NZ Herald 6 September 2014
Young people without educational qualifications are increasingly being left on the shelf by potential partners, New Zealand researchers say.
Social researchers Paul Callister and Robert Didham have found that the so-called “decline of marriage”, matched by a growing tendency to stay single, is largely confined to the uneducated.
Young adults of “marriageable age” (25 to 34) are just as likely to have a partner today as they were 28 years ago – in fact slightly more so if they are women.
But for young men of the same age with no qualifications, the chances of having a partner have dropped by a fifth, from 65 per cent to 52 per cent.
For young women with no qualifications, the chances of a partner have plunged by almost a third, from 72 per cent to 50 per cent.
“The well-educated haven’t gone away from those ideals at all, in fact maybe they are going more back to them,” said Dr Callister.
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