Marriage in decline? NO- 10/18/06

[Smartmarriages]

- HAS BEING MARRIED GONE OUT OF STYLE?
- TO BE MARRIED MEANS TO BE OUTNUMBERED IN AMERICA

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You must have wondered why I didn't send the October Census Bureau release
on the so called "decline in marriage". I thought I had sent these two
"representative" articles, but I just found this email had bounced.  So, I'm
resending, because I ESPECIALLY want you to have this first article that
appeared in TIME Magazine. It presents an invaluable analysis and makes
points that will serve you well in your community marriage efforts as it
answers the question: NO, Marriage is NOT going out of style.  - diane
  
- HAS BEING MARRIED GONE OUT OF STYLE?
TIME Magazine 
Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2006
Has Being Married Gone Out of Style?
Blame how much money we have, not our lack of values, for the decline in
married households
By PO BRONSON & ASHLEY MERRYMAN

Earlier this month, the Census Bureau informed us that married households
are no longer the majority in America. Homes headed by married couples have
dipped below 50% for the first time. But while this barometer certainly
indicates a sea change in how we live, the nature of the phenomenon is
generally misunderstood.

The primary factor getting the blame is the preference of young people to
cohabitate rather than marry. There are almost 37 million "unmarried,
non-family households" in America. Many assume this means couples living in
sin, but a huge proportion of these (83%) are actually roommates, not
romantically involved at all (or at least not usually). By and large,
they're twenty-somethings who are living with their friends while they hope
to find the right partner to marry. Couples do indeed cohabitate before
marriage - over 85% of recently married couples lived together first ‹ but
most get around to marrying. In fact, over 90% of us will marry at some
point in our lives.

This distinction ‹ that we still marry, but do so at a more mature age than
we used to ‹ is commonly called "The Marriage Delay." Delay, however, is a
bad choice of words, because it implies that we fear commitment . . . .

The divorce rate is assumed to be another main factor for so many unmarried
households. But the divorce rate has not gone up in twenty years. . . .

The most overlooked factor in the decline of married households is the
contribution our elderly make to this trend. We used to keep our
grandparents at home, in the spare room, but now they prefer the weather in
Florida and the 24-hour care of retirement homes. When one elderly spouse
outlives the other, America gets another "single-person household." There
are now 10.5 million people, over age 65, living alone ‹ one-tenth of all
households. Thus, the 55 million married households become a smaller part of
the whole pie. 

What we're really seeing in all these numbers is that America . . . . . . We
have the financial resources to live apart, and in fact money is the driving
factor behind all of these choices. . . .

The new era of family is not defined by "not marrying." The true defining
traits of this new era are financial freedom and choice. . . . .

Copyright © 2006 Time Inc.

To read and print and file the full article:
 http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1547431,00.html?cnn=yes

