The Married Will Soon Be the Minority

Interesting times ahead. Especially for Gen Z and younger, who rely heavily on dating apps instead of going out to meet new potential partners. Dating apps which are highly ineffective at actually generating relationships for most people (particularly for straight males). I predict Gen Z birth rate will be less than 1 per woman, but this might not be a problem for Western economies for now as Western countries can just increase immigration.

My thoughts are that most of the problems, like most things, stem from the Baby Boomer generation, the generation that likes to pin everything on Millennials and Gen Z now, which stemmed from their prior generations. It was Baby Boomers who divorced more than any other and yet pitched this idealized, fairytale version of marriages. Well, Millenials can see that doesn’t work, because they have first hand experience.

So Millenials, from what I can gather, are much more willing to be naturally skeptical of the pitch of marriage and wait it out. I myself view it as more of a partnership, entailing legal details (such as taxes and ownership) and a personal, non-religious commitment. Religion has also fallen out of favor, reducing the push to marry, at least in the faith. This also contributes to the newer generations living together longer before marriage, which prevents both marriages and divorces at the same time and certainly delays marriages. Lastly, there’s the finances. Millenials and Gen Z are slammed with rising costs, taxes, debt, one “lifetime” economic crisis after another, and more. All of this contributes to delays in and distractions to “settling down”. I simply don’t understand how I would have felt comfortable marrying in my 20s or even done it. I wasn’t prepared and couldn’t afford stable life and also moved a lot between school, graduate school, and finding a job that didn’t suck, all of which slows meeting people.

There are some financial benefits to marrying, if the marriage sticks, but I think those don't away the sheer pressure newer generations are under.

It doesn’t help that in America taxes penalize you significantly for it if both spouses work

"People will no longer get married and will live with each other just for sexual pleasure." - taken from the Wikipedia page about kali yuga. There are many more entertaining observations there:

Lust will be viewed as socially acceptable and sexual intercourse will be seen as the central requirement of life.

People will become addicted to intoxicating drinks and drugs.

Rulers will become unreasonable: they will levy taxes unfairly.

Rulers will no longer see it as their duty to promote spirituality, or to protect their subjects: they will become a danger to the world.

Avarice and wrath will be common. Humans will openly display animosity towards each other.

People will have thoughts of murder with no justification and will see nothing wrong in that.

Gurus will no longer be respected and their students will attempt to injure them.

Weather and environment will degrade with time and frequent and unpredictable rainfalls will happen. Earthquakes will be common.

The powerful people will dominate the poor people.

All the human beings will declare themselves as gods or boon given by gods and make it as a business instead of teachings.

Everything except the last one is the norm already. I'm curious what a society of self-proclaimed gods looks like.

You missed my point, and I didn't say that. I feel that generation highlighted the traps and reality of marriage, making subsequent generations wary. It's a fact that Baby Boomers have the highest generational divorce rate and actually continue to divorce, even in old age.

I am not familiar with the publication source, but I found this reiterating a similar perspective. It's not a controversial one despite being overlooked.

https://psmag.com/ideas/what-we-can-learn-from-the-dramatic-...