Regan: Marriage is going out of style, and that could hurt: "According to the Pew Research Center, the American marriage rate hit a rock bottom of 50.3% in 2013, down from 50.5% the previous year. Compare that to 1960, when 72.2% of Americans married. Meanwhile, a new finding by the forecasting firm Demographic Intelligence, suggests marriage rates will continue falling into next year as millennials choose to opt out of traditional relationships.
Marriage is going out of style and that's a problem. An economic one.
This decline in marriage is the last thing a fragile economy needs. Historically, a rising household formation rate has contributed to America's financial success. People meet, they marry, they buy a home, they have children and they buy more things. One new household adds an estimated $145,000 to the U.S. economy thanks to the ripple effect of construction spending, home improvements and repairs.
That ripple effect is disappearing as millennials increasingly chose to live at home. In 2012, 45% of 18-30 year olds lived with older family members, up from 39% in 1990 and 35% in 1980. The Atlanta Fed says, "The decline in household formations is the main reason why the housing industry did not play its traditional role of driving the economic recovery."
Marriage and family also provides a sense of stability that encourages prosperity – especially for men. According to an American Enterprise Institute study by economists Robert Lerman and Brad Wilcox, young married men, ages 28-30 make, on average, $15,900 more than their single peers, while married men ages 33-46 make $18,800 more than unmarried men.
In a world of online dating and hook up apps like Tinder, where singles can browse pictures of nearby people they want to meet, society and government alike no longer seem to place as much value on the institution of marriage. Indeed, 41% of babies born today are born to single mothers – that's 2.5 times as high as reported in 1980 and 19 times as high as in 1940. Americans are also having far fewer children -- nearly half of child-bearing age women did not have kids in 2014, the most since the U.S.Census Bureau began tracking this stat in 1976."
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Marriage is going out of style and that's a problem. An economic one.
This decline in marriage is the last thing a fragile economy needs. Historically, a rising household formation rate has contributed to America's financial success. People meet, they marry, they buy a home, they have children and they buy more things. One new household adds an estimated $145,000 to the U.S. economy thanks to the ripple effect of construction spending, home improvements and repairs.
That ripple effect is disappearing as millennials increasingly chose to live at home. In 2012, 45% of 18-30 year olds lived with older family members, up from 39% in 1990 and 35% in 1980. The Atlanta Fed says, "The decline in household formations is the main reason why the housing industry did not play its traditional role of driving the economic recovery."
Marriage and family also provides a sense of stability that encourages prosperity – especially for men. According to an American Enterprise Institute study by economists Robert Lerman and Brad Wilcox, young married men, ages 28-30 make, on average, $15,900 more than their single peers, while married men ages 33-46 make $18,800 more than unmarried men.
In a world of online dating and hook up apps like Tinder, where singles can browse pictures of nearby people they want to meet, society and government alike no longer seem to place as much value on the institution of marriage. Indeed, 41% of babies born today are born to single mothers – that's 2.5 times as high as reported in 1980 and 19 times as high as in 1940. Americans are also having far fewer children -- nearly half of child-bearing age women did not have kids in 2014, the most since the U.S.Census Bureau began tracking this stat in 1976."
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