a small town where her mom bakes, and sews, and everyone works the land. Yet she is more interested in her blog. Where she dresses down each date and their flaws and mistakes and between “stories” of her awesome life. She is sweet and kind and quite pretty, but delusional just the same. Just one more credentialed, indebted, entitled, modern woman who is strategically and rationally digging herself into that abyss of “where are ll of the good men?”. And she is far, far, far from being in the minority.
If marriage is dead, which it seems to be, women killed it. The only reason this is an issue is because more and more men are emulating women and chasing some dreams and indulging in their whims instead of building stability, surplus. And the men who are doing so, continue to marry at 28 and roll the dice. In between there is a buffet of sex and vacations and all kinds of marital approximations that both men and women indulge in without the bother of actual investment in someone else. Unless kids are highly desired, marriage is basically putting all those cats back in the bag and then expecting to keep them alive with an occasional kick.
It is a lot more complicated than just get married in your 20’s. While I still like the idea of being married, I just don’t see very many women out there that would inspire me to take that kind of risk. And being 40, my own “clock” is approaching midnight on the kids issue, so the only real reason to do so is a setting sun. The upside for me is that in being a genetic “failure”, I’ve got enough net worth and stability to let off the gas and enjoy myself down the road. In other words, do pretty much what these 20-something women are doing with the next 20-years of my life, should I be so lucky to live that long.
@Introverted Playboy: Marriage has always been an arbitrary social institution created and maintained by religious and political authorities.
No, marriage in primitive times was more family created. Sort of private marriages, like Free Union in Mexico today. Only when the clergy felt they were God on the planet, did they announce, “We represent God on earth, we decide who is married and who can’t.”
Later, the governments decided, “We are the government. There is money to be made from marriage and divorce, so only we decide who is married and who is divorced.” That is the current mode in the Anglosphere.
Yet, no one is more married than a couple who feels they are married, and no one is more divorced than a couple which feels it is divorced. As in Free Union in Mexico. My wife’s aunt and uncle were ‘married’ for over 70 years, with no interference by church nor government. I am told half the couples in my village are private marriages.
The difference between Free Union in Mexico, and shacking up in the US, is the couple in Free Union believes it is really married. They refer to each other as husband and wife. They believe it, and so do their families and neighbors. Shackups will tell you, “We are not married. We are only living together.”
(In some states in Mexico, if a woman lives with a man in Free Union for more than ten years, she can inherit 20% of his estate.)
@Liz, the USA is not the most obese nation in the world. Mexico just jumped ahead in the last few months.
@TZ
Interesting thoughts. Yeah, there are a lot of women that are just putzing around, not doing much. And a lot that are way too picky, waiting for Mr. Right, and waiting and waiting. I think I’ll write a post on my experience back when I was a church goer at a singles congregation where the women outnumbered the men but the prettiest girls were so picky that even the top guys weren’t “good enough” for them. And these guys were in Ivy League professional schools so basically highly successful guys that would have 6-figure starting salaries. These guys ended up having to settle for women about 1 point lower in overall marriage value while these picky women are mostly still single to this day, getting older and less marriageable as time goes on.
This graphic was posted by Artisanal Toad at Dalrock and is mindblowing.
Actually, the most striking thing of that graph is that a woman with 0 earnings gets more in welfare benefits + income (no income in her case) than a woman earning $45k!!!!! F-ing unbelievable!
http://www.aei-ideas.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/071212welfare.jpg
@AA71
That’s the ideal, when two people want to be together. Then it doesn’t matter what you call it.
The current system is stacked against men, though, so that needs to end. Either have no-fault divorce but with no 50/50 split of assets (you just get out the same % of what you put in) or make divorce harder but equally hard to exit for both parties and so that both know going in that they’re committing to actually staying together and only higher hurdles can allow them to divorce.
OMG! That graph made my head explode.
That’s it, I’m done for today. Good Lord are we screwed in the U.S. of A…
I think the second graph is just brilliant. The collapsing marriage rate for women in their 30s is perfect evidence of the wall (something which my post will also touch on).
[…] The status of being married. Related: Desperate for attention. Related: Advice for young women looking for marriage. Related: Some graphs and stats on never-married women. […]
@ Ted D
Nice to hear you are not too worried. Your daughter is fortunate having you as a dad!
I wish more parents cared about their children wellbeing.
@Han Solo
“Having boundaries won’t really make women more attractive to out of their league men but it will keep them from being pumped and dumped and will make them more attractive to in-their-league men.”
Exactly! I wish more females would realise this.
“I think that those that don’t cohabit but marry have more of a mindset to make marriage work.”
Definitely. Temptation or the Grass Is Greener Syndrome will always be there, it’s definitely a mindset to make it work. Some people I speak to have the right attitude – you get into marriage with 100%. Others I speak to believe it’s not going to last anyway, thus why bother.
Cool articles you posted further up. Need to re-read them. I am too exhausted to continue thinking right now, lol.
Starlight – “Nice to hear you are not too worried. Your daughter is fortunate having you as a dad!
I wish more parents cared about their children wellbeing.”
Make no mistake, I’m concerned. but worry implies I don’t have faith in her, and for the most part she hasn’t done anything to warrant that lack of faith.
As far as fortunate goes, I imagine that depends greatly on the moment in her opinion. LOL. But overall she would probably agree. What I find VERY interesting is seeing how she views our interactions with the younger children now that she is an “adult”. On one occasion she actually apologized to me for being a pain in the ass, and it made me laugh. I told her I expected them to push me as they grow into adulthood, and that it was my job to push back. She seemed relieved that I don’t hold a grudge about it.
