7 ms·

The Case for Getting Married Young

40 points by saadmalik01 14y ago

wmeredith 14y ago
It's a hell of an argument and it matches my own personal experience of getting married at 23 when I we had nothing and built two successful careers before moving on to parenthood (our daughter is two). No stats or anything, though. I'd like to see some well structured research on this, as marriage itself is a fascinating part of our human culture.
alexjeffrey 14y ago
as someone who got married at 21, I can honestly say it's the decision I'm most happy about in my life so far. However, we had been together for over 7 years by that point and I'd be very wary of advocating getting married young to everyone, as I know at least here in the UK there seem to be quite a few teenage/early-twenties couples who decide to get married after a few months to a year, and end up divorced 6 months later. The facts in this article could be also taken as very misleading, especially considering that the happiness survey they took made no mention of age.
- alberich 14y ago
  > However, we had been together for over 7 years by that point Just for curiosity... did you start your relationship with 14 y/o? I guess playing video games was all I cared when I was this age :D
  - jessriedel 14y ago
    My parents' relationship did. :) It's something like 40 years they've been together.
  - alexjeffrey 14y ago
    13 actually - funnily enough it started with video games; we met on Runescape!
- kscaldef 14y ago
  > as someone who got married at 21, I can honestly say it's the decision I'm most happy about in my life so far. One might hope that statement was true no matter what age you got married at.
callmevlad 14y ago
In my family's culture (Russian Protestant), getting married early is not only common, but expected. My wife and I got married when I was 24, which was almost shocking in a community where the average was around 20. I've had many awkward conversation (of the "I will pray for you" type) with my grandmother, who sincerely believed I was making a huge mistake by choosing school instead of marriage. Personally, I feel like I got married at the perfect time in my life (I was done with school, had a great job lined up, etc), and have never regretted that decision. My wife helped me re-focus on the important things, and inspired me to pursue my dream of starting a company. However, the majority of my Russian friends who were married in their very early 20s have seemingly stagnated in their professional (and even personal) pursuits. Most were married either before or during college, and have either dropped out or are pursuing their education on a very limited part-time basis. My experience is completely anecdotal, but it seems like getting married early (18-21) has significant drawbacks. Perhaps the sweet spot is somewhere between there and the current late-20s average.
- inafield 14y ago
  In 2009, my Great-Opa (1907-2010) asked me why it took my (then girlfriend) and I so long to decide to date and consider marriage, having met online 8 years prior and only 6mo earlier decided to start long distance dating. He met his first wife in his village around the age of 20 and was married 5 weeks later. And at his "advanced age" at the time, the village had been concerned he and his wife weren't going to find anyone to marry. She was 16 or 17 at the time. Even at his advanced age, he had a great sense of humor. As we were leaving, he pulled my girlfriend aside and said with a twinkle in his eye, "Next time you come back, bring your husband!"
troebr 14y ago
Causality dilemma? People who get married young are different from those getting married later. The age at which people get married is more a reflection of a life style, than what drives a particular life style; which is what this article suggests.
- jessriedel 14y ago
  Here's libertarian economist Bryan Caplan on the difficulty in disputing the causal relationship between marriage and success. http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/03/22_short_argume.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/03/22_short_argume.... He doesn't talk about the timing per se, but I think a lot of the same arguments apply. Certainty, if you believe that marriage causes success, it's not that great a leap to think that earlier marriage causes more success earlier (with the obvious caveats about getting married when you're 12.)
tunesmith 14y ago
I think this is kind of a false issue. I got married later, but it was just because it didn't happen until then - I'd guess that that is usually the reason, rather than meeting what feels like a soulmate at age 22 and dumping her because you'd rather get married at 32.
purplelobster 14y ago
You don't have to be married to be in a committed relationship. A large percent of couples (> 30%) in Scandinavian countries for example never enter into a marriage, or people might marry 5, 6, 7, 8 years after they're first together. In that sense the marriage is a capstone, but there is no difference between that couple and a couple that got married right away and have been together for 8 years.
- fusiongyro 14y ago
  What's this, proof by Sweden? :) This odd collection of facts seems wholly disconnected from the content of the article.
  - purplelobster 14y ago
    The point being that he's confusing a committed relationship with having a marriage certificate. In Europe, of couples with children, > 30% are cohabiting. In Iceland it's > 60%. Do you suggest that 60% of cohabiting Icelanders are unhappy because they don't have a marriage certificate on hand?
