WASHINGTON — The number of U.S. homes with a married couple and kids fell to a record low, according to new government data, as the pandemic further delayed weddings and more adults don’t plan to have kids at all.The share of the U.S.’s 130 million households headed by married parents with children under age 18 fell to 17.8% in 2021 from 18.6% last year, according to the Census Bureau. That’s down from more than 40% in 1970.
By absolute numbers, there are just 23.1 million homes with nuclear families, the fewest since 1959, the data show.
The pandemic delayed many marriages over the past two years, adding six months to a woman’s age at first marriage — the most since 1987 — to now 28.6 years. In the 1950s and ‘60s, women typically married at 20.4 years of age and 22.8 years for men.
Births have generally been on the decline as Americans are marrying later in life, which has grown more pronounced in the pandemic. The U.S. fertility rate fell to 55.4 births per 1,000 in the second quarter from 58.5 in the same period of 2019, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed Friday.
I describe these results as a 'nightmare hellscape.' I suppose liberals would call it 'progress.' But which description really fits this data better?
In slightly better news, Rewrite+ is slated for release December 17th. This visual novel is a combination of the original Rewrite with better graphics and the expansion fandisc Harvest Festa, which has never before been translated into English. I don't know if I really want to re-read the original Rewrite, but I definitely want to play Harvest Festa, so this release is huge. Any Key visual novel is huge.
Bowl season is upon us. Many great games have been charted out, all of which can be studied on ESPN's website. But the most important ones are the College Football Playoffs on New Year's Eve. Cincinnati plays Alabama and Georgia plays Michigan for the right to play in the college football championship game. I was wrong, Cincinnati got in. But this was a very unique set of circumstances -- Cincinnati was undefeated, and had defeated directly the next best candidate for a slot, Notre Dame. If not for that head-to-head matchup, if Cincinnati had defeated a comparatively good team, like, say, Ohio State, Notre Dame would have polevaulted ahead of Cincinnati, but they didn't dare do it with the head-to-head results staring everyone in the face.
In addition, against everyone's expectations, Baylor beat Oklahoma State, so Cincinnati didn't have to compete for a slot with them. So many random events went Cincinnati's way that a miracle occurred, but in a normal season a Group of 5 team never would have gotten away with such a thing, no matter how good their record. So I was wrong that the committee would do anything, be absolutely brazen and indefensible, to keep a Group of 5 team out, but you can bet if there's any controversy or any chance for a Power 5 team in the future things won't go the same way. They still haven't selected a Group of 5 team in a debatable situation.
I hope Cincinnati beats Alabama and wins it all. People will still cast shade on the Group of 5 until they prove themselves in the ultimate environment. If they went all the way here, it would earn Group of 5 rights to compete for the rest of time, instead of being a 1-time aberration.
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