We often think of the dating crisis as a strictly Western phenomenon – now, new data shows that the number of couples is declining across the world
Modern dating is in crisis. But while we tend to think about the ‘relationship recession’ as a Western phenomenon, new research suggests that the problem has gone global.
According to a new report by John Burn-Murdoch in the Financial Times, from the US, to Finland, to South Korea, to Turkey, to Tunisia, to Thailand, birth rates are falling – and it’s likely part of this fall can be ascribed to a corresponding decline in the number of couples. When relationships do form, they’re more fragile than they were in the past: in Finland, it is now more common for couples who move in together to split up than to have a child.
As the FT points out, the falling birth rate trend can seem “benign” – or even positive – if we imagine it as the result of “a rise in happily childless Dinks (dual income, no kids couples) with plenty of disposable income” – but the picture is more complicated than this, with many people remaining single long into adulthood.
While many people are happily single – some past research suggests that single, childless women are the happiest demographic in the population – and it’s cheering that society places less pressure on people to get married, wider data on loneliness and dating frustrations suggests that there are significant swathes of the global population who would like to be in a relationship (and have children) but can’t find a suitable partner.
Burn-Murdoch points to a few reasons why this is happening. He explains that singledom is rising in tandem with mobile internet usage (particularly among women), who are now freer to choose to remain single if they feel as though they haven’t found the right partner, pointing to research which suggests that social media can help facilitate the spread of liberal values among women and boosts female empowerment. Notably, the decline in coupling is starkest in places with “extremely online” populations – such as Europe, East Asia, Latin America – while singledom remains rare in South Asia, where fewer women have access to the web.
Historically, governments have often encouraged populations to have more children through offering financial incentives and enacting pro-family policies. But today’s situation is very different, with shifting sociocultural norms behind the widespread dearth of couples. As the FT points out, while a world with more single people is not “better or worse than one filled with couples and families”, it’s worth pausing to ask: “is this what people really want? If not, what needs to change?”