    - fusiongyro 14y ago
      I suggest that American results are more pertinent to Americans than European results are, and vice-versa. Did you see this article from a few days ago? http://www.psmag.com/magazines/pacific-standard-cover-story/joe-henrich-weird-ultimatum-game-shaking-up-psychology-economics-53135/ http://www.psmag.com/magazines/pacific-standard-cover-story/...
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago
  >there is no difference between that couple and a couple that got married right away and have been together for 8 years // Anything to back up that assertion?
  - Zimahl 14y ago
    I don't think he needs to back that up. I mean there isn't a whole lot of difference between an amorous, unmarried couple who cohabitates together or an amorous, married couple who cohabitates together. In the US, other than a document from the state you were married in, there's just about zero difference, other than societal views. (BTW, I know my above doesn't apply to homosexual couples. I'm purposely ignoring it right now because it doesn't suit my explanation. Those are issues that need to be resolved by SCOTUS.)
smoyer 14y ago
I'm yet another example of a successful early marriage (I was 22 and she was 19). She finished her undergrad and masters degrees after we married and we also started "with nothing but each other". After 30 years, I still can't imagine being with anyone else ... it makes life so much better if you have someone to share your happiness with - and if there are two of you to tackle life's problems together.
- Axsuul 14y ago
  Does your wife know that you still can imagine being with someone else?
  - smoyer 14y ago
    No ... it's a very well-kept secret. One that I apparently kept even from myself, but couldn't be repressed from my right pinkie and left pointer fingers. (sorry dear)
simonsarris 14y ago
Color me unconvinced of marriage per se. Literally zero of the things in the author's marriage are necessarily attributable to the marriage itself, or necessarily consequences of marriage for that matter. And never mind co-habitating, all of the transformative stuff could have happened regardless while simply living with an upbeat roommate. "The case for living with or near positive people that share similar ideals" probably wouldn't get as many eyeballs, but it would be more to-the-point and true, I think. Maybe I should write that article anyway. I've had roommates literally my entire life, sharing a room with my brother until college, then dorming with one guy, then seven people, then two guys, then three girls, and now that I've graduated I live in a huge victorian-era house and rent to three friends (my "rent" therefore is free, sans house upkeep). I've been fortunate enough to never have a bad roommate, and communal living can be a lot of fun, significant other or not. I think living and working alongside loving and caring people is great, but I think restricting it to marriage is maybe a tad myopic. I love all micro-societies and think they have very similar values.
- fusiongyro 14y ago
  From the article: "...[A]mong the women that report being "highly satisfied" with their lives, 29 percent are cohabitating, 33 percent are single, and 47 percent are married." That would seem to suggest that "upbeat roommates" are, on average, worse for women than singledom or marriage, no? Your personal experience notwithstanding, the statistics (at least for this claim) are on the side of the article.
  - perokreco 14y ago
    No it wouldn't. This statistic is highly misleading and the article author is basically lying by putting it in the article. If there are twice as many women who are married than there are those who are cohabitating then cohabitating is on average better than marriage.
    - fusiongyro 14y ago
      I'm guessing she took that from this graphic: http://twentysomethingmarriage.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Figure13A1-532x1024.png http://twentysomethingmarriage.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/0... Note that 33 + 29 + 47 = 109, not 100. Her wording makes it sound like they computed from one pool of "very satisfied" people the amount that were single, cohabitating and married, but the numbers in the infographic don't support that interpretation. It looks like instead they separated the groups by gender and status, and then tallied up the number that said they were "very satisfied" which I don't think is vulnerable to your rebuttal.
kscaldef 14y ago
"Unmarried twenty-somethings are more likely to be depressed, drink excessively, and report lower levels of satisfaction than their married counterparts" Let's all say it together: Correlation is not causation.
- addlepate 14y ago
  Yeah, I'm not detecting much of an actual argument in this "argument".
- jessriedel 14y ago
  As I posted elsewhere, you might be interested in some strong evidence for the causal relationship as described by economist Bryan Caplan: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/03/22_short_argume.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/03/22_short_argume....
  - neutronicus 14y ago
    Does he address survivor bias elsewhere? I've seen elsewhere that financial troubles often herald divorce. If the only marriages that can last are ones where someone's making a premium, then of course you'll see one.
  - jacoblyles 14y ago
    It's fun to watch people dismiss a strong statistical signal when it disagrees with their prior beliefs
  - kscaldef 14y ago
