Further to an earlier post on delayed adulthood, USA Today recently ran a report headed “Dating for a decade?” on how young adults put off the commitment of marriage for years, even though they have “paired off” and typically live together. Nobody seems very upset about it.

European royals set a poor example: England’s Prince William and Kate Middleton are in their ninth year together; Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria, 32, has just married her beau of eight years.

For a complete contrast, the paper cites the whirlwind courtship of Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird, who met in August 1934. He proposed to her on their first date, they were engaged in October and married in November -- and stayed married.

Prolonged education, job hunting and the desire to start marriage from a financially strong position partly explain the delay, but the general… click here to read whole article and make comments

Why has there never been a male contraceptive pill? Probably because, knowing that women have stronger reasons to carry this burden, nobody was trying very hard. But now, 50 years after women started risking their health and happiness by swallowing synthetic hormones on a regular basis, Israeli scientists have announced that a male pill is in sight.

And -- what do you know? -- they have come up with a really nice one: non-hormonal, so without those nasty side-effects that women have put up with for so long; and long acting, so you don’t have to think about it every day, as women have had to do.

Says Professor Breitbart of Bar-Ilan University: "I think most women would trust their man to remember once a month or once a quarter.”

Would they?

Breitbart says that “men don’t cope well with side effects” of hormonal contraception,… click here to read whole article and make comments

Nearly one in five American women ends her childbearing years without having borne a child, compared with one in ten in the 1970s, the Pew Research Centre reports. Practically the only group of women less likely to be childless now compared with about two decades ago are those with advanced degrees.

No-one will be surprised at the new statistics, based on Census figures for 2006 and 2008, as they confirm everyday observations in many countries.

Compared with other developed nations, childless rates in the United States are on par with some nations and higher than others, according to data compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Among women born in 1960, 17% in the U.S. were childless at approximately age 40, compared with 22% in the United Kingdom, 19% in Finland and the Netherlands, and 17% in Italy and Ireland.

Higher education is the… click here to read whole article and make comments

China’s bachelor problem is about to get worse, thanks to women raising the material stakes, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Women are collectively disadvantaged at birth: because of the one-child policy and son preference more girls are aborted. But there is a growing surplus of men in competition for wives, and women, it now appears, are using their bargaining power to find the wealthiest suitors.

Among urbanites, anyway, prospective husbands must own an apartment -- and preferably a good set of wheels as well. Yet China’s private wealth revolution has driven up home prices beyond the reach of young men. A typical 1000-foot, two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in Beijing now costs about US$274,000 -- 22 times the annual average income of the city’s average resident.

Unlike in the United States, where home buying traditionally takes place… click here to read whole article and make comments

Here’s an interesting idea: the Institute of Marriage and Family, Canada, has compiled a report on the country’s top family-friendly cities, looking at factors such as population growth, lower taxes, a strong economy, education choice and charitable giving.

Among the top five are three big cities -- Vancouver (British Columbia province), Calgary and Edmonton (Alberta) -- but also the two growing cities of Kitchener and Guelph in Ontario. While other cities score A+ on some measures, these scored an overall A grade.

Authors Rebecca Walberg Andrea Mrozek point out that all Canadian cities are “great places to live in” by international standards, but at a time when people are more mobile than ever it makes sense for those considering a move to look at how likely a place is to help the family thrive.

They graded cities on five points: community feel, education choice, cost… click here to read whole article and make comments

President Obama issued a proclamation for Father’s Day, Friday, but somewhere in the short statement he lost the plot.

The president begins by talking about the things fathers do for their children. Although his list does not seem different from what a mother would do, he does imply that the way a father does things is distinctive and necessary:

Fatherhood also carries enormous responsibilities. An active, committed father makes a lasting difference in the life of a child. When fathers are not present, their children and families cope with an absence government cannot fill. Across America, foster and adoptive fathers respond to this need, providing safe and loving homes for children facing hardships. Men are also making compassionate commitments outside the home by serving as mentors, tutors, or big brothers to young people in their community. Together, we can support the guiding presence of male role models in… click here to read whole article and make comments

It’s bizarre; it’s scary; it’s unbelievable at a time when paedophilia has been starring as the worst crime in the world. I am talking about a new low on the slippery slope of sexualisaing little children.

We have seen the little bras, the little t-shirts with sexy slogans, the pole dancing kits for little girls; now we are confronted with the complete little adult look.

The picture from the London Telegraph shows Suri Cruise, three-year-old daughter of Tom Cruise and Kati Holmes, tricked-out as a twenty-year-old. This is not child’s dressing up play, it is something contrived by commercial agents and her parents. Why, for heaven’s sake? Do they want her treated as a young woman?

But it is the ballroom dancing heels that are causing ructions in Britain right now. Justine Roberts of Mumsnet, a parenting forum that is running a campaign… click here to read whole article and make comments

Have children, lose friends. That’s the message highlighted in some reports about research on how neighbourly and friendly British people are. And it is not only parents who are missing out on friendship at a time when people boast hundreds of friends on social networking sites.

A survey of 2167 adults commissioned by an association representing co-operative enterprises finds that “having children equates to having less close friends -- statistically, after the first child, you lose half a close friend for every extra child you have”.

On the other hand, people with two children know their neighbours best of any type of household in the UK. Then again, “the more kids you have the more nosey you think the neighbours are”.

Well, what to make of that?

To take the point about nosey neighbours first: the report, Cooperative Streets, notes that “children being a nuisance” is… click here to read whole article and make comments

It’s not exactly news, but a report from Princeton University and the Brookings Institution highlights the well-established trend of “delayed adulthood” as people in their twenties prolong their education and fail to reach the milestones of marriage and parenthood.

Actually, this could be more a delay in financial and social independence than in an adult attitude to life: a twenty-something student or worker can be very responsible without having married or while still living in the family home. However, delayed economic independence and family formation have consequences not only for individuals and their families but for the whole of society, as research by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood shows.

At family level there is an increased economic burden on the parents of “emerging adults”. In the United States, people between the ages of 18 and 34 received an average of $38,000 in cash and two… click here to read whole article and make comments

Right on cue for "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender pride month" the journal of the American Academy of pediatrics has published a study purporting to show that the children of lesbian couples “do better than their peers” on some measures.

The data comes from the United States National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study and is based on 78 children who were all born to lesbian couples through donor insemination, and who were interviewed at age 17. These were “planned lesbian families”.

According to New Scientist:

Compared with a group of control adolescents born to heterosexual parents with similar educational and financial backgrounds, the children of lesbian couples scored better on academic and social tests and lower on measures of rule-breaking and aggression.

Study co-author Nanette Gartrell says the test results leave no doubt as to the success of these couples as parents. Another… click here to read whole article and make comments