Millennials haven't embraced marriage as quickly as their parents' and grandparents' generations did. They're more likely to cohabit than those earlier generations. But they're not postponing having kids, regardless of where or with whom they live.
That's part of the picture of millennials presented in a new Gallup poll that shows close to 6 in 10 millennials have never married, compared to just 16 percent of Generation Xers and 10 percent of baby boomers when they were the same age.
Gallup's look at millennials is somewhat different than the view presented by some others because it has narrowed the cohort to those born from 1980 through 1996. Many others consider the millennial generation a group that spanned 20 years, from 1980 to the turn of the century.
But even the smaller span includes a whopping 73 million Americans, according to Gallup, making it far larger than previous generations. In the past, bragging rights for biggest generation fell to the baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964.
"We would expect young people to differ from those who are older, as they always have, just as we would expect seniors to differ from those who are younger," the report says. "These differences that the data reveal represent a departure from the patterns of older generations at the same points in their lives."
Putting off marriage
According to Gallup's 2014 tracking and U.S. Census Bureau data, 27 percent of millennials are married, compared to 36 percent of Generation Xers when they were in the same age, 48 percent of baby boomers and 65 percent of those from the pre-boomer generation, which Gallup calls "traditionalists." In 1962, the report notes, census data showed nearly 60 percent of those ages 18-30 were married; for millennials, it's 20 percent.
Millennials are also delaying marriage, although various studies indicate marriage is still an aspiration for them. A 2013 Gallup poll of Americans ages 18 to 34 who'd never married or were single found 56 percent said they hoped to marry one day. "This high level of interest in marriage suggests there is little widespread attitudinal aversion to first-time marriage among the nation's younger unmarried residents," Gallup's Frank Newport and Joy Wilke wrote.
The American Family Survey, conducted for the Deseret News and Brigham Young University's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, reported in November that young respondents, those ages 18 to 29, say they prefer to marry before age 30, when asked the ideal age for knot tying. But it's not necessarily what happens. And the young respondents were more likely to say it's important to live with a future spouse before marrying, compared to older respondents.
The Pew Research Center's "Millennials in Adulthood" report said that "the economic hardships of young adults may be one reason that so many have been slow to marry. The median age at first marriage is now the highest in modern history — 29 for men and 27 for women. In contrast to the patterns of the past, when adults in all socio-economic groups married at roughly the same rate, marriage today is more prevalent among those with higher incomes and more education."
Babies anyway
Pew also noted a larger share of non-marital births to millennials, compared to other generations. "In 2012, 47 percent of births to women in the millennial generation were non-marital, compared with 21 percent among older women. Some of this gap reflects a life cycle effect — older women have always been less likely to give birth outside of marriage," the report said. "But the gap is also driven by a shift in behaviors in recent decades. In 1996, when Gen Xers were about the same age that millennials were in 2012, just 35 percent of births to that generation’s mothers were outside of marriage (compared with 15 percent among older women in 1996)."
The new Gallup report found that "almost half of the oldest millennials who have never married nonetheless have children. In 2000, the comparable number for Gen Xers age 30 to 34 was just 30 percent."
The report said in the past decade and a half people have become more accepting to people having children out of wedlock.
"Gallup poll data show that the percentage who say this is morally acceptable currently stands at an all-time high (62 percent overall and 68 percent among millennials). As recently as 2002, just 45 percent overall said it was morally acceptable to have a child out of wedlock, while 50 percent said it was morally wrong."
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