ABSTRACT

Marriage rates have been well observed and documented in the past decades. Yet the relationship between generations and marital value has, to date, been poorly discussed. The present study hopes to investigate how the perspectives of marriage and its value has changed over the decades and whether multiple generational age groups have different perspectives on it. Participants completed an online survey in which they were asked to give their personal perspectives and beliefs towards marriage. Strong positive correlations were discovered between age and positive beliefs of marriage values, willingness to get married, or being in long-term relationships. Positive trends in education levels and finding it hard to date were observed, suggesting that those with more advanced education perceive dating to be more of a challenge. Trends also were observed between age with negative correlations to variables such as education level, economic status, and annual income. Negative trends were also observed between marital value and age. Higher age was observed to hold a higher value of marriage. Confounds that occurred during the experiment were having more female gendered participants than any other gender group. Another was the overall small sample size. The data from this experiment in turn could show how society shifts and what morals and beliefs are becoming more of a staple amongst certain age groupings. In future research, the study’s resulting data could also give insight to marriage perspectives based on race, educational levels, and income levels.