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Spouting Thomas's avatar

I can't remember how much of the Baby Boom's fertility boost was associated with higher marriage rates (as opposed to higher married TFR), but IIRC it's a lot of it. I'm sure it's not a coincidence that it happened at a time when marriage rates were spiking and that its end coincided with divorce rates soaring in the 1970s.

So I think a good part of the conformity has to do with marriage itself. Which honestly aligns more with my lived experience. A lot of people just don't look much outside their own family unit to decide if they should have one more kid. They're much more focused on thinking about their own lives and what another kid means to them. But single culture is very real; if everyone you know is married by their mid-20s, then being single is that much lonelier and you're prepared to compromise more in your choice of mate (plus everyone is trying to set you up and marry you off). If a lot of people around you are single into their 30s, then being single throughout your 20s is not so bad, no hurry.

Even if you eventually get married either way, you're likely to end up with more kids the earlier you marry. A longtime friend of my mother's is a case in point: she has 3 kids, born when she was 24, 26, and 36. Maybe the last was an accident, or maybe she just felt a last twinge of baby fever with both kids becoming more independent, I don't know. But it's a good bet that if she had started at 34 instead of 24, she'd have ended up with 2 kids at most.

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s_e_t_h's avatar

Judgy joggers in Reston, VA. That tracks.

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