    I'm sorry, but that seems to be about earnings, not about happiness or drinking habits. Am I missing something? (It also says that women experience a penalty, whereas the original article asserts positive correlations for both men and women.)
    - jessriedel 14y ago
      The alternative theory being (1) that marriage causes men to invest more in their jobs and women to invest more in children, but (2) that the correlation between women's marriage with happiness, and between the historical decline of marriage and raising of children with increasing female unhappiness, is acausal?
drcube 14y ago
I got married at 18. I joined the Army, did two tours in Iraq, came back home, went to college and got a job as an engineer. I couldn't have done any of that without my wife. I hesitate to generalize, but in my particular case getting married early was a great decision.
- nawitus 14y ago
  Note that you can't really say with certainty you couldn't have that without marriage (as you can have a relationship with someone without marrying her). In addition, there's also many single men who've done the same without marriage.
auctiontheory 14y ago
This article is a statistical catastrophe. Sample bias is just the most blatant of many problems. She might have a different perspective if she'd interviewed a few (dozen) folks who married young and wrong, before they had matured enough to really know themselves or their spouse.
Zimahl 14y ago
The average age at which a woman first gives birth (25.7) is now earlier than the average age of first marriage (26.5), a phenomenon Knot Yet calls "The Great Crossover" and which brings with it all of the well-documented concerns that surround the rearing of children outside of wedlock. I wonder what these values were historically. I just don't think that those two numbers are ever too terribly far apart. I mean, if a unmarried woman got pregnant in 1950 she would be married probably within the 9 months before the baby was born and the lack of birth control historically could have lead to many pregnancies immediately following marriage. Both of these would push the first child age to be later than first marriage. Although, logically, one would think the advent and superfluousness of birth control would prevent unwed pregnancies and allow married couples to wait on having children (should they desire to wait), driving the first child age way up. But that's not the case - intriguing. I guess in current times people have the means (and typically the lack of social scorn) to wait to get married and don't have to just because of an accidental pregnancy.
jessriedel 14y ago
> One student told him that her parents "want my full attention on grades and school." But such advice reflects an outdated reality, one in which a college degree was almost a guarantee of a good job that would be held for a lifetime. I really don't think the outdated-ness of this advice has anything to do with the value of a college degree.The modern open dating offers lots of varied sex to those who can navigate it well. This seems like way more time intensive, especially in terms of displacing constructive activities like studying, than a committed relationship.
msg 14y ago
I was married at 22, wife was 21. Worked for me! Beyond that, what can you say? If marriage is wrong for you personally, all the statistics in the world wouldn't and shouldn't convince you otherwise. Your not wanting to get married might be correlated with your being on the wrong side of those statistics. If marriage is right for you, I doubt this kind of article is how you would find out. A better article would have listed pros and cons. For instance, pro: the pool of candidates is larger when you're younger; con: the pool of candidates is better when it's smaller. Or whatever is really going on under the numbers. That would be interesting to know.
j4ke 14y ago
This is also my experience: I was 22, she was 19 (married 10 years now). We finished school (3 BS, 1 MS, and a PhD between the two of us) and worked before having kids. I feel like we got married before we were each too stubborn and set in our ways to change. We met in the middle and grew into a single individual, greater than the sum of its parts. My (non-scientific) feeling is that in general, those I know who waited to get married had a more difficult time assuming a new identity that incorporates another individual.
m_d 14y ago
Anyone else find it interesting that the author is from Liberty University?
largesse 14y ago
One thing that the article did not touch upon is that there seem to be health advantages for children who are born of young parents - they have better telomere length [1] and possibly greater longevity. When you add to that general issue of gene damage over lifetime and how it can impact the children we conceive as we age, it seems that nature favors young parents. The problem is that our economic system favors delaying child-bearing in an unprecedented way. I wonder what it would be like if we inverted incentives and encouraged people to have kids very young, provided social and economic support, and a ramp up to high impact careers as their kids approached their teens. [1] Paternal age at birth is an important determinant of offspring telomere length - http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/16/24/3097.long http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/16/24/3097.long
zeveshe 14y ago
'29 percent are cohabitating, 33 percent are single, and 47 percent are married' And that is total of 109%. How's that?

