These days, at least it seems, without this social pressure people feel free to leave more readily before giving raising their family a greater priority. The priority is their convenience and not the new generation. Also people just don’t apply this social pressure on their peers so much, so there is less consideration when seeking divorce or plain abandonment.
Want to get married? Pay a small fee at the courthouse and get a license in a day or so. Very easy, very low cost.
Want to get divorced? The process can take over a year, cost tens of thousands or more, involve court appearances, and dividing property.
Granted both of these actions are easier or less restrictive than they were in the past. Although the lawyer fees seem to be higher, at least when considering real wages have decreased since the 70s.
With the prevalence of divorce, you would think that prenups could be made a part of the marriage license so that lawyer costs, court costs, etc could be minimized. It might even cause some people to reconsider a bad marriage. You could go farther with premarital counseling if this is really a concern.
I don't know of those are really good ideas or not. Personally, I think the government should get out of the marriage business altogether. With the wide variety of living arrangements and expectations for what a marriage is, I think it might work better for people to enter into private marriage contracts.
On the social pressures and unwanted kids part, I wonder how mate selection plays into this. Sure, there was free love in the 70s, but I still imagine that premarital sex was not as common as it has become today. I wonder how women's expectations of men have changed during this time, especially for when to allow for sex. I also wonder how the expectations men (and society) have of women have changed, especially in terms of work/home/financial responsibilities and contraception/abortion options.
That does not make any sense. Most older generations did not choose to have children (certainly not as much as we do) and it did not result in generations being "disaffected". If anything that's exactly the opposite - we are the generation when we have full control of who gets born and there's never been more unhappy families in History than now.
Birth control and family planning aren't a new invention.
Hence, "Birth control and family planning"
i don’t know if expectations being set because of being a man makes any sense, but i firmly believe you must have goals and morals. i think we spend a lot of time struggling with the roles we’re assigned. no for any deep reason, it’s just work and people tend to hate it.
i think it comes down to the intent of the parent in having a child. to a point of course, if you’re in your thirties and refuse to grow up. it’s hard to grow up when you were raised poorly by a sibling because your parents weren’t interested.