Better jobs won't lead to more marriage

[JA]

Better jobs won't lead to more marriage - Axios

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Male Earnings, Marriageable Men, and Nonmarital Fertility: Evidence from the Fracking Boom - Abstract

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[pbrower2a]

The more income that a woman makes, the less she needs to marry whatever creepy man might be available. Higher income for men may mean that he works too many hours for him to have a chance to date.

OK, children are more an economic burden than a cultural imperative in urban America. Few cities are truly child-friendly. Would you like to raise children in a tiny apartment in a box that looks like a box of processed cheese? A farmstead, maybe -- if I liked farming. The exurbs as the older rings of Suburbia take on urban characteristics? Sure.   

[Tancred]

I tend to agree with the conservatives on this issue, that the decline of marriage is mostly a cultural issue. People are becoming less religious, more accepting of having children outside of marriage, more accepting of co-habitation, etc. Also, people saw their parents or others go through bad divorces or stay in unhappy marriages and they don't want to go through the same thing.

[Technocracy Timmy]

People are waiting later to get married and have children which doesn't necessarily mean they don't want those things. Most opinion polls I've seen done on millennials indicate that many of them do want those things; they just aren't in any rush to get them.

The real question is why are they waiting? Is it due to economics or culture?

[Antonio the Sixth]

The reporting on this article is reckless in generalizing about its findings. Much more than the article's restrained discussion, as usual.

The research found that better jobs don't lead to more marriage in a highly specific context, over a limited time period. Local natural resource booms lead to better wages, but they also lead to inmigration of more unmarried men. Moreover, no one would expect a bump in wages in a place previously defined by sustained poverty and lack of jobs to change that place's social patterns into those of a middle class area overnight.

Exactly. This constant sensationalizing of research findings by reckless journalists in search of a headline is undermining its credibility. Research is messy, difficult, and often contradictory. It's great for the public to be informed about the latest developments, but it does service no one to overgeneralize from one study.

[Blue3]

People are waiting later to get married and have children which doesn't necessarily mean they don't want those things. Most opinion polls I've seen done on millennials indicate that many of them do want those things; they just aren't in any rush to get them.

The real question is why are they waiting? Is it due to economics or culture?

It's been proven that marriages are most likely to last if you're at least 30 years old and you've known your partner well for at least 7 years.

Plus people want to feel "settled" in a career first, and it's been hard to get a job nevermind start a career you feel comfortable with as a foundation.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

People are waiting later to get married and have children which doesn't necessarily mean they don't want those things. Most opinion polls I've seen done on millennials indicate that many of them do want those things; they just aren't in any rush to get them.

The real question is why are they waiting? Is it due to economics or culture?

This doesn't really answer your question, but anecdotally, I've seen a "herding" (? if that's the right term) effect among millennials where people who do want to get married and have kids relatively young don't do so because of a lack of compatible partners who also want to.

It's been proven that marriages are most likely to last if you're at least 30 years old and you've known your partner well for at least 7 years.

Not to deny that there are studies to that effect, but there are also studies with very different findings so I'd caution against saying that anything has been "proven".

[Badger]

The reporting on this article is reckless in generalizing about its findings. Much more than the article's restrained discussion, as usual.

The research found that better jobs don't lead to more marriage in a highly specific context, over a limited time period. Local natural resource booms lead to better wages, but they also lead to inmigration of more unmarried men. Moreover, no one would expect a bump in wages in a place previously defined by sustained poverty and lack of jobs to change that place's social patterns into those of a middle class area overnight.

Exactly. This constant sensationalizing of research findings by reckless journalists in search of a headline is undermining its credibility. Research is messy, difficult, and often contradictory. It's great for the public to be informed about the latest developments, but it does service no one to overgeneralize from one study.

You mean young men moving to a real oil patch town where they have no family, friends, or other connections Beyond work and go there just to earn big bucks for a few years don't suddenly settle down after meeting a cute County and raise the host of little ones? Hollywood has been lying to me for a romantic comedies all these years!

Poverty in the loss of the manufacturing jobs porting the middle class have made a generation of young men largely unmarriageable. Started first in the African American ghettos, and has increasingly spread to Appalachia and intercore suburbs as well.