Posted on 05/09/2017 11:20:14 AM PDT by BJ1
Last year I presented a paper called "Will Millennials Ever Get Married?" at SciPy 2015. You can see video of the talk and download the paper here.
I used data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) to estimate the age at first marriage for women in the U.S., broken down by decade of birth. I found evidence that women born in the 1980s and 90s were getting married later than previous cohorts, and I generated projections that suggest they are on track to stay unmarried at substantially higher rates.
Yesterday the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) released a new batch of data from surveys conducted in 2013-2015. I downloaded it and updated my analysis. Also, for the first time, I apply the analysis to the data from male respondents.
Women Based on a sample of 58488 women in the U.S., here are survival curves that estimate the fraction who have never been married for each birth group (women born in the 1940s, 50s, etc) at each age.
For example, the top line represents women born in the 1990s. At age 15, none of them were married; at age 24, 81% of them are still unmarried. (The survey data runs up to 2015, so the oldest respondents in this group were interviewed at age 25, but the last year contains only partial data, so the survival curve is cut off at age 24).
For women born in the 1980s, the curve goes up to age 34, at which point about 39% of them had never been married.
Two patterns are visible in this figure. Women in each successive cohort are getting married later, and a larger fraction are never getting married at all.
By making some simple projections, we can estimate the magnitude of these effects separately. I explain the methodology in the paper. The following figure shows the survival curves from the previous figure as well as projections shown in gray
These results suggest that women born in the 1980s and 1990s are not just getting married later; they are on pace to stay unmarried at rates substantially higher than previous cohorts. In particular, women born in the 1980s seem to have leveled off; very few of them have been married between ages 30 and 34. For women born in the 1990s, it is too early to tell whether they have started to level off.
The following figure summarizes these results by taking vertical slices through the survival curves at ages 23, 33 and 43.
In this figure the x-axis is birth cohort and the y-axis is the fraction who have never married.
1) The top line shows that the fraction of women never married by age 23 has increased from 25% for women born in the 40s to 81% for women born in the 90s.
2) The fraction of women unmarried at age 33 has increased from 9% for women born in the 40s to 38% for women born in the 80s, and is projected to be 47% for women born in the 90s.
3) The fraction of women unmarried at age 43 has increased from 8% for women born in the 40s to 17% for women born in the 70s, and is projected to be 36% for women born in the 1990s.
These projections are based on simple assumptions, so we should not treat them as precise predictions, but they are not as naive as a simple straight-line extrapolations of past trends.
Men The results for men are similar but less extreme. Here are the estimated survival curves based on a sample of 24652 men in the U.S. The gray areas show 90% confidence intervals for the estimates due to sampling error.
1) At age 23, the fraction of men who have never married has increased from 66% for men born in the 50s to 88% for men born in the 90s.
2) At age 33, the fraction of unmarried men has increased from 27% to 44%, and is projected to go to 50%.
3) At age 43, the fraction of unmarried men is almost unchanged for men born in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, but is projected to increase to 30% for men born in the 1990s.
Methodology The NSFG is intended to be representative of the adult U.S. population, but it uses stratified sampling to systematically oversample certain subpopulations, including teenagers and racial minorities. My analysis takes this design into account (by weighted resampling) to generate results that are representative of the population.
The survival curves are computed by Kaplan-Meier estimation, with confidence intervals computed by resampling. Missing values are filled by random choice from valid values, so the confidence intervals represent variability due to missing values as well as sampling.
To generate projections, we might consider two factors:
1) If people in the last two cohorts are postponing marriage, we might expect their marriage rates to increase or decrease more slowly.
2) If we extrapolate the trends, we might expect marriage rates to continue to fall or fall faster.
I used an alternative between these extremes: I assume that the hazard function from the previous generation will apply to the next. This takes into account the possibility of delayed marriage (since there are more unmarried people "at risk" in the projections), but it also assumes a degree of regression to past norms. In that sense, the projections are probably conservative; that is, they probably underestimate how different the last two cohorts will be from their predecessors.
*shrug* -- Call it an excuse if you will, but to do so ignores the reality that legally marriage is both an unequal yoking and perpetrated by judges (as most divorce courts deny the right to a trial jury) who have, by their actions, proven that they are not just.
As for me, God's helped me stay abstinent to the present day.
My wife and I will be celebrating our 30th anniversary.
Congrats.
We both RTFM.
I like the unsubtle implication that I don't simply because of my lack of marital status and for understanding some of the reasoning as to why marriage is so risky.
“Who do you think defined Natural Law?”
Well, “Natural Law” is a concept created by men, the phrase is never mentioned by Christ or the prophets. Of course God ordered the universe, but there is no “natural” order or “direction” that people need to get married, so it’s still a dead end argument for you.
“Nope:
Mark 3:29”
Mark 3:29 does not say what your post said. The Bible leaves “blaphemy against the Holy Spirit” undefined. Your post was man-made doctrine.
Christ is clear about the conditions under which two are to be joined together as one.
Liberal culture is festooned with examples of how ignoring His directions works out.
Abortions, STDs, single “parents” - etc etc.
But hey, go ahead - eat it - you can be “just like God” and make up your own rules... until the due penalties kick in.
Not just lesbians and feminists and old maids.
Hypergamy is everywhere and the feminine imperative has done so much the last 50-60 years to entrench it and demonize anything male positive.
I guess you wouldn't, unless your children were of that cohort. Which mine are.
“You seem to confuse the term “adultery” (marital infidelity) with premarital sex.
The former is indeed a sin. The latter isn’t.”
According to Roman Catholic teaching, BOTH are Mortal sins, condemning one to Hell for all eternity, although the adultery may be worse, since it violates the marriage covenant and threatens the family structure.
Luke 17:1
17
Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come.NIV
Good luck with that.
>>but there is no “natural” order or “direction” that people need to get married, so it’s still a dead end argument for you.
Are the Natural Due Penalties associated with sexual perversion, articulated in Romans chapter 1 a “dead end”?
Good luck with that!
Can’t watch the videos right now but will later.
I love Dennis’s wisdom on many issues but when things go south in his
Marriages he trades up. So he really has no authority on sticking to one
wife.
>>I like the unsubtle implication that I don’t
The implications in a self-destructive hedonistic culture whose fitness is declining are self-evident.
>>why marriage is so risky.
Nah, risky is ignoring the care and maintenance manual that came with the species and doing things your own way - as described in Romans chapter 1.
Got Due Penalties?
LOL — I’ve said nothing at all about sleeping around in this thread, and even revealed my own abstinence, so why are you bringing STDs up with me?
SMH.
The thread is about cultural trends.
Just find a woman that hates you, buy her a house, then give her half your pay until she thinks it’s enough.
True, but really funny.
>>why marriage is so risky.
Awe boohoo.
What isn’t RISKY to this generation of whining woosies?
“Millenials” — the grand children of the demoralized 1968 super geniuses whose big plan over the last 8 years was to recreate 1968, think it’s “risky” to commit and honor their promises.
Multiple generations of Republic-looting FAIL!
What a big surprise. NOT.
It all started in the ww2 generation. Have you ever heard of key parties? They were a part of the military in the 50s.
Meanwhile, while emasculated Millenial woosies are whimpering and making excuses...
https://www.mercatornet.com/conjugality/view/why-are-so-many-lesbians-getting-pregnant/19707
Questions: Who emasculated them? How? and Why?
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