<p>Generally the jobs are where real estate is expensive. As real estate gets expensive, the costs associated with real estate get even more expensive, meaning that you have to be more certain that you’ll stay in the area long-term for it to be a smart choice. At the same time, employment prospects are always changing, jobs are constantly moving around the country. 30 years ago would people have moved from Michigan and Illinois to Texas and Washington for better job prospects? Who knows where the jobs will be 15 years from today, maybe the next boom state is Tennessee or North Carolina. Or maybe jobs will come back to Michigan and Illinois. Or maybe they’ll still be in Texas and Washington. Who wants to buy a house without knowing?</p>
<p>Also the marriage issue is stupid. What does it cost to get married, like $60 at most and less in most states? Getting married doesn’t cost much at all. If you can’t come up with $60 you shouldn’t get married. </p>
<p>I’m a millennial. I want a wife, a house, kids, etc. But I didn’t feel pressured to have all these things by age 25. I’m 26 now, and still renting and not engaged. Here is my reasoning:</p>
<p>1.) The divorce rate is over 50%. My generation was the first for a lot of people to grow up in “broken homes”. Marriages between people that marry after they turn 26 or so are statistically more likely to last. That’s around the time the brain finishes developing. It’s important to “get it right” with respect to who you choose to marry. And there’s no stigma associated with being 26 and unmarried anymore.</p>
<p>2.) The housing bubble during the great recession changed people’s perspective of rent vs buy. I still believe buying is a better investment in the long run, but only if I can commit to staying in the same house for at least 5-7 years. Otherwise, renting and putting the difference between my rent and my PITI+maintenance, etc into the stock market is the better move. Before the housing crash, I don’t think people thought this way. A house was an “investment” that “would never go down in value”. Now the thinking has shifted. A home is a place to live, and it is an expense. </p>
<p>3.) This is more personal preference, but something I think other people my age share. I don’t feel like mowing and watering the grass every week at the moment. I’m not against work, and I’m happy (well maybe not happy, but at least willing) to do the dishes because I need to eat to survive. But grass is just something pretty to look at that requires a lot of upkeep. I’d rather watch netflix during my spare time than pour sweat into something that I don’t actually need. I do want kids and I want them to have a yard to play in, so at that point, I’ll see more utility in lawn care. But right now, it’s not something I want to deal with. I think the older generation takes more pride in home ownership. </p>
<p>4.) I don’t want kids until I’m about 32. I don’t get financial support from my parents, and I haven’t accumulated a whole lot of wealth yet. Raising kids is expensive. I want to be very secure in my job and my finances before committing to that. The world is different than it used to be. The days of a guy graduating from high school, getting a union job at a GM plant, and supporting a family of 4 at a middle class lifestyle with a single income are over. Kids can be the path to poverty if you don’t plan carefully.</p>
<p>So I think that most millennials still aspire to marriages/children/houses, just at a later point in life than their parents did. However, the economy may still lock people out of these things. Student loan debt has gotten ridiculous. And saving up for a 20% down payment on a house and paying for a wedding is something a lot of people won’t be able to do in this economy.</p>
<p>No, it is not! I’m so tired of this canard being repeated. Years ago, someone noted that the number of divorces in a given year was roughly half the number of marriages, and concluded that the divorce rate was 50%. But that’s completely incorrect. The proper denominator is the number of existing marriages, which is a lot higher than the number of marriages that took place this year. </p>
<p>It’s like examining a small town where there are 80 babies born and 40 old people dying ad concluding the death rate is 50%. </p>
<p>This gets repeated again and again like its fact. It’s not. </p>
<p>“Also the marriage issue is stupid. What does it cost to get married, like $60 at most and less in most states? Getting married doesn’t cost much at all. If you can’t come up with $60 you shouldn’t get married”</p>
<p>Okay…that one really cracks me up! You think it costs just $60 to get married? Heh, heh, marry a woman who likes to spend money but doesn’t make much, and it’ll cost you a lot more than $60!</p>
<p>Or you can get lucky like my husband, and end up coming out ahead with a wife who doesn’t like to spend but has a good income, though I’m sure he’d claim that he pays in other ways (get your mind out of the gutter, I’m talking yard work here). </p>
<p>^ and a woman can marry a man who spends a lot and doesn’t make much. goes both ways.</p>
<p>My own D is 23 and getting married next year. She and her fiancé have jobs they love and live in an expensive city, but then again neither H nor I made much when we were married at age 23. We waited 10 years to start a family and D has expressed that they will also wait awhile.