40 points by saadmalik01 14y ago

It's a hell of an argument and it matches my own personal experience of getting married at 23 when I we had nothing and built two successful careers before moving on to parenthood (our daughter is two). No stats or anything, though. I'd like to see some well structured research on this, as marriage itself is a fascinating part of our human culture.

alexjeffrey 14y ago

as someone who got married at 21, I can honestly say it's the decision I'm most happy about in my life so far. However, we had been together for over 7 years by that point and I'd be very wary of advocating getting married young to everyone, as I know at least here in the UK there seem to be quite a few teenage/early-twenties couples who decide to get married after a few months to a year, and end up divorced 6 months later. The facts in this article could be also taken as very misleading, especially considering that the happiness survey they took made no mention of age.

alberich 14y ago
> However, we had been together for over 7 years by that point Just for curiosity... did you start your relationship with 14 y/o? I guess playing video games was all I cared when I was this age :D
- jessriedel 14y ago
  My parents' relationship did. :) It's something like 40 years they've been together.
- alexjeffrey 14y ago
  13 actually - funnily enough it started with video games; we met on Runescape!
kscaldef 14y ago
> as someone who got married at 21, I can honestly say it's the decision I'm most happy about in my life so far. One might hope that statement was true no matter what age you got married at.

callmevlad 14y ago

In my family's culture (Russian Protestant), getting married early is not only common, but expected. My wife and I got married when I was 24, which was almost shocking in a community where the average was around 20. I've had many awkward conversation (of the "I will pray for you" type) with my grandmother, who sincerely believed I was making a huge mistake by choosing school instead of marriage. Personally, I feel like I got married at the perfect time in my life (I was done with school, had a great job lined up, etc), and have never regretted that decision. My wife helped me re-focus on the important things, and inspired me to pursue my dream of starting a company. However, the majority of my Russian friends who were married in their very early 20s have seemingly stagnated in their professional (and even personal) pursuits. Most were married either before or during college, and have either dropped out or are pursuing their education on a very limited part-time basis. My experience is completely anecdotal, but it seems like getting married early (18-21) has significant drawbacks. Perhaps the sweet spot is somewhere between there and the current late-20s average.

inafield 14y ago
In 2009, my Great-Opa (1907-2010) asked me why it took my (then girlfriend) and I so long to decide to date and consider marriage, having met online 8 years prior and only 6mo earlier decided to start long distance dating. He met his first wife in his village around the age of 20 and was married 5 weeks later. And at his "advanced age" at the time, the village had been concerned he and his wife weren't going to find anyone to marry. She was 16 or 17 at the time. Even at his advanced age, he had a great sense of humor. As we were leaving, he pulled my girlfriend aside and said with a twinkle in his eye, "Next time you come back, bring your husband!"

troebr 14y ago

Causality dilemma? People who get married young are different from those getting married later. The age at which people get married is more a reflection of a life style, than what drives a particular life style; which is what this article suggests.

jessriedel 14y ago
Here's libertarian economist Bryan Caplan on the difficulty in disputing the causal relationship between marriage and success. http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/03/22_short_argume.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/03/22_short_argume.... He doesn't talk about the timing per se, but I think a lot of the same arguments apply. Certainty, if you believe that marriage causes success, it's not that great a leap to think that earlier marriage causes more success earlier (with the obvious caveats about getting married when you're 12.)

tunesmith 14y ago

I think this is kind of a false issue. I got married later, but it was just because it didn't happen until then - I'd guess that that is usually the reason, rather than meeting what feels like a soulmate at age 22 and dumping her because you'd rather get married at 32.

purplelobster 14y ago

You don't have to be married to be in a committed relationship. A large percent of couples (> 30%) in Scandinavian countries for example never enter into a marriage, or people might marry 5, 6, 7, 8 years after they're first together. In that sense the marriage is a capstone, but there is no difference between that couple and a couple that got married right away and have been together for 8 years.

