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Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet

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Re: Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet

#201

Post by watwut »

x220 wrote: post #166
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/603/

That comic is fake news. I can't find the source, but the Economist made a pretty good graph with good data demonstrating that when you control for certain factors, poor people and people with measured below average IQ definitely are more likely to have children. I saw the graph I'm referring to a couple years ago on the Economist website.

In the past, poor classes had more children then rich. Nothing new about it. Which is what comic says.

Re: Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet

#202

Post by fosco »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #172
module0000 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful - there is no undo button. A lot of us on the other side encouraging you to have kids can be explained by an old adage..."misery loves company". YMMV.

Heheh. I don't mind that so much. But I think I've done a good job of convincing myself that there's a certain baseline condition I'd like to be in to start seriously considering it. We've sadly even waffled enough on getting a dog for, a) Financial reasons. If we can't take the dog to the office, then we would end up paying the few hundred dollars a month or whatever people charge around here to walk them. (one of m…

having a kid will never come at a convenient time. idiocracy is real.

be doggy grandparents (wife and I prefer this over owning), they are distracting to own and more travel prohibitive than kids.

Re: Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet

#203

Post by rayiner »

gumby wrote: post #155
sulam wrote: post #150

They really buried the lede. There are two things happening here that can arguably be traced to one cause: Educated millennials apparently see marriage as something you do _after_ you've finished establishing yourself. It is a goal, not a given. Uneducated millennials apparently have the _same_ point of view, but they aren't established and therefore they aren't getting married. Given that marriage often means you en…

> Given that marriage often means you end up with the lower of the two credit scores Does anyone actually think this way?? Honestly I can’t imagibe ever thinking financially when I proposed.

I sure did! Marriage is, primarily, a financial and risk sharing arrangement. That’s the point of it.

Re: Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet

#204

Post by dcole2929 »

extragood wrote: post #199
sulam wrote: post #150

They really buried the lede. There are two things happening here that can arguably be traced to one cause: Educated millennials apparently see marriage as something you do _after_ you've finished establishing yourself. It is a goal, not a given. Uneducated millennials apparently have the _same_ point of view, but they aren't established and therefore they aren't getting married. Given that marriage often means you en…

Unintended pregnancy in US teens has consistently dropped by quite a bit [1], and I have to imagine that has reduced the number of "shotgun weddings" at a young age. That said, the number of unintended pregnancies by people at and below the poverty line has actually risen somehow. [1] https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-u...

The somehow is the access to contraceptives being severely curtailed. Outside of condoms pretty much every form of contraceptive is much more expensive and harder to get than it once was. Free/Cheap birth control was an excellent way to prevent pregnancies but various entities have conspired to take that away, with the ridiculous idea that people will just stop having sex. Condoms can be expensive if you are living below the poverty line but people aren't going to stop having sex. Thus you have these obvious consequences.

Re: Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet

#205

Post by bunderbunder »

philwelch wrote: post #196
ChuckMcM wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Married people sharing a household retain more of their income (so have more money) than non-married people who are each managing their expenses. Many bills (like utilities) often have a base component and a variable component, you pay only one base component if you live in the same house. Rents for two studio apartments are greater than the rents for a single bedroom apartment, two one bedroom apartments go for more…

Is there a separate effect for marriage over and above cohabitation?

Depending on your relative incomes, the difference in your total tax liabilities can be enough to fully fund an IRA; maybe more.

Things like health and car insurance can cost less for a married couple than they do for two individuals, especially if your state doesn't have a domestic partnership law.

Stuff like that can add up surprisingly quickly.

Re: Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet

#206

Post by jboles »

ryanobjc wrote: post #170
magic_beans wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course people think this way. It's foolish not to, especially when couples can commit to each other in so many ways other than legal marriage. I'm shocked there's someone on hacker news who doesn't.

A meta comment, this kind of thread is why I don't respect hackernews commenters anymore. It frequently goes like so: - Comment: Something - Reply: But my experience says otherwise, why are you so wrong? There is a persistent lack of ability to see other people's point of view. Surely it is not everyone here, but it's enough such that things get really boring here.

In many cases I think it goes beyond a lack of ability, to wilful obtuseness.

Re: Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet

#207

Post by bunderbunder »

b_tterc_p wrote: post #136
yitianjian wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question is correlation though. Is it likelier for people who are married (perhaps correlating with more responsible) to hold better positions? Or have higher pressure to make more money and thus act on that? Also, in US and Canada, there are significant tax benefits to being married.

That’s a common assumption, but for double income earning couples, getting married will frequently increase your tax liability. (In the us at least)

For middle income folks, it's more likely to help than to hurt.

If you're in the bottom 20% or the top 10%, then you're likely to be penalized if you're a dual income family and rewarded if you're a single income family. If you're between those two extremes, it can't hurt and might help.

nice visualization here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/16/upshot/marria...

Re: Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet

#208

Post by jriot »

sulam wrote: post #150

They really buried the lede. There are two things happening here that can arguably be traced to one cause: Educated millennials apparently see marriage as something you do _after_ you've finished establishing yourself. It is a goal, not a given. Uneducated millennials apparently have the _same_ point of view, but they aren't established and therefore they aren't getting married. Given that marriage often means you en…

My wife and I got married young, 21 and 20. Neither of us had any financial issues because we were too young to have any financial issues. Twelve years later and we are still married. By sharing our 20s together it allowed us to see each other grow personally, professionally and together in many ways.

Neither of us views marriage in terms of financial purposes. There are economic benefits we see. For example I work from home and she is a stay at home mom. 90% of our meals of made from scratch by her e.g., we render leaf fat to use in pie dough and get peaches from farmers market to use in the pies. I am certain people view this as a 1950s arrangement but we are healthy to the point we can't remember the last time we've been to the doctor. Added bonus our kids will be out of the house when we are in our early 40s!

Re: Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet

#209

Post by dcole2929 »

cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #194
x220 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the recession that stretched between ww2 and Korea I really don't buy that baby boomers had a tough time. I believe that white men in that time in America had perhaps the most prosperous economy and job opportunities in world history .

* except for the ones that were drafted, shipped out to SE Asia and sent home in a box. Or with lifelong physical or mental injuries.

I don't see your point here. 1,789,000 is the total number of US troops serving in the Theatre during the Korean War. There were 74 million males living in the US ~50 million of which were over the age of 18. Even if every single soldier died, which didn't happen, I think we can safely say the booming economy in which these people lived worked out pretty well for the majority.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2010/001.pdf https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/factsheets/fs_americas_w...

Re: Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet

#210

Post by jriot »

x220 wrote: post #171
encoderer wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a millennial so I’m sympathetic but this is something I’ve heard a lot about anecdotally without a lot of data behind it. Here are two more anecdotes: My dad graduated in 1976 in the middle of stagflation and had a 12% apr on his first house in the mid 80s. His dad graduated into the recession that stretched between ww2 and Korea. I think we’re too quick to look at generations that have accumulated wealth and acc…

>the recession that stretched between ww2 and Korea I really don't buy that baby boomers had a tough time. I believe that white men in that time in America had perhaps the most prosperous economy and job opportunities in world history .

You are looking at history through rose colored glasses.
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