Anum's Blog

Decreasing Marriage Rate in Canada
For the first time ever, recent studies show that Canada has more unmarried citizens than married ones. In today’s society, most of us are delaying an important part of life, which is to start a family of your own. There are many distractions which result in this delay, education and finding a proper career job. However, the question which lie’s is- are they actually worth it? No, both men/women should not delay getting married and having a family, regardless of what the situation is. Stats show that women are most fertile between the ages of 20-24 and once they are past this age the chances of them getting pregnant decreases massively. “The Office of National Statistics has reported that, since the 1980’s the rates for women giving birth at age 30 or over have gone up, while the rates for women giving birth aged under 30 have fallen” (http://www.babycenter.ca/preconception/activelytrying/ageandfertility/). Besides, what does getting married have to do with having children? Statistics show that getting married does increase the chances of producing more children yet, it also helps families being more secure. Unmarried couple’s have more chances to break up than married ones. The following diagram illustrates pregnancy rates over the course of one year; the two line graphs are for females with normal reproductive function. Why are people rejecting traditional marriage? It’s because in today’s time period we have more choices to pick out of rather than back in the days where marriage was the only option. Given a variety of choices, we would wait years thinking we found the right soul-mate rather than taking this step before. In order to find a man whom you want to marry and who wants to marry you-all you have to do is be ready to get yourself into a commitment. I checked out CBC to see if I can lock onto some more information on this matter and it stated that, “Data drawn from the 2006 census shows that last year 51.5% of the population aged 15-up had never been married, divorced, separated or widowed. But just 5 years earlier that number was just below the 50% mark. Conversely, last year only 48.5% of people aged 15-up were legally married, that’s down from 50.1% in 2001. The trend has been going on for years; 20 years ago only 38.6% of the population was unmarried”. We are so caught up in our everyday lives that we are not thinking about our future. Thus, I believe marriage is one of the greatest things in this world and that we shouldn’t delay it more than necessary. Being in a relationship makes you a stronger and healthier human being, when one falls lonely, they have someone to love, cry with, talk to, share life, and grow old with…what else could you ask for?