We did buy a very modest house not long after we married and I don’t see that happening at least where D and her fiancé live now. However home ownership did tie us down quite a bit and at least I felt a bit of resentment at spending every spare penny on the house. When we sold it ( H was transferred) , we lost money. </p>
<p>I had two kids by the time I was my older daughters age, and they are eight yrs apart! ( she just married earlier this year, and she and her husband are doing well, with grad degrees & good jobs. They haven’t bought a house yet, but several of her younger cousins have.)They are in their early 30’s, not planning on kids for personal reasons, not necessarily financial.
It cost them $60 for the marriage liscense. We gave them $ ( a lot actually)for the reception they had five months later. Most of the money seemed to go for beer/wine & food. They didn’t even have a photographer but encouraged their friends to post pics on Instagram.</p>
<p>Youngest has traveled more than I have in 24 years than I have in 56 years. Four continents, seven countries. She is still planning for the others. </p>
<p>Well, that’s not right either because when people talk about the “divorce rate,” they are not concerned with the annual divorce rate (number of divorces in a particular year/number of existing marriages); rather, they are concerned with how many marriages fail to last a lifetime (i.e. the rest of the life of the spouse who dies first).</p>
<p>To use your death rate analogy, the comparable death rate is 100%, since 100% of the babies born in any particular year will eventually die. </p>
<p>Anyway, I agree with your basic point – that the ratio of divorces to marriages in a particular year does not accurately reflect any “divorce rate.” I’m just making this additional pedantic point for the fun of it. </p>
<p>(And, thinking about the death rate analogy does raise a philosophical point: why is a marriage that ultimately ends in a divorce necessarily considered a failure?)</p>
<p>^^^Maybe because many marriage vows include terminology of lifetime commitment? “Til death do us part” rather than “til we get tired of each other” “til we grow too far apart” or “til we meet someone we like better”? </p>
<p>I wouldn’t stay married if my marriage became toxic or if DH got a girlfriend he wouldn’t give up or if he began hitting me. But I probably would have times when I would feel that we failed. </p>
<p>The issue with the divorce rate is that while 50% of marriages may fail, something like 75% of married people don’t divorce. This is because the ~25% of people who DO divorce often marry and divorce multiple times. I knew a guy who had been married 7 times. Ignoring the persuasiveness it must have taken that seventh time, just think of how much guys like him skew the statistics!</p>
<p>I read an interesting opinion on having an option of a term marriage, like a contract renewable at some points in the future. I wonder how many would renew the contract upon the expiration of the first term?</p>
<p>I am thankful that DH and I took our wedding vows seriously. If we had not, it would have been easy to bail in the late 90s, when we were stressed out of our minds and had three young children. But we agreed early on that “divorce” was not a word we would ever use in an argument. We went to marriage counseling and came out stronger. We are now very tight-knit and united. It’s a good thing, because I can’t imagine dealing with a severely mentally ill son by myself! </p>
<p>There’s nothing stopping millenials from getting married. </p>
<p>We paid the “fixed fee” and eloped. No fancy ceremony, no rehearsal dinner, no reception, no wedding cake, no groom’s cake, no bridesmaids, no ushers, no florist, no wedding dress, no engraved invitations, no tacky party favors, no bridezilla meltdowns. Just us two, a judge, 2 rings and sunshine in a public park filled w cheering complete strangers as enthusiastic onlookers.</p>
<p>Next month we are going to splurge mega-bigtime for a life milestone when we celebrate our 20th anniversary. :D</p>