Young Americans live a drastically different life than baby boomers did when they were the age that millennials are now. Most baby boomers were married with children when they were in their twenties—and some had already been divorced by the time they reached the age at which most young adults even start to consider marriage today.
A recent study conducted by the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University looked the differences between baby boomers when they were 25-to-34-year-olds in 1980 compared to millennials who are currently 25 to 34. The study found marriage and family life was just one of the areas of stark difference between the groups during early adulthood.
The study, which compared U.S. Census data from 1980 to 2015, found nearly 70 percent of baby boomers—generally people who were born between 1946 and 1964—were married in 1980 while only 41 percent of 24-to-34-years-old were married in 2015. Twenty percent of baby boomers were unmarried in 1980 and 12 percent had already been separated or divorced by 1980.
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