I didn’t come to that realization until I was well into my mid 20’s, but young women are supposedly more mature than young men. :p
@Starlight
So much of “mainstream” girl game is focused on trying to get men that are out of their league to be interested. Can happen once in a while but better girl game would be to up one’s value while making one’s expectations realistic and getting out amongst men that are in-league and good candidates.
@ Ted D
“On one occasion she actually apologized to me for being a pain in the ass, and it made me laugh.”
You made me chuckle! Actually, it’s refreshing that she apologized. The amount of youngsters I hear that call their parents using f words or worse is unbelievable!
“but young women are supposedly more mature than young men. :p”
LOL. Sometimes I wonder whether it’s not just hokum.
@ Han Solo
That’s a great strategy – choose the best of the crop within your league. Hope more ladies will pay attention to what you say! It’s very valuable information.
Thanks, Starlight. I’m going to write a post on girl game soon. You’ll have to tell your friends to come read it. lol
Sweet, Han Solo! Will do, lol. Honestly looking forward to it.
@ Liz
I would normally agree with this, but given the current environment, I see this as a fem-centric viewpoint. It could easily be turned around like so:
Anyone who requires an official contract from their partner doesn’t trust them enough to have children with them.
@SN
Always interesting to flip things around and see what reaction comes.
[…] there is no doubt that Americans are delaying marriage. However, there is significant disagreement as to whether it is women or men that are driving […]
I think that having kids is more requiring of trust than marriage…but that’s no reason for a man to get married.
Put away the romantic gesture guys, put on your hard hat and look at the increased risks of a marriage break up with kids over an LTR breakup with kids. Both are crap, but one is worse for the man (better for the woman) and what did you get out of it for putting a ring on her finger? nada.
cohabitation as marriage makes the LTR route worse, but perhaps that’s the point?
Guy you’re fucked either way, why not spend tens of thousands on her princess day…? What else are you going to do with the money (if you even have it without borrowing more)? Throw it away by paying down debt? You know it makes sense /sarc
[…] Playboy made the following statement over at Just Four Guys as part of a larger argument that marriage no longer […]
This interesting chart at Dalrock’s shows what percent of children are living with unmarried vs married parents when living with both parents.
http://dalrock.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/custody-demographics/percbothbyrace/
…………Mar…Unmar.
Asian….82%…2.7%
White….74%…2.8%
Hisp……59%…6.7%
Black….33%…4.7%
I think this adds further evidence that cohabiting isn’t that big of a factor (especially for whites and asians). People who have kids together and live together are nearly always married.
I’m thinking that serious marriage-like cohabitation could shave a year off the median age of first marriage if you were to instead consider age of first serious-cohab-or-marriage for whites (focus of this article) and could reduce the percent of never-married-white-women (the focus of this article) by a few percent for the 25-29 and 30-34 y/o cohorts if marriage-like cohab-or-marriage were what was being measured.
[…] Playboy made the following statement over at Just Four Guys as part of a larger argument that marriage no longer […]
[…] In the early 2000′s, 30-34 y/o never-married white women (NMWW) had a ~34% chance of marrying within the next 5 years. This level was cut in half by 2007, to ~17%. […]
Wow, it will take a while to catch up with this forum.
@Nemesis: “Anyone who requires an official contract from their partner doesn’t trust them enough to have children with them.”
The same could be said of any partnership. Marriage is both a social and business transaction. The contract is there. If you want a life partnership with the person, you sign it. If you don’t, don’t (but don’t have kids with that person you don’t want to commit to, if you do you’re part of the problem). In my case, my husband was military and it would have been very difficult (base privileges, healthcare, ect) if we hadn’t. Furthermore, I had to give up everything and all career ambitions to follow him around and support his career. So if he hadn’t valued me enough to make it official, I wouldn’t have followed him to location one. Not because I didn’t trust him, but one has to have some personal pride too and if the man values you enough, he will marry you and commit. If he doesn’t, he won’t. It’s pretty simple really and less time wasted all around.
Just to add: Without a commitment, what IS there to trust, exactly? Trust that you’ll both “be together” until you tire of each other or things get rough? If it’s just the two of you, fine…with kids that isn’t enough. The purpose of marriage is the same purpose of any vow/obligation, but it’s more important than any other obligation you’ll (hypothetical you) ever make.
There’s no way to evaluate cost/gains, it’s too complex an equation and “value” is subjective. Value in this case can’t be measured in dollars or pounds. The value of a marriage/children/ et al is beyond price. It’s a relationship where you’d lay your life on the line (in a nanosecond) for your family, and he/she would do the same…it’s symbiotic (assuming one chooses carefully and smartly…caveat emptor and all that).
From my perspective, it’s good to marry before you have anything and build a life, home, family together. Marry young and poor, then you know he/she loves you for you and not your money. Spend the first kid years getting their clothes, strollers, toys at garage sales. Live on nothing so if you lose it all you know you’ve been there before, and back, and you’re both better and closer for it. Tough times make you or break you. I call it battle testing…works for unit cohesion of all types.
[…] visceral attraction over compatibility led to the explosion of divorce rates and a general decline in marriage during the 20th […]
[…] visceral attraction over compatibility led to the explosion of divorce rates and a general decline in marriage during the 20th century. […]
[…] http://www.justfourguys.com/marriage-rates-plummet-projection-of-never-married-rates-to-2017/ […]
[…] NM white female levels did not rise as much as projected in my post that had data up to 2012 because the marriage rates actually rose instead of continuing to decline or stay […]
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