Marriage used to be the end goal of dating, but millennials are now redefining marriage as we speak.
People who were born from 1981 to 1996 are mostly not choosing to get married at all, and those that do view it as ‘no big deal’.
In a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, they compared millennials to the Silent Generation (born from 1925 to 1942), and found that millennials are three times more likely to never have married as their grandparents were.
The following are the reasons why they postpone marriage:
- They are not financially ready.
- They haven’t found someone with the right qualities.
- They feel that they are too young to settle down.
There is also a higher chance that marriage is no longer a requirement for millennials before those other big life steps such as moving in together, buying a house, having children, and more.
Rather than being an important milestone on the path leading to permanency, moving in with your significant other may be linked to convenience. Young people are continuing to break old notions of what it means to be with a partner, both now and in the future, proving that milestone moments don’t look the same as they once did.
The old notion of cohabitation is often directed towards marriage, but younger generations may prove this wrong.
Moreover, researchers from University College London and the University of St Andrews investigated people’s perceptions of what it means to move in with a first partner now compared to years ago, as well as the strength of those relationships.
Moreover, research professor in psychology and director of the Family Research Center at the University of Denver, Galena Rhoades, agrees that changing social attitudes around cohabiting have enabled younger generations to adopt a more casual attitude around moving in together rather than viewing it as a test-run for marriage.
“Cohabiting is becoming more and more a stage in dating, rather than a stage in marriage,” Rhoades says. Her research also shows that millennials are less concerned about cohabitation as a path to marriage.
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