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Half the men in Seattle are never-married singles, census data shows

seattletimes.com

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Re: Half the men in Seattle are never-married singles, census data shows

#131

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

renewiltord wrote: post #83
TriangleEdge wrote: post #54

I live in Seattle now, am married, and have an infant. I find Seattle not friendly towards families at all. The going rate for a daycare here is 3.5k per month for an infant. My wife and I are both ~7%ers? individually and we can barely afford our home (a tall skinny townhouse with no yard) and the cost of 1 baby. Having a family is hard here... Also, I don't find Seattle safe for infants and toddlers, or anybody rea…

People are such predictably complainers. When Google provided lots of benefits including daycare it was because “they want you to live there and have no life outside” and “the next step is company scrip”. Now, it’s because they want you to give up everything. Man, you can make millions working for big tech. At some point you have to take responsibility for your own self.

I mean, of all things for people to unfairly complain about, Google is one that I’m fine with.

Re: Half the men in Seattle are never-married singles, census data shows

#132

Post by whateveracct »

TriangleEdge wrote: post #54

I live in Seattle now, am married, and have an infant. I find Seattle not friendly towards families at all. The going rate for a daycare here is 3.5k per month for an infant. My wife and I are both ~7%ers? individually and we can barely afford our home (a tall skinny townhouse with no yard) and the cost of 1 baby. Having a family is hard here... Also, I don't find Seattle safe for infants and toddlers, or anybody rea…

Seattle is crazy expensive. It's why I moved to Tacoma half a decade ago. I was already working remotely anyways. Less money to own a 3k sqft home in a nice neighborhood (under $600k), and I can do a 45min or so reverse commute to Seattle for entertainment on weekdays.

And Tacoma has a lot of great restaurants, bars, and entertainment itself too.

I'm guessing there are lots of similar choices around Seattle. Or were - it feels like people got wise in the pandemic and started to take advantage.

Re: Half the men in Seattle are never-married singles, census data shows

#133

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

knappa wrote: post #5

So, by "men", they mean 15 or older. Median age of first marriage is ~30 for US men.

> Median age of first marriage is ~30 for US men.

Based on genealogy I've done, this stat also applies to the late 19th, early 20th centuries.

Re: Half the men in Seattle are never-married singles, census data shows

#134

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

russell_h wrote: post #14

Without looking at any data I’m guessing part of this is that married men end up with kids and can’t afford a home they want to raise kids in there. Edit: also, school quality.

> Without looking at any data I’m guessing part of this is that married men end up with kids and can’t afford a home they want to raise kids in there.

It's also that parenting time is up 20 fold from a few generations ago. My parents spent a few hours a week parenting. My kids had 24/7 adulting.

Re: Half the men in Seattle are never-married singles, census data shows

#135

Post by jandrewrogers »

graemep wrote: post #126
jandrewrogers wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is minimal US law on this. States have their own laws individually which vary considerably. The context here has nothing to do with children and these people commonly don’t have any. Legal jurisdiction can be quite fluid, which just adds to the complexity. A major motivating factor is that marriage can create myriad ruinous financial entanglements and eliminate most possibilities for recourse. Especially in aff…

I do not really understand that. Why would people have to start again from zero? What sort of "forced loss of agency" happens? Are there laws allowing people to stop their spouse from running an existing business?

It comes from an ancient legal regime called “community property” inherited from the Spanish in the southwestern US. The details of what is within legal scope and how it is handled varies significantly with jurisdiction. In most cases the loss of ownership independence also comes with a loss of management independence — your spouse can get involved and has veto power. Assets that are out of scope can bleed into scope over time. The entire notion interacts poorly with modern legal and financial structures related to businesses and assets.

It isn’t talked about much but I’ve seen a couple startups destroyed by this and it is a not uncommon source of dead equity in cap tables.

Re: Half the men in Seattle are never-married singles, census data shows

#136

Post by dragonwriter »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #133
knappa wrote: post #5

So, by "men", they mean 15 or older. Median age of first marriage is ~30 for US men.

