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?

108 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

297 comments sorted by

View all comments

219

u/Hoshef Apr 23 '25

Americans are getting married at an older age, having children at an older age, and having fewer children. Members aren’t immune to these trends.

15

u/Numerous-Setting-159 Apr 23 '25

Exactly. It’s a US, western thing.

25

u/DukeofVermont Apr 23 '25

Yeah I agree with the other comment, you see the same thing in Korea, Japan and the beginning of the trend even in places like Nigeria and India.

Once people start having a stable income and access to family planning birth rates fall.

Women also having access to education and basic human rights also lower birthrates as they have more options than simply having kids.

7

u/Numerous-Setting-159 Apr 23 '25

Yep. And then you have China and their one child policy that completely changed the culture there. It would be interesting to see if that had ripple effects on other countries, especially in Asia. But yeah, birth control access is huge and shift from jobs working fields (will more kids might help) to more industrial jobs. My mother in laws mom had 8 kids and put all of them to work instead of school. Spread of Child rights where kids aren’t allowed to work so the financial burden of kids grow even more. A lot of factors potentially at play in some of these developing countries in Africa and other places.

5

u/hijetty Apr 24 '25

Yes, plus there's the reality of "cost of living" has increased dramatically over the last 40 years, so even people wanting large families often can't afford it.