Capps: Millennials: Single and Staying That Way?

Tia Capps
Tia Capps

As millennials move further into adulthood, we find ourselves at the center of yet another norm-defying trend - fewer of us are entering into marriage than any generation before.

Roughly a quarter of today's young adults are unlikely to tie the knot by the time they reach their mid-40s and mid-50s, according to the Pew Research Center. The reasons are myriad, but two main factors are at play. For some, it's a lack of financial security. (Remember, many of us came of age professionally in the midst of the Great Recession.) For others, it's a growing disinterest in the institution of marriage itself.

As a single, 31-year-old woman with a skeptical attitude toward matrimony, I can get on board with those hesitations. I'm not sure I want children, and the option of pursuing life on my own terms is a value I hold dear. But in the long run, what are the implications of joining this shifting trend line?

Growing up, I considered myself the daughter of two women – my mother and my aunt, who had no spouse or children of her own. The stigma of singlehood was mostly lost on my aunt, whose life was rich with travel, fantastic stories, shelves full of books, and more deep, enduring friendships than I can count on both hands. She set the stage for me.

But there's an economic downside to carving a life outside the bounds of marriage, thanks to rules the government has laid out to favor married folks. Here are a few:

' No leave of absence from the workplace offered under the Family and Medical Leave Act for single people to care for the ill, with the exception of their own mothers or fathers. While married people at qualifying workplaces are guaranteed the opportunity to take leave to tend to an ailing spouse, a single person who acts as a primary caretaker of a sibling, life partner or aunt does not enjoy this same benefit. Perhaps the most concerning implication of this inequity is that the single, childless person also does not qualify to receive care from a family member or friend who might otherwise take a leave of absence to provide it.

' Higher tax rates for unmarried individuals, particularly with regard to federal income tax. In most cases, filing taxes jointly can save married couples thousands of dollars in the long term. According to Lily Kahng, a former attorney adviser at the U.S. Department of Treasury and author of the law review article, "One is the Loneliest Number: The Single Taxpayer in a Joint Return World," single individuals absorb greater financial penalties than married couples under the joint return system - costs that become increasingly significant over a lifetime. In the Virginia Tax Review article, "Marry in Haste, Repent at Tax Time," authors Toni Robinson and Mary Moers Wenig argue that this imbalance is largely unnecessary. Eliminating marriage as a tax determinant, they say, would limit the complexity of the system itself and would ultimately level the playing field for more taxpayers.

' Limited flexibility within entitlement programs such as Social Security. When a married person dies, his or her remaining Social Security benefits are transferable to his or her offspring or spouse. A single person's benefits, however, must go back into the system after he or she dies. However, single individuals often act as caretakers of friends and family members and therefore assume virtually identical roles of importance as a child or spouse of a married person. The same can be said of the Social Security benefits spouses share, such as dual claim options, which cannot be extended to the long-term partner of a single person.

These are just a few of the most salient economic drawbacks embedded in government policy. In the private sector, single folks also help subsidize the insurance market, paying higher rates on policies for health, home, life and vehicular coverage. Lisa Arnold and Christina Campbell, co-authors of The Atlantic article "The High Price of Being Single in America," point to IRA options that are only available to married couples as another subtle source of financial inequity between single individuals and their married counterparts.

The systemic incentives to marry are undeniably strong, but as a society, should we really penalize those who remain single?

As millennials move into the next several decades, we need to engage in conversation about unmarried people that evolves into policies that better value the single person's place in society. Today, some of those developments have already begun. Policy proposals advocating for the inclusion of an affinity clause for paid leave in the workplace are making their way onto the agendas of legislators at both the state and federal levels. That means single people would be able to take a leave of absence to care for a non-relative who occupies virtually the same role in a single person's life as a family member might.

These developments are heartening because it means the conversation is moving forward. When I think back on people like my aunt, who leveraged singlehood to pour her love and support into the many friends, children and colleagues in her life who needed it, I want to see people like her - and potentially even myself - flourish in a society that better accommodates our role within it. And if the Pew Center's projections on millennial marriage rates prove accurate, we may be closer to that future than we think.

Tia Capps is a communications professional and entrepreneurial advisor. Contact her at tiacapps@gmail.com.

Upcoming Events