by blondie9x on 4/13/25, 2:36 PM with 193 comments
by jandrewrogers on 4/13/25, 3:15 PM
I think some of this is a side-effect of many people planning to never have children.
by elric on 4/13/25, 2:50 PM
Relationships, sexual or otherwise, are not subject to paperwork. The days of relationships, sex, or even reproduction being tied to marriage are long gone.
by AndrewKemendo on 4/13/25, 4:06 PM
What’s overwhelmingly changed in my lifetime (since 1980) is that young adult people would rather be alone with no children than take the risk on being unhappy or getting a divorce.
The single biggest change is that the average sentiment now in the “global-west” is “why should I risk my current lifestyle for the risk and pain of a family.”
That wasn’t previously really an option for most people - for a lot of structural reasons. A lot of it was structural repression and the fact that is gone is an unalloyed good.
However it does mean that the expectations for human communities and population growth that have undergirded humanity since the neolithic no longer apply.
We need to fundamentally rethink what humanity is working towards, at a global scale, if the gross population numbers had peaked for humanity.
by mjevans on 4/13/25, 3:57 PM
I'm not sure what Third Space / Place would be viable to find a life partner. The region is relatively sparse and spread out due to bodies of water, hilly topology. By car everything still seems far and the road network (as always for anywhere) strained to the limits of what people are barely willing to tolerate for commutes. Transit infrastructure is mostly commuter busses for 9-5 jobs in Seattle, maybe a bus or two to Bellevue. The single artery of slow (no express last I road) 1 rail line each way light rail still under construction at end points and offering not much real benefit for someone trying to connect between points without transfers. Transfers outside of Seattle a huge annoyance due to sparse schedules and routes that generally don't go where someone might desire.
Which is a long way of saying; there's a very real transaction cost in time, energy, and financial resources to get anywhere.
Any hobbies, any venues, anything I can think of other than places like a library (to be quite and alone) all have their own costs. They're for profit, not for hanging out (for low / no cost) nor meeting new people.
It's to the point where I'd take a SciFi grade benevolent AI nudging stuff together to solve these intractable issues and get the right people into the right places so that matches do happen without winning the lotto level odds.
by Aurornis on 4/13/25, 3:06 PM
A lot of young people worked in those offices. It was basically a rite of passage for them to move just outside of Seattle around the time they were getting married.
This was so widely understood that it factored into decisions about where to locate office buildings and influences remote and hybrid policy. If you wanted to attract and retain more experienced employees then being in-office only in the middle of the city was risky.
by georgeburdell on 4/13/25, 2:52 PM
-Income tax brackets above about $200k
-SALT cap
-Mortgage interest deduction
-HSA contributions (if have children)
-Dependent care FSA contributions
by karaterobot on 4/13/25, 4:07 PM
I guess I also wish they defined the boundaries of Seattle: do they mean the urban core, the city limits, King County, or the metropolitan region? I know relatively few married people who live in Seattle, but that's because it's too expensive to buy a house in Seattle's city limits. You either have to inherit a house, or have both people work in a high-paying industry for this to be affordable.
I also know more than a few couples who are in very long term, committed relationships, living in Seattle with no intention to get legally married. They are 'married' in the culturally meaningful sense, just not the legal one.
My point is it seems (to my inexpert reading) like their statistic is capturing very young people, who rent apartments in Seattle but aren't ready to get married, and older people who may have houses in Seattle, but are more likely to be divorced or widowed. But, they're mostly not talking about 30-60 year olds, who are more likely to be married, bu live outside Seattle and commute into it. Weird.
I don't know how much I care about this statistic.
by api on 4/13/25, 3:16 PM
When people get married and think about settling down and maybe having kids, they usually leave high cost of living cities. They want stability, something they can own or rent long term, and usually more space, especially if kids are coming.
Sometimes they move to the suburbs, sometimes across the country.
The only people who stay tend to be rich people who can actually afford to get some space and stability in the city. Even then many of those decide to leave anyway for other reasons, again especially if they want kids.
High cost city centers are basically an extension of college dorms at this point. They are where people go to start their careers or level up, not stay.
This is like saying “study shows that most people in a shopping mall are looking to buy something” then extrapolating some larger conclusion from that.
by pfdietz on 4/13/25, 3:09 PM
by TriangleEdge on 4/13/25, 3:41 PM
What big tech wants are people who are willing to give up everything for the dream of making money, and that's what they got.
Edit: Our life is pretty good in any case. I would never let my kid go outside and play unsupervised in Seattle even tho I myself did this as a kid in my home town (the safety I was mentioning).
by betaby on 4/13/25, 3:55 PM
by delichon on 4/13/25, 3:34 PM
by yosito on 4/13/25, 3:15 PM
by knappa on 4/13/25, 2:53 PM
by russell_h on 4/13/25, 3:02 PM
Edit: also, school quality.
by WarOnPrivacy on 4/13/25, 5:51 PM
This article addresses how the 2015 SCotUS decision affected marriage stats. The factors in play then changed how I thought about marriage.
My 'tribe' attached money and other benefits to marriage. This fundamentally reframed marriage in secular ways; it diminished religions' claims on it.
We Christians had been solidly in charge of marriage and for the previous 80 years divorced had steadily climbed. I felt we should own that; we should stop blaming societal factors - because we were also part of society.
Prior to the 2015 SC decision on marriage, I was a strong proponent of civil unions. I felt CUs were a path to decoupling marriage from secular benefits (tax breaks, spousal privilege). However, hard liners held sway and they were having none of it.
After 2015 I openly hoped that gay marriages gained a better track record than 'traditional marriages'. I felt there was a lot we Christians could do to be better spouses - in ways that both partners would want to stay married. I hoped gay couples would set examples for us. This was a simplistic fantasy on my part, pure immaturity.
ftr: I presently identify as Recovering Conservative. Where I have religious leanings, they run counter to the modern right. I sometimes use more nuanced pronouns.
by danielktdoranie on 4/13/25, 4:18 PM
by tejas911 on 4/13/25, 3:29 PM
by alexyz12 on 4/13/25, 3:47 PM
by toomuchtodo on 4/13/25, 3:45 PM
by MaxPock on 4/13/25, 3:32 PM
by jocaal on 4/13/25, 2:56 PM
by UtopiaPunk on 4/13/25, 9:26 PM
I just wanted to call that out since many of the comments seem focused on diagnosing what it is about Seattle specifically to lead to this trend.
IMO, it is mostly a housing issue. It seems like most new construction goes towards apartment complexes where the units are all 1-2 bedrooms, or else they go to more "luxury" big houses. I personally would love a 5 bedroom apartment in a dense, walkable city, but good luck finding it.
So I'm currently in the suburbs with my kids, even though I hate the suburbs.
by anal_reactor on 4/13/25, 9:15 PM
by KolmogorovComp on 4/13/25, 2:50 PM
How can this logical fallacy pass through editorialising? As marriage becomes less popular, for the same number of couples, you will have fewer marriages but not more singles.
by keepamovin on 4/13/25, 3:32 PM
by puppycodes on 4/13/25, 10:20 PM