> Median age of first marriage is ~30 for US men. Based on genealogy I've done, this stat also applies to the late 19th, early 20th centuries.

> > Median age of first marriage is ~30 for US men.

> Based on genealogy I've done, this stat also applies to the late 19th, early 20th centuries.

It was ~26 in 1890 reached a low of around 22 in the 1950s, and has been trending up since; its been consistently lower for women, though that gap has fluctuated over time and compressed recently to less than 2 years.

https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/ju...

Re: Half the men in Seattle are never-married singles, census data shows

#137

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #75

I was married for 11 years, had three children and am happily divorced. I’m glad I got married and I’m just as glad I was able to get a divorce. What’s overwhelmingly changed in my lifetime (since 1980) is that young adult people would rather be alone with no children than take the risk on being unhappy or getting a divorce. The single biggest change is that the average sentiment now in the “global-west” is “why shou…

We were never gonna scale our population much further anyways. Arguably, the social changes we’ve seen could be a response to our reaching a (very approximate) carrying capacity and experiencing friction against further growth in myriad ways. That’s the way I’ve been thinking about it at least.

> That wasn’t previously really an option for most people - for a lot of structural reasons.

I’d be interested to hear more about this if its no trouble. I’m in my twenties so not much knowledge of this stuff.

Re: Half the men in Seattle are never-married singles, census data shows

#138

Post by scarab92 »

whateveracct wrote: post #132
TriangleEdge wrote: post #54

I live in Seattle now, am married, and have an infant. I find Seattle not friendly towards families at all. The going rate for a daycare here is 3.5k per month for an infant. My wife and I are both ~7%ers? individually and we can barely afford our home (a tall skinny townhouse with no yard) and the cost of 1 baby. Having a family is hard here... Also, I don't find Seattle safe for infants and toddlers, or anybody rea…

Seattle is crazy expensive. It's why I moved to Tacoma half a decade ago. I was already working remotely anyways. Less money to own a 3k sqft home in a nice neighborhood (under $600k), and I can do a 45min or so reverse commute to Seattle for entertainment on weekdays. And Tacoma has a lot of great restaurants, bars, and entertainment itself too. I'm guessing there are lots of similar choices around Seattle. Or were…

I also suspect these are reasons people give because they feel more concrete and defensible.

I suspect a more significant but harder to concretize cause is that certain social changes have lead to the majority of young people being unable to form healthy attachments and pair bond.

The causes ranging from a high percentage of kids growing up in single parent households and forming avoidant personality styles, social media leading to higher rates of narcissism, dating apps setting unrealistic standards and a perception that there’s always a better option etc

Re: Half the men in Seattle are never-married singles, census data shows

#139

Post by dragonwriter »

knappa wrote: post #5

So, by "men", they mean 15 or older. Median age of first marriage is ~30 for US men.

> So, by "men", they mean 15 or older.

Which is kind of a silly age range to use for this purpose in Seattle, since Washington (unlike a number of other states) does not permit child (under 18) marriages and declares any marriage contracted by anyone under 18 void.

Re: Half the men in Seattle are never-married singles, census data shows

#140

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

pfdietz wrote: post #50
inglor_cz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also "The Global Collapse of Coupling and Fertility" https://www.ggd.world/p/the-global-collapse-of-coupling-and I wonder if the ultimate cost (in lives never born) of technologies like smartphones and Tinder will be. If a significant part of the entire youth cohort never learns to interact with the other sex in the real world, we might be looking at a pandemics of loneliness - and at subsequent global birth defi…

I've come to a conclusion that the solution may be somewhat radical. If coupling is reduced, it should become the norm for women to have and raise children alone, or at least without a male partner. This increases the burden on women, so at the same time the number of children they must support would have to decrease. This could be achieved technologically, by filtering sperm to remove Y chromosome carrying gametes.…

But like… why?
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