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As Americans in their 20s increasingly live apart from their parents, they are marrying later, and finding partners from a far greater pool of potential mates. Demographic numbers confirm it.
Stanford Sociology professor Michael Rosenfeld will talk about the state of same sex unions and the changing American Family at noon Thursday on the Sonoma State campus. His presentation, in Room 1002 of Stevenson Hall, is part of the Women and Gender Studies' Queer Lecture Series, and is open to the public.
Rosenfeld's most recent book is How Couples Meet and Stay Together, based on research funded by the National Science Foundation. He is also the author of The Age of Independence: Interracial Unions, Same-Sex Unions and the Changing American Family. In that book, he defines and documents the emergence and impacts of what he calls the "independent life stage" of young adults in their 20s.
This new life stage, combined with other sociological changes over the past half century or more, set the stage for the changes in relationship patterns that Rosenfeld writes about in his newer book.
The pairing of marriage partners is not the only demographic change that Rosenfeld has been tracking. Family sizes are also changing, he notes, and getting noticeably smaller.
