Generation Z are either very brave or very cowardly; I’ve yet to make up my mind. This generation is turning their backs on marriage according to the latest research. “The proportion of young couples getting married has dropped by almost a third since the 1960s amid a ‘deeply troubling’ fall-off in matrimony, campaigners say. And trends indicate that fewer than six in ten of those born between 1997 and 2012 will ever tie the knot.”
The Marriage Foundation, a UK charity set up in response to the epidemic levels of family breakdown, says their figures reveal a 30% decrease in marriage among younger age groups since 1960.
For a comparison, 96% of the baby boom generation (those born between 1946 and 1964) got married. Current trends suggest that only 58% of women and 56% of men in Generation Z will get married. We are not told how many will refuse marriage but accept long term cohabitation. But even if you take this into account, and deem these couples to be married, the future still looks lonely for huge numbers of generation Z men and women.
As I said, I’m trying to figure out whether these people who go it alone are either very brave or very cowardly. I for one am simply too needy to contemplate the solitary life which is why I spent most of my twenties husband hunting (while also doing other worthy things like completing a masters in Cambridge) until I finally found my victim aged 28. He didn’t see me coming I can tell you, and by the time he did it was too late. So, I just wonder how others do it, how can they really face their post 40s and 50s on their own.
One of my favourite films is About a Boy. It has an amazing cast including Hugh Grant, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, and Rachel Weisz. Hugh Grant is superb as single and loving it, Will. Hugh Grant may have his issues but trust me if you like posh Brit, and I do, this film is worth watching or rewatching over Christmas. I watched it again at Halloween. Sometimes you are let down when you watch a film you remember enjoying way back when, but I wasn’t disappointed. It is just as warm and funny as it was 22 years ago.
Hugh Grant is a single pringle who only mingles on a very superficial level. He uses women and when it looks like the relationship might lead to real connection and emotional intimacy he dumps them. When he is dumped by a single mother however (instead of him ending things) he realises that dating single mothers is the way to go. This sets in train a hilarious set of events where he becomes good friends with a boy Marcus, played by Nicholas Hoult.
Will learns a few hard truths about himself. Previously, he thought that he was a happy bachelor, an island, he was fucking Ibiza where no one could really get close to him. There were no complications. Will had his simple comfortable life and he wanted to keep it that way. At the end of the film, Will is Ibiza no more. He resembles a sort of Centre Parks – there are lots of people connected to him, including a woman. We are never told whether they get married; that’s not the point. The point is Will understands that it is not good for man to be alone. Surely, God would not have gone to all that trouble with the rib of man to make woman, for them to live separately, like ships in the night?
This is why these statistics on Generation Z never getting married leave me cold. If the singletons of generation Z want, truly want, to live a life unattached then I say good luck to them. Who am I to judge?
However, and I suspect this is more likely, if large numbers of them desire to have a significant other with which to share life’s ups and downs, successes and failures, loves and losses, then I wonder why there are so many singles? Part of me, the judgemental part I should not admit to, believes that perhaps they are just too demanding and picky.
The men, well I can’t speak for them, but I certainly think porn and tinder have resulted in their expectations also being hideously out of line with reality that no woman can measure up. Women are right to reject that kind of deal.
The women arguably are holding out for some sort of Brad Pitt look-alike- who shares the same values, reads Foreign Affairs, earns six figures, is very masculine yet is also sensitive and knows what you want even without being told. This ridiculous laundry list of must-haves is evidence of the sin of pride; no one is perfect, least of all the Brad Pitt look alike. Yet this is what the women are holding out for. Not just a hero, but a hero without any faults made in a lab.
For both parties, it is also a question of priorities. For instance, you hear people say oh I am in the market for a husband or wife but when you ask them what concrete actions they have taken to find such a creature the reply is muted. You know, for instance, that they work 10 hours a day, so their priority is work, not finding a spouse. Or they spend all their free time watching football or shopping or playing play station. In which case there’s no time left for husband hunting. I judge people on what they do, not what they say. Talk is cheap. We all know that.
If in 2025, you are serious, and I am talking to the ladies now, about finding yourself a nearest and dearest then don’t take any advice from me. I direct you towards the book, Make Your Move: The New Science of Dating and Why Women Are in Charge by Jon Birger. I also interviewed him a few years ago. He has some very good advice on finding yourself a man.
So good luck to Generation Z and their search for love in 2025. Remember fortune favours the brave.