fusiongyro 14y ago
What's this, proof by Sweden? :) This odd collection of facts seems wholly disconnected from the content of the article.
- purplelobster 14y ago
  The point being that he's confusing a committed relationship with having a marriage certificate. In Europe, of couples with children, > 30% are cohabiting. In Iceland it's > 60%. Do you suggest that 60% of cohabiting Icelanders are unhappy because they don't have a marriage certificate on hand?
  - fusiongyro 14y ago
    I suggest that American results are more pertinent to Americans than European results are, and vice-versa. Did you see this article from a few days ago? http://www.psmag.com/magazines/pacific-standard-cover-story/joe-henrich-weird-ultimatum-game-shaking-up-psychology-economics-53135/ http://www.psmag.com/magazines/pacific-standard-cover-story/...
pbhjpbhj 14y ago
>there is no difference between that couple and a couple that got married right away and have been together for 8 years // Anything to back up that assertion?
- Zimahl 14y ago
  I don't think he needs to back that up. I mean there isn't a whole lot of difference between an amorous, unmarried couple who cohabitates together or an amorous, married couple who cohabitates together. In the US, other than a document from the state you were married in, there's just about zero difference, other than societal views. (BTW, I know my above doesn't apply to homosexual couples. I'm purposely ignoring it right now because it doesn't suit my explanation. Those are issues that need to be resolved by SCOTUS.)

smoyer 14y ago

I'm yet another example of a successful early marriage (I was 22 and she was 19). She finished her undergrad and masters degrees after we married and we also started "with nothing but each other". After 30 years, I still can't imagine being with anyone else ... it makes life so much better if you have someone to share your happiness with - and if there are two of you to tackle life's problems together.

Axsuul 14y ago
Does your wife know that you still can imagine being with someone else?
- smoyer 14y ago
  No ... it's a very well-kept secret. One that I apparently kept even from myself, but couldn't be repressed from my right pinkie and left pointer fingers. (sorry dear)

simonsarris 14y ago

Color me unconvinced of marriage per se. Literally zero of the things in the author's marriage are necessarily attributable to the marriage itself, or necessarily consequences of marriage for that matter. And never mind co-habitating, all of the transformative stuff could have happened regardless while simply living with an upbeat roommate. "The case for living with or near positive people that share similar ideals" probably wouldn't get as many eyeballs, but it would be more to-the-point and true, I think. Maybe I should write that article anyway. I've had roommates literally my entire life, sharing a room with my brother until college, then dorming with one guy, then seven people, then two guys, then three girls, and now that I've graduated I live in a huge victorian-era house and rent to three friends (my "rent" therefore is free, sans house upkeep). I've been fortunate enough to never have a bad roommate, and communal living can be a lot of fun, significant other or not. I think living and working alongside loving and caring people is great, but I think restricting it to marriage is maybe a tad myopic. I love all micro-societies and think they have very similar values.

fusiongyro 14y ago
From the article: "...[A]mong the women that report being "highly satisfied" with their lives, 29 percent are cohabitating, 33 percent are single, and 47 percent are married." That would seem to suggest that "upbeat roommates" are, on average, worse for women than singledom or marriage, no? Your personal experience notwithstanding, the statistics (at least for this claim) are on the side of the article.
- perokreco 14y ago
  No it wouldn't. This statistic is highly misleading and the article author is basically lying by putting it in the article. If there are twice as many women who are married than there are those who are cohabitating then cohabitating is on average better than marriage.
  - fusiongyro 14y ago
    I'm guessing she took that from this graphic: http://twentysomethingmarriage.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Figure13A1-532x1024.png http://twentysomethingmarriage.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/0... Note that 33 + 29 + 47 = 109, not 100. Her wording makes it sound like they computed from one pool of "very satisfied" people the amount that were single, cohabitating and married, but the numbers in the infographic don't support that interpretation. It looks like instead they separated the groups by gender and status, and then tallied up the number that said they were "very satisfied" which I don't think is vulnerable to your rebuttal.

kscaldef 14y ago

"Unmarried twenty-somethings are more likely to be depressed, drink excessively, and report lower levels of satisfaction than their married counterparts" Let's all say it together: Correlation is not causation.

