Marriage Trends in Millenials
Marriage rates are steadily decreasing in millennials due to issues such as hikes in financial instability and the emergence of technology. Although marriages have been noticed to last longer, a common trend in millennials is this desire for instant gratification and priority of happiness in all aspects of their lives. This trickles into their likelihood or lack thereof to settle down and how long they want to stay this way.
The fear of financial instability and marriage have been recognized to stem from rather individualized characteristics in said generation, which makes people more likely to further their careers to an increasingly stable point before getting married. GenY also has a tendency of seeking out the “experiences” in life, meaning they essentially prioritize achieving heightened happiness levels over having a stable bank balance in their early 20s. Not to mention our generation was raised in the midst of the Great Recession, altering our perceptions of what is important–deeming money no longer a priority since it is now viewed as fleeting, unsatisfactory, and unreliable while experiences are seen as rather available, pleasurable, and dependable.
The emergence of technology certainly plays a role in our desire for instant gratification in almost all aspects of our lives. Having social media and a vast amount of information at the disposal of our fingertips within seconds is definitely a primary contributor in how quickly we expect to accomplish things. This makes it difficult to maintain long-term relationships since most of our interactions in life have become so instantaneous, and successful relationships tend to take more time and effort to sustain. The prominence of social media also typically skews the general view of what a relationship looks like, since most people only post the good things creating this illusion that there isn’t any nor should there be any bad which is just not true.
Although marriage rates in general have decreased, the longevity of them have increased over time since people are getting married later and taking different approaches to it than before. For example, open marriages and “divorcing marriages” (ones that always have the intention of eventually ending to pursue something else, without any stigmatization) are on the rise. Having additional time with a significant other before diving into marriage helps solidify whether or not it is the best decision and promotes the involvement of more emotionally mature individuals, leading to increasingly successful marriages overtime. It’s not that millennials do not want to ever settle down but rather that they want heightened independence for longer, don’t necessarily want to feel held back from pursuing their dreams before starting a family (should they choose to have children), and would prefer being financially stable first.
That being said, I don’t think successful long-term monogamous relationships are necessarily extinct. A large amount of the population still highly values the ins and outs of traditional marriage and relationships. It’s just that the unique shift our society is taking in romantic relationships, in my opinion, could not have occurred without the emergence of technology and it is interesting to see what the general trend will unfold as. If you think about it, polyamory and open relationships were decently common in the 60s, but our society somehow countermanded that. I am intrigued with that and look forward to observing how our society continues to shape itself with changing times and norms.
