Jenet Jacob Erickson

Youth from non-intact families more likely to use technology excessively and struggle with mental health

We’ve all seen the headline: “Money is the leading cause of divorce.” In fact, it isn’t money itself, but disagreement about it that makes financial conflict the strongest predictor of divorce. Financial disagreements “last longer, are harder to resolve, and are more important to spouses than other types of disagreements.” Indeed, one reason financial issues appear to be so important to marital quality is because they reflect deeper, more serious marital processes and challenges.

Recent research on Millennials and young adults identified a trend that startled contemporary scholars and journalists. Findings revealed that an increasing percentage of high school seniors and young adults espouse the traditional norm of men being the primary breadwinner and women being the primary caregivers at home, a percentage that has been increasing since the mid-1990s. This rise in “traditionalism” took many by surprise, uprooting the assumption that each new generation would continually move toward a highly prized value of “gender equality,” where men and women divide professional and family work equally. For many journalists, the only explanation for such a finding was that Millennials just don’t seem to care about “gender equality” in marriage. But a more accurate analysis suggests that many Millennials just don’t adhere to the narrow definition of “gender equality” that assumes men and women are only equal if they do the same things, professionally and at home. And it is not just Millennials who appear to desire a more “traditional” approach to family life. Married mothers and fathers in America today (the parents of these Millennials) typically divide caregiving and professional work hours along traditionally gendered lines. And they do so, “because that’s what most of them want to do.”

When the Pew Research Center released their report on America’s religious landscape in 2014, they noted a striking change—specifically, a dramatic increase in the share of Americans who identify themselves as religiously unaffiliated The increase from 16% to 23% between 2007 and 2014, was largely driven by Millennials, a generation that is not only less religious, but also less likely to view religious organizations positively reported in 2016, that Millennials’ ratings of churches and other religious organizations had dropped 18 percent over a 5-year period. In that time, the percentage of Millennials who said churches had a positive impact on the country fell from 73% to 55%.