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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

#221

Post by nostrademons »

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.

That's part of what I like about Hacker News. They may not be able to see each other's POV, but I can. I come out with a richer appreciation for the diversity of experience out there from reading it, even if all the participants do is argue.

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

#222

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

x220 wrote: post #188
AWildC182 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the point of the comic. Yes, it's absolutely possible that you could measure this effect but worrying about it won't help and attempting to "fix" it will almost certainly backfire in hilarious and/or terrifying ways. See China.

You avoid China by not forcing people to do things they do not want to do. Here's a likely way to reverse the trend: give free birth control and abortions (no questions asked), government subsidized child care, government subsidized college tuition, and higher tax incentives for marriage and having children. The largest obstacle for rich and generally high IQ women to having children is lack of money and lack of prac…

> The largest obstacle for rich and generally high IQ women to having children is lack of money

wat

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

#223

Post by kaitai »

blattimwind wrote: post #116
kaitai wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Child support payments are not the cause of women's financial woes after divorce, but you can absolutely look at the same general sentence: "Women that marry in their late 20s and have kids in their 30s don't like the idea of living in a crappy apartment, driving a 15yo Civic and eating rice and beans well into their 50s because they're getting bent over for" being women who had kids, often put their careers on the b…

> often put their careers on the back burner, often were not aware of financial decision-making within the marriage, & got divorced without the ability to make as much money. It's interesting how some paint this picture of mothers who decided to be homemakers as women who are just too dumb to care the correct amount about climbing the career lader.

I think that's really unkind. It's not dumb. It is an economic decision in an economic system that does not reward caretakers.

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

#224

Post by LilBytes »

jriot wrote: post #208
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 f…

Congratulations on finding yourselves so young and more importantly, being in a position where you were both able to grow with one and other. :)

I'm rather envious. But like the OP above you mentioned, I wasn't in a position where I could or should be committing to life with some one. I guess that's where today's culture is a lot more forgiving and not forcing our generation to adhere to traditional social roles.

I can't imagine anyone who'd have married to the younger version of myself would have made it far, and inevitably found myself on the wrong side of the documented statistics. So, yay... I guess.

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

#225

Post by simonblack »

Once upon a time, you were only able to have a stable relationship if you were married. A stable relationship being distinguished as being emotional rather than purely physical or economic or very short-term (one-night stands).

That all changed around the 1960s when it became common for people to live together even if unmarried leading to fewer recorded marriages. Many unmarried people can and have maintained stable relationships for decades.

Obviously, if there are less official marriages occurring, the number of divorces will also fall. That's purely a semantic distinction, and actually quite meaningless.

A better study would be to find the ratio between the total number of stable relationships (married or not being irrelevant) and the number of those which breakup.

What is the number of stable relationships? How many of those are breaking down? What is the ratio of the breakdowns to those which remain stable? Does that ratio agree or not with the current divorce-ratio?

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

#226

Post by samhain »

magic_beans wrote: post #161
ben_jones wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it worth it though? A married man may feel the need to provide for his family and make career choices that are detrimental to his family and himself in order to do so.

This is a very narrow view that assumes the man's partner is not contributing.

Does it matter if they are contributing if they'll divorce you after you lose your job or don't out-earn them? Some people's love is very much conditional.

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

#227

Post by encoderer »

x220 wrote: post #218
encoderer wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, a globalized leviathan murder machine is good for business. But: - horrible recession between ww2 and Korean War. - young men faced the draft. A bit of a drag really. - everybody felt the horrors of war and knowing personal loss. - the jobs that you speak so fondly of had awful workplace safety, horrible pollution problems, and generally poor working conditions compared to today. Also there are a lot of things t…

>everybody felt the horrors of war and knowing personal loss This is common to nearly every generation in world history. Yes, many Americans died. Yes, it was terrible. Yes, many people genuinely suffered grief. But if we look at the data honestly, you weren't that likely to die or be in combat if you were an American. They had it comparatively good. >the jobs that you speak so fondly of had awful workplace safety, h…

You lost me at “pollution is worse”. So far off the mark.

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

#228

Post by jriot »

LilBytes wrote: post #224
jriot wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

Congratulations on finding yourselves so young and more importantly, being in a position where you were both able to grow with one and other. :) I'm rather envious. But like the OP above you mentioned, I wasn't in a position where I could or should be committing to life with some one. I guess that's where today's culture is a lot more forgiving and not forcing our generation to adhere to traditional social roles. I c…

I can't say our first few years of marriage were easy by any stretch of the definition. We struggled with a variety of issues - sudden death of her father, back to back deployments (her and I) and the general stresses of marriage and the military. The first 2 - 3 years were the most difficult but once she decided to separate marriage became easier. Then I separated and marriage was blissful - now that I work from home we have afternoon delights.

Back to reality, there are also issues of finding yourself/ourself; on our own and together. The younger versions of ourselves are shells of what we've become together. Marriage is never easy, regardless of when you choose to get married; 20, 30, 40...

Younger people divorce quicker for many of the reasons mentioned throughout the post but my belief is they quit through the hard times as they have an unfounded belief marriage is easy and without growth individually and together. We stuck it out through all those hard times; in part because we were the only constant in our lives as we moved overseas. Now in our 30s we understand and react better to those times life throws us a curveball.

Don't be envious, but do view marriage as a partnership through life - not a financial decision.

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

#229

Post by bullfightonmars »

rhacker wrote: post #68

Take a step back. Focus your attention on the 2nd graph and look at the 18-34 age range line. This is and always has been low. There is literally a 1%-2% drop. So you can't actually "blame" millennials on the US divorce rate plummeting, let alone by 8%. The article is also already admitting that the rate is dropping for ALL age groups ranges (read - people that are NOT millennials) for the past 10-15 years. So if you…

After having looked at that graph I too was confused by the assertion that millennials are driving down divorce rates.

It appears that the divorce rates for 18-34 year olds has been flat, the changes are happening in other age brackets.

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

#230

Post by hndamien »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #135
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 rate was 12% but you completely ignore the average home price and its relation to average income. Housing was tremendously less expensive (even after interest), largely in part to the higher rate.

High rates result in lower prices. Low rates result in higher prices. The rate on its own is really pretty irrelevant.
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