U.S. Marriage Rate Drops With Recession

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28661, 11 August 1958, Page 2

U.S. Marriage Rate Drops With Recession

(From a Reuter Correspondent)

NEW YORK. Economic experts are worried because fewer Americans nave been getting married since last September, roughly the time when the current economic recession set in. They fear that, although the recession may actually be a cause of the declining marriage rate, the effect of the decline may be, in a sort of vicious circle, to deepen still further the gloom surrounding the economic picture. The actual figures which have been spreading despondency among economists, including the three members of President Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisers, were released recently by the National Office of Vital Statistics.

They showed that during the six months from September, 1957, to February, 1958, there were 9 per cent fewer marriages than in the same period the previous year. This compared with a drop of only 3 per cent, in 1957 over 1956. The figures for February, 1958. were 15 per cent, down on those for February, 1957.

The office indicated a link with the recession by showing that in a heavily industrial area, Detroit, the fall between the first quarter of 1957 and that of 1958 was 11 per cent., considerably higher than the national average. What this could mean in economic terms has been emphasised recently by two economic observers, who agree on the gravity of the present situation, but not upon how long it is likely to last. Fewer Births Mr Nat Goldfinger, economics adviser to a big trade union organisation, said that, in his opinion, the fall in the number of marriages, taken with the increased unemployment, “may reduce the number of births—something the optimists have been counting on to strengthen consumer activities in the months ahead.” He added that he thought the population increase, which has been adding millions of Americans every year since World War 11, might slow down markedly as a result.

Dr. Joseph Davis, a member of the President’s advisory council, put forward a slightly more optimistic view. He admitted that a decline in marriages did have a “temporary effect” in home and furniture buying, particularly in recession-hit areas. He added that the apparent reluctance of many people already married to have a family at the present time of eco-

nomic uncertainly might mean a considerable decrease in births but said: “Although you can discern a drop in marriages during recessions and a less noticeable decline in births, they are made up quickly.” He predicted that the next decade, and the increase in marriages it would see as a result of the Second World War baby boom, would make “these recessionary variations’* seem like “mere bubbles.” In the American economy, marriage is perhaps the greater stimulant to the consumption of goods than in any other. This is partly due to the fertility of the young American woman. A recent United Nations survey showed that the American girl between the ages of 15 and 19 is the most fertile in the world, with 86 births per 1000 women. Young newly-married people, with their needs in housing, furniture, kitchen equipment, baby accessories, and so on, are what the advertisers call a “highly saleable” part of the population, and much of American advertising is directed especially at them.

Revolution in Living It is young, reasonably well-to-do married people who have been mainly responsible for a major revolution in American living in recent years. This is what has become known as the “great shift to suburbia,” and the growth of the “station waggon set.” Great housing suburbs have grown up in recent years round every major American city, similar to British Council Housing Estates, except that they are privately built and rented, generally by people in the middle income groups. The scale on which they have been built, mainly for young married people who wanted a home of their own, rather than a flat or half of an old-fashioned house, has in itself been a stimulus to the economy. The addition of big new shopping centres in their midst, where most big firms have been quick to take out space, has further contributed to the decline of the established city shopping areas and the growth of a suburban spending boom. When the New York stock exchange announced that 1958 had a record first quarter in terms of dividends paid to stc ckholders, those leading the prosperity were the financial companies, whose building loans spur on the growth of suburban development, and retail stores, still finding new merchandising outlets in the big shopping centres. These close links between the booming economy and the multiplication of the young family unit are one of the chief sources of the economists’ worry about the decline in marriages. Previous periods of recession have had a similar effect, but not to such a marked degree. In the 1953-54 recession, for instance, the marriage rate slipped 4.4 per cent, in a few months. Even divorces are fewer in periods of economic hardship. “People have not the money to get a divorce.” Dr. Davis explained. “But you have more of the poor man’s divorce—desertion.”