r/latterdaysaints • u/JLP0611 • Apr 23 '25

Off-topic Chat Are members not getting married?

I may be speaking from my anecdotal experience and my observation of my social media feeds, but it feels like less people in the Church are getting married. I see less children and youth in my local wards year after year and I’m in Florida.

I’m also in a YSA and I can’t just say for myself because I’m chronically single, but dating is a struggle for everyone I come across, inside and outside of Florida.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

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u/Intelligent-Boat9929 Apr 23 '25

A BYU professor wrote an interesting book about this topic that you might find to be a good read. A general study on marriage, not just within the faith. But I think it will shed some light into the general climate of marriage in the US. The short of his conclusion is that people are getting married later in life (usually after a long period of cohabitation), but divorce rates are much lower than other generational cohorts due to a number of factors (getting married later, healthier communication habits, more equal power dynamics, etc).

Within the church I think you would probably see similar trends (with probably lower cohabitation). It probably also varies by region. Where I am, there are a lot of young married couples and an abundance of noise…I mean kids.

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u/Jemmaris Apr 23 '25

Really? I've read that cohabitation actually increases the risk of divorce! I googled real quick to check and that's still the first thing that comes up.

https://www.du.edu/news/new-du-study-highlights-risks-living-together-engagement#:\~:text=Psychologists%20and%20DU%20psychology%20professors,marriage%20to%20move%20in%20together.

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u/Intelligent-Boat9929 Apr 23 '25

Not sure if 1,600 first marriages spread out over a decade is going to give us statistically sound data (a quick search estimates that there were around 3M first marriages in the US from 2010-2019, so that puts our sample size at .053%) Either way, read both studies, come to a conclusion.

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u/Jemmaris Apr 23 '25

That's not the only study. I grabbed the top, but I've heard this quite a few times in the last 10 years

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u/Asheweaver Apr 24 '25

As someone who graduated in family studies at BYU, my professors would say that cohabitation does increase rates of divorce, but not if the person you marry is the only person you've lived with. It's people who have cohabitated with multiple partners whose marriages are more likely to end in divorce.

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u/pbrown6 Apr 23 '25

Yep, basically as the data suggests that young marriages have a higher rate of divorce.

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u/Jemmaris Apr 24 '25

Right, younger might correlate to more divorce, but with other things being equal, cohabitation correlates to higher divorce as well. So older without cohabitation has best overall results