In an age of short-lived celebrity marriages, widespread divorce, babies being born outside of marriage, and the ever-popular “hooking up,” young people are remarkably traditional about their expectations for love, marriage and children—for both themselves and society at large, according to a new Clark University Poll of Emerging Adults.
The poll, directed by Clark psychology professor Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, reports that 86% of 18 to 29-year-olds surveyed nationwide expect to have a marriage that will last a lifetime.
“It’s striking to see how optimistic today’s emerging adults are about their prospects for having a life-long marriage. They grow up knowing that half of marriages end in divorce, yet nearly all of them expect to be in the half that doesn’t,” said Arnett. “Of today’s emerging adults, the ones with divorced parents are often the ones who are most determined to avoid divorce, even though they are statistically most likely to get divorced themselves.”
