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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

#191

Post by bunderbunder »

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.

In my social circle, it's not all that uncommon for it to be a purely financial decision. One pair of friends, I didn't find out they got legally married until much later, when it came up incidentally in a conversation about filing taxes. And I was no more offended about it than I'd be about them not keeping me up to date on whether they itemize or take the standard deduction, or deciding not to invite me along for a mortgage refinance.

I don't know if it's boomers treating divorce as a recreational sport, or if it's the whole 90's/00's DOMA subplot in the story of marriage in the US, or something else entirely, or all of the above. But, at some point, the idea that "love == government licensure" just stopped seeming reasonable.

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

#192

Post by everdrive »

bunderbunder wrote: post #191
gumby wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

In my social circle, it's not all that uncommon for it to be a purely financial decision. One pair of friends, I didn't find out they got legally married until much later, when it came up incidentally in a conversation about filing taxes. And I was no more offended about it than I'd be about them not keeping me up to date on whether they itemize or take the standard deduction, or deciding not to invite me along for a…

What sort of social circle is this?

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

#193

Post by sjg007 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #182
smegger001 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my wife and I married we made a profit on our wedding but we set a reasonable budget for it.

I would love to know how you made a profit on it. (That's not a snarky question at all - I have a child likely to get married next year, and I would genuinely like to know.)

Guests give money to the newly weds in lieu of gifts.

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

#194

Post by cbm-vic-20 »

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 .

* 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.

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

#195

Post by AnimalMuppet »

pastor_elm wrote: post #37
sidstling wrote: post #9

I wonder how much cost plays in, I mean, my fiancée and I are adult middle class millennials and we’ve been saving for two years to have a wedding, and we’re planning a relatively cheap one.

what's cheap? 70k?

NO, 70k is not cheap! 2k is cheap.

The point of a wedding is to publicly (and legally) commit yourselves to each other - to tell yourselves, and everybody else, that you are now off limits for everyone except each other. Everything else is fluff, and the fluff disappears.

I've been married for 28 years. Much of the fluff is gone. The wedding cake is long gone. The developer lost our honeymoon pictures (28 years ago was still in the era of film cameras). The building we got married in has been torn down. I lost my wedding ring. But our marriage is still here.

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

#196

Post by philwelch »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #146
philwelch wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do married people have more money, or do more financially secure people get married?

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?

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

#197

Post by ChuckMcM »

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?

I don't know. But I would speculate that if such an effect existed it would be tied to a shared financial outcome for the pair vs two unrelated people cohabiting.

There should also be a secondary effect on savings (if they were combined) where the compounding of interest would work more effectively on a larger principle.

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

#198

Post by watwut »

xfitm3 wrote: post #183
gumby wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The credit score remark is a reference to losing half your assets and/or taking on your partners debt if things go wrong.

That assumes you are marrying someone with zero resources.

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

#199

Post by extragood »

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...

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

#200

Post by gumby »

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.

Wasn't the post more "am I wrong?" rather than "poster is wrong"?

And the responses were useful.

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