Examining the economic downturn's effects on how we find and show love.
With strapped wallets, tightened belts and the national unemployment rate nearing double-digits, we can only hope that rumors of the recession's demise prove true—and soon. Here at YourTango, we wanted to know how the economic downturn in the U.S. has affected marriage, sex and family already, and which of these changes will stick when the recession's over.
Baby-Making
Children are expensive: from diapers to college, there are high costs to having babies. The Agriculture Department estimates that middle-income families, who earn an average of $61,000 a year, spend about $11,000 each year on each child under the age of two.
It's not surprising, then, that many couples who already have kids are holding off on expanding their brood. Betsey Stevenson, assistant professor of business and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, explains: "Households that are facing severe budgetary issues that were thinking of having an additional child may decide that now's not a good time. For people who already have a couple kids, it may be that this permanently changes whether they ever go onto have an additional child."
On the flip side, first-time mothers seem to have seen the slowdown as a good opportunity to take themselves off the job market and start a family. One National Bureau of Economic Research paper found that an increase in the unemployment rate leads to a decrease in fertility. But once the researchers subtracted out the effect of the divorce rate and proportion of young marriages, they found that a rise in the unemployment rate actually increased fertility. One possibility, says Stevenson, is that women who get laid off decide it's a good time to have a kid because they have more time to care for it.
The longer the recession lasts, Stevenson predicts, the more likely it is that it will permanently affect family size. And, in fact, condom sales have jumped 6.4 percent nationally since 2008. Experts predict an upswing in pregnancies once the economic turmoil simmers down.
"There will be a baby boom," says Bonnie Eaker Weil, a couples therapist and author of Financial Infidelity.
A look back in history corroborates her theory. Consider the '50s: After a decade of economic woes coupled with war, people bounced back with the white picket fence, prosperous baby-boom era, where women were able to give up jobs held during wartime and returned home to have kids. For that reason, it's hard not to imagine a resurgence of baby-making as soon as the Dow Jones recovers.
Family Life
For already-committed couples, belt tightening can strengthen the relationship.
"People are going back to basics and are spending more time together instead of spending money," Weil says. She also noticed that among her marriage counseling practice, adultery is down. Would-be cheaters are saying, "I won't spend $500 [to wine and dine the other person] when I can't pay for my kids to go to private school." A restoration of economic health—and newfound cash in the wallet—is likely to undo this benefit of the recession, however.
If couples can weather the storm, the toll that economic distress takes on them can ultimately be a benefit. "There are going to be some rocks that you've got to navigate, and nuggets of resentment, but very quickly after that, it's going to bring you back stronger," says Kyla Lange Hart, a principal at Toniq, a New York-based brand strategy firm.
That's why, she says, many couples can look forward to the days after the recession. Hart says shared hardships can lead to a "sensibility shift": instead of each person thinking of themselves as individuals, couples and families recognize that they're a team—that kind of mindset will endure post-recession make them stronger well after the stock market rebounds.
Chicago Tribune reporter Kayce T. Ataiyero predicts that recession-generation kids who watch their parents fix old bikes, cut back on family vacations, cook at home and enlist other money-saving measures, will in turn be more aware of saving and spending in their future. In a recent article, she wrote that today's kids will grow up with recession-ready attitudes, though not quite at the extremes of Great Depression children, who "learned to hoard money in their houses for fear of another banking collapse." The downside, says Stephanie Condon in a recent CBSNews article, is that they are also more likely to grow up obese or with behavioral problems and with less attention to their education, effectively resulting in a "reversal of decades of improvements," according to a Duke University study that she cites.
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