Why are Millennials Hesitant to Build a Family?

I grew up in a traditional household where marriage is considered one of the essentials of life. I knew from the very start that I have to get married but I was unable to convince my mind why should I? there was no good enough answer to that question. Post my graduation in 2016, I spent 5 years waiting and trying to get ready to settle, get married and have a family of my own but I was never ready for it.  I interviewed single people who were in their 30s to get to know if they are ready to have a family, but they too were not ready. After waiting for 5 years, I finally took the decision to get married and go with the flow. I chose a suitable mate and decided to go for it without further delay because the average age of marriage in our society is 24 and I was 4 years late already. Interviewing other people, I came to know that I am not the only millennial, wherever I go and meet other people of my generation, everyone is going through the same. Living alone, more concerned about career than having a family, commitment issues and not ready to settle are few common issues that we are facing. When I dig deeper, a few research articles come out.  A new analysis of government data by Pew Research Center shows that Millennials are taking a different path in forming – or not forming – families. Three-in-ten Millennials live with a spouse and child compared with 40% of Gen Xers at a comparable age. Millennial’s trail previous generations at the same age across three typical measures of family life: living in a family unit, marriage rates and birth rates. Number of millennials living in their own family are much less as compared to gen X at the same age. When I talked to millennials around me, I got to know that everyone had pretty much the same fears and reasons for not building their own family.  I categorized them into following:

Awareness: If we look at globalization, we come to know that millennials are more aware than their previous generation. They have got phones, internet and socialize more than others. More education and more awareness make them think about issues our previous generations were not thinking about like climate change, excessive population growth and lack of resources. Millennials actively think and work on these issues and it is one of the reasons that they don’t feel that it’s safe to bring new life into the world.

Responsibility: We have seen that generation X and baby boomers have produced more children than millennials. As a millennial, I don’t see it as a responsible move by our ancestors. I feel that I am responsible for a whole new generation. Raising a child is raising a society and I think we millennials take it more seriously. This limits us to grow a new family without planning for their future.

Commitment: Us millennials have commitment issues as compared to our previous generations. Exposure to social media has provided us multiple options and we are keen to explore them. Our generation runs after the best and never wants to stop or settle at a single person or a commitment. This is one of the reasons that we do not want to settle. Our surroundings are filled with glamour and imagination and in chasing after that glam and artificial perfection, we are left alone. We are waiting for a magical connection to happen when we will get a perfect person in our life and our life will be all set. We don’t want to put effort into a relationship.

Career: Millennials are more into career than family. One of the reasons is awareness, more education, and materialism. Another major reason is secularism. Millennials of all religions, caste and creeds are growing away from their religion and cultural values. The family was considered an important religious and cultural commodity which is fading away these days. Our generation has been outgrown and has become scientific and logical, and competitive as compared to our previous generations. We want to have a promising career, achieve high goals and then think about settling in a family. Material belongings are more important to millennials.

Examples of past generations: It was revealed to me on talking to a few peers that bad relationship experiences of parents have left a mark on children’ mind and those mental health issues have developed strong enough that they are affecting current relationships of millennials.