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- TO BE MARRIED MEANS TO BE OUTNUMBERED IN AMERICA

> The New York Times
> October 15, 2006
> To Be Married Means to Be Outnumbered in America
> By SAM ROBERTS
> 
> Married couples, whose numbers have been declining for decades as a proportion
> of American households, have finally slipped into a minority, according to an
> analysis of new census figures by The New York Times.
> 
> The American Community Survey, released this month by the Census Bureau, found
> that 49.7 percent, or 55.2 million, of the nation's 111.1 million households
> in 2005 were made up of married couples - with and without children - just shy
> of a majority and down from more than 52 percent five years earlier.
> 
> The numbers by no means suggests marriage is dead or necessarily that a
> tipping point has been reached. The total number of married couples is higher
> than ever, and most Americans eventually marry. But marriage has been facing
> more competition. A growing number of adults are spending more of their lives
> single or living unmarried with partners, and the potential social and
> economic implications are profound.
> 
> "It just changes the social weight of marriage in the economy, in the work
> force, in sales of homes and rentals, and who manufacturers advertise to,"
> said Stephanie Coontz, director of public education for the Council on
> Contemporary Families, a nonprofit research group. "It certainly challenges
> the way we set up our work policies."
> 
> While the number of single young adults and elderly widows are both growing,
> Professor Coontz said, "we have an anachronistic view as to what extent you
> can use marriage to organize the distribution and redistribution of benefits."
> 
> Couples decide to live together for many reasons, but real estate can be as
> compelling as romance.
> 
> "Owning three toothbrushes and finding that they are always at the wrong house
> when you are getting ready to go to bed wears on you," said Amanda Hawn, a 28-
> year-old writer who set up housekeeping near San Francisco with her boyfriend,
> Nate Larsen, a real estate analyst, after shuttling between his apartment and
> one she shared with a friend. "Moving in together has simplified life," Ms.
> Hawn said.
> 
> The census survey estimated that 5.2 million couples, a little more than 5
> percent of households, were unmarried opposite-sex partners. An additional
> 413,000 households were male couples, and 363,000 were female couples. In all,
> nearly one in 10 couples were unmarried. (One in 20 households consisted of
> people living alone).
> 
> And the numbers of unmarried couples are growing. Since 2000, those
> identifying themselves as unmarried opposite-sex couples rose by about 14
> percent, male couples by 24 percent and female couples by 12 percent.
> 
> Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force,
> said gay couples were undercounted because many gay people were reluctant to
> disclose their sexual orientation. But he said that inhibition seemed to be
> fading.
> 
> "I would say the increase is due to people feeling more comfortable disclosing
> that they are gay or lesbian and living with a partner," he said.
> 
> The survey did not ask about sexual orientation, but its questionnaire was
> designed to distinguish partners from roommates. A partner was defined as "an
> adult who is unrelated to the householder, but shares living quarters and has
> a close personal relationship with the householder."
> 
> Some of the biggest gains in unmarried couples were recorded in unexpected
> places. In the rural Midwest, the number of households made up of male
> partners rose 77 percent since 2000.
> 
> The survey revealed wide disparities in household composition by place. The
> proportion of married couples ranged from more than 69 percent in Utah County,
> Utah, which includes Provo, to 26 percent in Manhattan, which has a smaller
> share of married couples than almost anyplace in the country. But Manhattan
> registered a 1.2 percent increase in married couples since 2000, in contrast
> to the rest of New York City and many other places.
> 
> Among counties, the highest proportion of unmarried opposite-sex partners was
> in Mendocino, Calif., where they made up nearly 11 percent of all households.
> 
> The highest share of male couples was in San Francisco, where, according to
> the census, they accounted for nearly 2 percent of all households. In
> Manhattan, they made up 1 percent of households. Hampshire County, Mass., home
> to Northampton, had the highest proportion of female couples, at 1.7 percent.
> Some of the highest numbers of unmarried couples were recorded in the South,
> which as defined by the census, has the largest population of any region.
> 
> David Blankenhorn, president of the marriage advocacy group the Institute for
> American Values, said married couples had become a minority largely because of
> the growing number of households made up of people who planned to marry or who
> used to be married.
> 
> Steve Watters, the director of young adults for Focus on the Family, a
> conservative Christian group, said that the trend of fewer married couples was
> more a reflection of delaying marriage than rejection of it.
> 
> "It does show that a lot of people are experimenting with alternatives before
> they get there," Mr. Watters said. "The biggest concern is that those who
> still aspire to marriage are going to find fewer models. They're also finding
> they've gotten so good at being single it's hard to be at one with another
> person."
> 
> But Pamela J. Smock, a researcher at the University of Michigan Population
> Studies Center, said her research - unaffiliated with the Census Bureau -
> found that the desire for strong family bonds, and especially marriage, was
> constant.
> 
> "Even cohabiting young adults tell us that they are doing so because it would
> be unwise to marry without first living together in a society marked by high
> levels of divorce," Ms. Smock said.
> 
> A number of couples interviewed agreed that cohabiting was akin to taking a
> test drive and, given the scarcity of affordable apartments and homes, also a
> matter of convenience. Some said that pregnancy was the only thing that would
> prompt them to make a legal commitment soon. Others said they never intended
> to marry. A few of those couples said they were inspired by solidarity with
> gay and lesbian couples who cannot legally marry in most states.
> 
> Jennifer Lynch, a 28-year-old stage manager in New York, said she had lived on
> the Lower East Side with her boyfriend, who is 37 and divorced, for most of
> the five years they have been a couple.
> 
> "Cohabitating is our choice, and we have no intention to be married," Ms.
> Lynch said. "There is little difference between what we do and what married
> people do. We love each other, exist together, all of our decisions are based
> upon each other. Everyone we care about knows this."
> 
> If anything, she added, "not having the false security of wedding rings makes
> us work even a little harder."
> 
> With more competition from other ways of living, the proportion of married
> couples has been shrinking for decades. In 1930, they accounted for about 84
> percent of households. By 1990 the proportion of married couples had declined
> to about 56 percent.
> 
> Married couples have not been a majority of households headed by adults
> younger than 25 since the 1970's, but among those aged 25 to 34 the proportion
> slipped below 50 percent for the first time within the past five years. (Among
> Americans aged 35 to 64, married couples still make up a majority of all
> households.)
> 
> "It's partially fueled by women in the work force; they don't necessarily have
> to marry to be economically secure," said Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer
> at Queens College of the City University of New York, who conducted the census
> analysis for The New York Times. "You used to get married to have sex. Now one
> of the major reasons to get married is to have children, and the
> attractiveness of having children has declined for many people because of the
> cost."
> 
> William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, attributed the
> accelerated trend to the lifestyles of baby boomers.
> 
> "It's the legacy of the boomers that have finally caused this tipping point,"
> Dr. Frey said. "Certainly later generations have followed in boomer footsteps,
> with high levels of living together before marriage, and more flexible
> lifestyles. But the boomers were the trailblazers, once again, rebelling
> against a norm their parents epitomized.
> 
> "This would seem to close the book on the Ozzie and Harriet era that
> characterized much of the last century," he said.
> 


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