We've been hit with recession, after recession, and now we're all living with our parents as we lean into another one. If marriage is about stability, commitment, and starting a family (kids or not), on-average we're increasingly in a situation where nobody has any money, lives with their parents, isn't religious (traditional source of pressure for marriage), and has no friends.<p>We're poorer:
<i>"Millennials have slightly less wealth than Boomers did at the same age. The median net worth of households headed by Millennials (ages 20 to 35 in 2016) was about $12,500 in 2016, compared with $20,700 for households headed by Boomers the same age in 1983. Median net worth of Gen X households at the same age was about $15,100."</i><p><a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/millennial-life-how-young-adulthood-today-compares-with-prior-generations/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/millennial-life-how-yo...</a><p>We live with our parents: <i>"A majority of young adults in the U.S. live with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression"</i><p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-live-with-their-parents-for-the-first-time-since-the-great-depression/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-...</a><p>We're also far less religious:
<i>"...only about one-quarter of young adults (age 18-29) belong to a white Christian tradition, including white evangelical Protestant (8%), white mainline Protestant (8%), or white Catholic (6%)."</i><p><a href="https://www.prri.org/research/american-religious-landscape-christian-religiously-unaffiliated/" rel="nofollow">https://www.prri.org/research/american-religious-landscape-c...</a><p>We're fragmented, lonely, unhappy....
<i>"More recent data show that one in five millennials have no friends at all. And a survey released in 2020 found that 71 percent of millennials and almost 79 percent of Gen Z respondents report feeling lonely—a significantly greater proportion than other generations."</i><p><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-young-americans-are-lonely/" rel="nofollow">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-young-america...</a><p>And we're increasingly saddled with student debt, which wasn't a thing for our parent's generation.<p>In reference to 1975:
<i>"Students at University of California schools are now paying $600 in fees and tuition—a number that would soon skyrocket."</i><p><a href="https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/what-happened-to-californias-free-tuition-a-history-of-fees-and-budget-issues/103-465128027" rel="nofollow">https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/what-happened-to-ca...</a><p>Lot of stuff going on. Lot of anger and frustration. Tired of hearing avocado toast jokes from people with pensions, whose tuition budget was the same as their beer budget, and who bought their 3-bedroom for $125k.<p>Flip side is, it's hitting a lot of older folks these days too:<p>"Nationally, Johnson was one of the 40,000 people age 65 and older who were homeless in 2017, according to a study by researchers in Los Angeles, New York and Boston. That number is expected to nearly triple by 2030."<p><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/02/california-senior-homeless-population-growing-low-income-rent-prices/2307991001/" rel="nofollow">https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/02/califo...</a><p><i>40% of Older Americans Rely Solely on Social Security for Retirement Income</i><p><a href="https://www.nirsonline.org/2020/01/new-report-40-of-older-americans-rely-solely-on-social-security-for-retirement-income/" rel="nofollow">https://www.nirsonline.org/2020/01/new-report-40-of-older-am...</a><p>It's a <i>rough</i> time for the country.