Dating For A Decade Has Been Bad For Women And Their Fertility

Carrie works as an editor, serves in her church’s nursery, and, in her spare time, reads, paints, and spends time with her extensive friend group. Jenna works as a senior-level financial professional. She volunteers with a local Christian nonprofit, teaches Sunday school, and gives her younger siblings advice on their school assignments. 

Neither of them is a career woman or fits the stereotype of the modern “sexually liberated” woman. They are church-going, socially conservative ladies who want to find a life partner, foster a happy marriage, and start a family — the very things Americans have been doing for 250 years. 

Carrie and Jenna may be in the minority by being conservative and religious, but like the majority of 18- to 29-year-olds, they’re stuck dating for longer than ever. 

The average woman today spends more than 10 years of her life between her first sexual encounter (age 17.4) and getting married (age 28.4), also known as “the dating decade.” This is according to a new report and poll from Independent Women, “The Dating Decade: Hooking Up, Hanging Out, and Swiping Right.” Only a few generations ago, in the 1950s, this lengthy dating window was nonexistent for women. This change in relationship habits has been devastating for young women and families. 

Though the names above are fake, the stories are real. I’m also among these women trapped in the dating stage, and we represent the average young American hoping for a family and a future. 

Despite the polarized narrative around dating and marriage, 80.5 percent of young adults today (aged 18-29) either desire marriage (62 percent) or are married already (18.5 percent), according to Independent Women’s new polling. And despite increased cultural acceptance of casual sex, individual attitudes are much more conservative, with the majority of young women (76 percent) not interested in hookups. Young women are still looking for committed relationships, but they’re not finding love. 

The downstream effects of this dating decade are broken hearts and faltering dreams. Each year that hopeful young women are stuck dating is another year they cannot start the family they want. The window of childbearing is shrinking for women as they find committed love later than ever before and, as a result, begin having children later than ever. 

But there is a ceiling on female reproductive capacity. Female fertility peaks during the dating decade and starts to decline in a woman’s 30s, yet the average woman does not have her first child until she is 27.5 years old. And amid already falling fertility rates, these statistics will have generational consequences. 

It’s not just traditionally minded women like Carrie, Jenna, or me who are navigating the fallout of the dating decade. Some women woke up in their 30s to realize they wanted more than a career, only to discover that other opportunities had already passed them by. Other women relied on advances in reproductive technology, only to be betrayed by false promises. Famously, Brigitte Adams appeared on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek with the tagline: “Freeze your eggs, Free your career.” At 45 years old, she defrosted her eggs and found a sperm donor, only to be devastated when none of her embryos survived. 

Even beyond biology, cultural issues have complicated the dating market. Pornography proliferates our online age, with 57 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds saying they “seek out” pornography at least once a month. #MeToo has made many men afraid of approaching women, lest they be accused of untoward behavior. And the decline of religious institutions strips society of a once-common environment to meet a spouse. 

Meanwhile, our society urges women into a career-centric life. For example, more women than men attend college, as young women are pushed toward post-secondary education, advanced degrees, and high-powered jobs that often fail to consider the other goals women may have in life, beyond career ambitions. Even when I was an undergraduate student at a conservative, religious university, it was not discussed that many female students may wish to balance a family alongside a career, let alone how female students might strategically plan their academic and career paths to prioritize getting married and raising children. 

But pointing fingers at the stereotype of the modern career woman, a politically polarized generation, the commodification of romance on dating apps, or the fallout of the sexual revolution does nothing to help those stuck in the dating decade. The truth is that most young women are still looking for love, and they are navigating a cultural landscape much more complicated than their parents or grandparents faced.

This landscape makes it hard for young adults to find long-lasting love. Calling out only one problem or focusing on narrow solutions will not reverse this crisis. Instead, we need a variety of solutions that focus on reviving a healthy, pro-family culture.

In the meantime, living out this misaligned culture are real people — women with dreams of a life that is fading farther away, hoping to find love that may never come, and waiting to start a family while their fertility wanes. For now, the single young women I know have set out on their own to apply their talents in the workplace, serve their communities, and provide for themselves financially. 

But what of the future we were promised? What of the generations lost to falling fertility? Until we can soberly ask these questions, we’re failing young women, the men they wait to marry, and the children they hope for.

Jordan Jantz is the assistant editor at Independent Women’s Features, as well as a freelance writer, editor, and website designer.