Anxious Unmarrieds
Tuesday, February 20, 2017The Topic: Anxious UnmarriedsThe News Story: Share of Married in America Drops to New LowThe New Research: Unmarried and On Edge in Sweden The News Story: Share of Married in America Drops to New Low “In the future,” reports a Deseret News affiliate, “marriage may not dominate as ‘the institution the majority of adults live in’ as it has in the past, according to a new analysis that finds significant differences in marital status between younger and older generations.” According to Wendy Wang, director of research at the Institute for Family Studies, “marriage is going down every year . . . . There's no sign of it returning.” A number of factors are driving the downward trend, but chief among them is that so many Americans now delay marriage—and as marriage is delayed, the chances of it happening also decrease. Also important are factors like the economy and educational background, but Wang notes that still, across all ages and ethnicities, marriage rates have decreased. If research across the globe is any indication, this story should cause alarm; marriage, as it turns out, has some very important protective benefits. (Source: Lois M. Collins, “Share of married in America drops to new low,” WRAL.com, February 20, 2018.) The New Research: Unmarried and On Edge in Sweden Lionized by progressives around the world, the architects of Sweden’s generous welfare state have done all they can to erase the distinctive life advantages conferred by wedlock. They still have work to do. A new Swedish study finds that during a national surge of anxiety in recent years, wedlock has apparently protected married men and women from the mental distress experienced by their unmarried peers. Rising rates of mental distress in Sweden recently caught the attention of an international team of researchers affiliated with Skåne University and Lund University in Sweden and Stanford University in the
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