A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married • Hacker News Board

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#151

Post by mc32 » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #143

doctorwho42 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because our society is interdependent. In the case of housing, there has been a growing trend over the past decades of owning more than one home. In that case, to do that you undoubtedly affect people who just want to have a family and comfortable life socializing in their community because you force the price of houses to go up and house stock to become limited, which also forces people to rent ... And to make your…

Yes. The other thing these individuals don’t realize is that my idea of success also affects them. If I don’t think buying a big house is my idea of success, and if a lot of us think the same thing, then their big house that they bought is suddenly not worth anything and suddenly they are no longer a success and they have a house that’s underwater. Yes, everything is interdependent, and the myth of the separate indiv…

It's not a capitalistic concept. People in the DDR (among other communist states) used to rat each other out with the consequence of the target losing their home or possible incarceration so that the stoolie could "inherit" this desired asset. They still had the concept of some being more equal than others and deserving more.

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#152

Post by hospitalJail » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

drumhead wrote: post #60

dougmwne wrote: post #6

The trend of less education means less marriage is interesting. I think that tells me the root cause is that 25% of 40 year olds are not financially attractive mates. I think this speaks to a broader trend of men not being able to meet the traditional expectations of the breadwinner in an increasingly precarious economy.

Men dont really care about the income of their partner, they're more interested in physical attributes. Maybe women have set much higher standards and the majority of men dont meet those standards. Maybe men just dont want to get married?

I have gotten close with some female engineers, and until recently they never mentioned their dating preferences. They were explaining how a night went down

"I didn't want to approach them, he wasn't that tall, but she insisted so we did anyway. He was kind of cute until he took off his hat. His friend was country and I love country."

They explain the night, how they went to different tables and had different drinks. They exchanged phone numbers.

I was a bit bothered that they never mentioned anything I deemed important "Job/Education/etc..." Apparently a "construction safety manager".

The girl ended up mentioning that he was a big Trump supporter and that she is very liberal, I asked her how that would work with the whole 'country' thing. She said that she is always going to be working and not a stay at home mom.

And 1 month later she broke up with him.

Weird how height, hair, and 'country' was more important than job and beliefs.

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#153

Post by WarOnPrivacy » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 5:25 PM UTC

pengaru wrote: post #147

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Marriage is not a requirement for pooling resources. A relationship matters if 1 bedroom housing is a necessary part of the plan.

> A relationship matters if 1 bedroom housing is a necessary part of the plan. We're talking about marriage, which is a very specific thing with a legal definition.

> We're talking about marriage, which is a very specific thing with a legal definition.

The study is on marriage, true but the same trends are applying to couples in general - so the same conversation applies there as well. Given the likely causes, there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to look at marriage in isolation.

As paths to affordable cohabitation decline, relationships are declining right along with them.

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#154

Post by _2z1p » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #132

_2z1p wrote: post #95

I think a lot of men are starting to do the cost benefit analysis of marriage. If everything goes well you can buy a lovely house in the suburbs, raise 2.5 kids, grow old together with your wife and live happily ever after. If it goes wrong she takes your kids and half your assets immediately, followed by several years of child support and possibly alimony.

I mean, you don't marry someone that is going to do that, right? It's not like you have a coin flip chance at a happy life or an unhappy divorce. You can influence the odds here. In fact, you can really stack the deck in your favor, so to speak. Sure, people lie and people change, but it's not like you have to get married after a certain amount of time. You can wait to see what the person is like at their worst and t…

Of course nobody marries somebody expecting it to end in an unhappy divorce.

The problem is that there are 2 single points of failure in a marriage, and you only control one of them. I can be the best husband I can possibly be, work hard, provide for my family, love my wife with everything I have, and otherwise do what I can to try to make her happy. However, if she choses not to reciprocate this, there's literally nothing I can do about it. (You can change the genders here as appropriate, it's just that I'm a heterosexual male.)

The other problem is that people can change. Sometimes people go out of their way to be the very best version of themselves until they are married and then they just stop trying as hard or stop pretending to be the person the other person wants them to be. Also, people change as they get older, they have different priorities, different interests, new hobbies, changes in physical appearance, changes in libido, etc. After 10 or 20 years of marriage, it is very unlikely that you and your spouse haven't changed in some very significant ways.

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#155

Post by ivan_gammel » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 5:45 PM UTC

wonderwonder wrote: post #117

ivan_gammel wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is, excluding Haredi their fertility rate is high enough for population growth and it is significantly higher than in other developed countries even among secular population. Naïve hypotheses like above cannot explain that.

Replacement fertility rate is 2.1. There is also a built in commonality in Israel as everyone has something in common, they are all jews. Your point of higher than most of the western world is very valid though but I wonder if the "we are all X here" lends itself to that.

I think Israeli society is more diverse than that. Do Soviet jews have a big sense of unity with Mizrahim? Why is this different from any European country, where share of immigrants is probably lower than in Israel?

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#156

Post by CountSessine » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 5:51 PM UTC

xethos wrote: post #96

segmondy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

less education? the US has never been more educated.

Yeah, the gender that values education in a mate has never before, on average, attained higher levels of education. But women value education in men, and men have fallen behind.

I suspect that men are more likely to link education to income and opportunities - and the ROI for a lot of degrees has plummeted as tuition has increased. I don’t think women are as bothered by this and you can see this in the student loan data. 2/3 of distressed student loans in the US are owed by women.

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#157

Post by lamontcg » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 6:03 PM UTC

Some of the hottakes in this thread are pretty wild

-- a never-married 50-year-old.

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#158

Post by bryanrasmussen » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 6:05 PM UTC

drumhead wrote: post #103

lotsofpulp wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? I can envision a decent proportion of men, at least myself and a few I know, who would find it preferable to have a redundant source of income in the household. Even if a woman ends up becoming a non income earning partner temporarily or permanently, having one who is capable of earning more can be a desirable trait for multiple reasons.

Source? No man I know, friends, relatives, aquaintences has ever given the income of a woman as a reason for marrying them. The primary reason has been looks or personality. Some of them have got married because of family. Never once have I encounterd anyone giving their future partners earning potential as a reason. It might be common in the group of people you mix with but not for me.

>No man I know, ... has ever given the income of a woman as a reason for marrying them.

that may correlate with it being considered uncouth to have such considerations in mind.

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#159

Post by renewiltord » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 6:18 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #133

renewiltord wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or alternatively, economic conditions are so much better than before that those who would marry for that no longer need to.

From TFA: "Black 40-year-olds were much more likely to have never married than Hispanic, White and Asian 40-year-olds." My understanding is that economic conditions for Blacks are not significantly better than those of Whites and Asians, and are probably somewhat worse . Which suggests your hypothesis is not backed by data.

Yeah that's pretty good ngl

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#160

Post by cmrdporcupine » Sat, Jul 01, 2023, 6:22 PM UTC

29athrowaway wrote: post #119

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but it's a lot less conspirational than that. The early 70s is when the long post-war economic boom ended, and corporate profits globally began to contract for an extended period of time, long wave decline. Along with it came a longer term trend of declining take-home earning rights, a huge decline in unionization, waves of inflation followed by severe recessions, etc. The gold standard stuff is hilariously red…

The Nixon Shock is the end of the Bretton Woods system (the post-war economic system) which is how "the post-war economic boom ended". So that paragraph reads like "You are wrong because [essentially the same thing you said phrased differently]".

Nonsense, the boom didn't end because of the end of the gold standard, it was in decline long before that.

Sounds like cryptobros politics.