After every empire has peaked, there is a sharp decline in the birth and marriage rate. Part of this is caused by the lack of confidence in the economy. In Japan it has led to the lowest birthrate in their history with a shrinking population and tremendous problems of a lack of new workers to support the older generation. In Japan, the younger generation are giving up on relationships in general. The trend is now moving to the extreme point of what is called “celibacy syndrome”. (see Guardian)
In the USA, the marriages have dropped with the economy post-2007 and girls are marrying older men as the age difference is starting to climb back in the direction of the 19th century. It seems Hollywood created these fake images of love at first sight out of lust and the age difference plummeted to its lowest level while divorce soared to its highest level. The data will be provided in our upcoming report on the Pension Crisis. Very interesting demographic trends that map out cyclically.