addlepate 14y ago
Yeah, I'm not detecting much of an actual argument in this "argument".
jessriedel 14y ago
As I posted elsewhere, you might be interested in some strong evidence for the causal relationship as described by economist Bryan Caplan: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/03/22_short_argume.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/03/22_short_argume....
- neutronicus 14y ago
  Does he address survivor bias elsewhere? I've seen elsewhere that financial troubles often herald divorce. If the only marriages that can last are ones where someone's making a premium, then of course you'll see one.
- jacoblyles 14y ago
  It's fun to watch people dismiss a strong statistical signal when it disagrees with their prior beliefs
- kscaldef 14y ago
  I'm sorry, but that seems to be about earnings, not about happiness or drinking habits. Am I missing something? (It also says that women experience a penalty, whereas the original article asserts positive correlations for both men and women.)
  - jessriedel 14y ago
    The alternative theory being (1) that marriage causes men to invest more in their jobs and women to invest more in children, but (2) that the correlation between women's marriage with happiness, and between the historical decline of marriage and raising of children with increasing female unhappiness, is acausal?

drcube 14y ago

I got married at 18. I joined the Army, did two tours in Iraq, came back home, went to college and got a job as an engineer. I couldn't have done any of that without my wife. I hesitate to generalize, but in my particular case getting married early was a great decision.

nawitus 14y ago
Note that you can't really say with certainty you couldn't have that without marriage (as you can have a relationship with someone without marrying her). In addition, there's also many single men who've done the same without marriage.

auctiontheory 14y ago

This article is a statistical catastrophe. Sample bias is just the most blatant of many problems. She might have a different perspective if she'd interviewed a few (dozen) folks who married young and wrong, before they had matured enough to really know themselves or their spouse.

Zimahl 14y ago

The average age at which a woman first gives birth (25.7) is now earlier than the average age of first marriage (26.5), a phenomenon Knot Yet calls "The Great Crossover" and which brings with it all of the well-documented concerns that surround the rearing of children outside of wedlock. I wonder what these values were historically. I just don't think that those two numbers are ever too terribly far apart. I mean, if a unmarried woman got pregnant in 1950 she would be married probably within the 9 months before the baby was born and the lack of birth control historically could have lead to many pregnancies immediately following marriage. Both of these would push the first child age to be later than first marriage. Although, logically, one would think the advent and superfluousness of birth control would prevent unwed pregnancies and allow married couples to wait on having children (should they desire to wait), driving the first child age way up. But that's not the case - intriguing. I guess in current times people have the means (and typically the lack of social scorn) to wait to get married and don't have to just because of an accidental pregnancy.

jessriedel 14y ago

> One student told him that her parents "want my full attention on grades and school." But such advice reflects an outdated reality, one in which a college degree was almost a guarantee of a good job that would be held for a lifetime. I really don't think the outdated-ness of this advice has anything to do with the value of a college degree.The modern open dating offers lots of varied sex to those who can navigate it well. This seems like way more time intensive, especially in terms of displacing constructive activities like studying, than a committed relationship.

msg 14y ago

I was married at 22, wife was 21. Worked for me! Beyond that, what can you say? If marriage is wrong for you personally, all the statistics in the world wouldn't and shouldn't convince you otherwise. Your not wanting to get married might be correlated with your being on the wrong side of those statistics. If marriage is right for you, I doubt this kind of article is how you would find out. A better article would have listed pros and cons. For instance, pro: the pool of candidates is larger when you're younger; con: the pool of candidates is better when it's smaller. Or whatever is really going on under the numbers. That would be interesting to know.

j4ke 14y ago

This is also my experience: I was 22, she was 19 (married 10 years now). We finished school (3 BS, 1 MS, and a PhD between the two of us) and worked before having kids. I feel like we got married before we were each too stubborn and set in our ways to change. We met in the middle and grew into a single individual, greater than the sum of its parts. My (non-scientific) feeling is that in general, those I know who waited to get married had a more difficult time assuming a new identity that incorporates another individual.

m_d 14y ago

Anyone else find it interesting that the author is from Liberty University?

largesse 14y ago

One thing that the article did not touch upon is that there seem to be health advantages for children who are born of young parents - they have better telomere length [1] and possibly greater longevity. When you add to that general issue of gene damage over lifetime and how it can impact the children we conceive as we age, it seems that nature favors young parents. The problem is that our economic system favors delaying child-bearing in an unprecedented way. I wonder what it would be like if we inverted incentives and encouraged people to have kids very young, provided social and economic support, and a ramp up to high impact careers as their kids approached their teens. [1] Paternal age at birth is an important determinant of offspring telomere length - http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/16/24/3097.long http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/16/24/3097.long

zeveshe 14y ago

'29 percent are cohabitating, 33 percent are single, and 47 percent are married' And that is total of 109%. How's that?