Marriage: Is It the Same Thought-out Several Generation
Kelvin Davis
Kaplan University
December 7, 2014
CM107: College Composition I
Prof: Lori Martindale
Marriage is look upon as one of the longest lasting tradition in the world and still to this day is seen to be a bond that individuals look forward to no matter what generation or era they may stem from. It is said that thought-out the years from 1960 to present that marriage is become obsolete in the mindset of younger generations. The reason for the recent change is that post education is viewed as an equal requirement as other qualities such as morals, religion, ethnic & so forth.
With a topic such as this you must be aware how previous generation held a much higher marriage rate, but the level of education was no more than a high school diploma or even post job training. In 1960 the rate across the United States for those 25 years of age or older that were high school graduate was 41.4% to the number of graduates from college 7.7%. If you were to compared it 1980 just 20 years later you will see that both rates had increase but the gap has also grown. It was 66.5% for HS graduate and 16.2% for those who were college graduates. In that era a high school diploma was sufficient enough to provide for a family and a household of 4 or 5 members. So the pursuit of high education wasn’t as valuable in that era to the union of marriage. It was more common to see younger people marry in 1960 the average age for a male 22.8 and a female was 20.3. So form that statistic you can gather that the highs level of education received by a common individual was a High School diploma or even some type of trade or post job training. In most careers at that time, having a HS diploma alone qualified you to variety of jobs.
Gaining an education is very important in today’s society. So it has a great effect on the marriage rate and the amount to kids that are born out of wedlock. It shows that the average age of to marry in 2010 was 28.2 for males and 26.1 for females. And that the education rate for those 25 and older was 87.1% for those individual with a high school education& 29.9% for those who gain a college degree. To take away from this is the gap from 18 to 25, 26 are the prime ages where you will find individual attending colleges in seek of an associate’s or bachelor’s degree. But along that route you will also find those who have returned home for several different reasons and one of them is pregnancy. Which in most case those who are baring children aren’t married to their significant other or partner so which leads to the increase in children out of wedlock. It was chart in an article publish by TIME Magazine in 2010 that ask several groups do they feel that marriage is obsolete (Table 6).
Is marriage becoming obsolete? Percentage who Said yes
UNMARRIED PARENTS LIVING WITH PARTNER 62%
UNMARRIED 46%
HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION OR LESS 45%
BLACKS AND AGES 18-19 44%
HISPANICS 42%
WOMEN 41%
ALL GROUPS 39%
MEN AND WHITES 36%
AGES 65+ 32%
MARRIED 31%
COLLEGE EDUCATED
