Almost two thirds of young adults believe that marriage is still an important institution, as Generation Z takes a more conservative view of sex and relationships than that of their parents.
The Times Generation Z study revealed that only a fifth of 18 to 27-year-olds believed that marriage was “irrelevant”, while a third thought it better for a couple to be married before having children.
The research showed that young adults today were more in favour of marriage than young adults 20 years ago, when almost twice the proportion — 39 per cent — thought marriage to be irrelevant.
Today a 65-year-old is almost as likely to believe that marriage is irrelevant as someone in their early twenties.
Charlie Sawyer, 25, is an editor at Screenshot, a Gen Z media publication.
She thought that while some might view Gen Z’s approach to marriage and sex as conservative, her age group’s approach was “more exciting” than previous generations.
She said: “We don’t think there is just one soulmate, you might have one in London, one in Brazil.
“Young people’s life philosophy has baked into it the idea that divorce is a possibility. And because we don’t see marriage as a forever thing, we are more open to trying it.
“We are about self-love and learning about ourselves in whatever way possible and if that comes in the shape of a divorce then bring it on.
“We are labelled by society as quite selfish and that’s probably the same with relationships, we don’t always need to be doing things that society deems to be the normal path.”
Morgan Lee, 22, is a body piercer in Cardiff. She doesn’t see the point of marriage — the contract, cost and divorce are too much of a burden.
“Why do you need a piece of paper to say that I really, really love this person? Like, are your actions and your life not enough? It’s just a legal binding document. You don’t need that,” she said.
“Weddings are a scam anyway because if you’re the one that’s getting married, you’re the one that’s got to fork out to pay for everything. So unless someone else is paying for this wedding, I wouldn’t have one. Just have a party. And then there’s the hassle of getting a divorce as well — divorce is such an issue.”
A recent graduate of Cardiff University, Lee believes other students share similar views on marriage.
“They don’t care about marriage. They just care about a late-night message if they’re drunk and they want to … you know.”
More from the Times Generation Z survey
The Times survey’s findings on casual relationships showed a big change over the past two decades: Generation Z was far more conservative than the millennial generation that came before them.
Only 23 per cent of 18 to 27-year-olds said their friends commonly had sex on a one-night stand — a steep fall from the 78 per cent of millennials who said yes to that question 20 years ago.
Sawyer and her friends were less against casual relationships than the survey suggested, but she said it was harder to be interested in casual dating because of how “awful” dating apps were.
She added: “If I was in a relationship right now I’d want to stay in it longer, because the grass definitely isn’t always greener when it comes to dating nowadays.”
On the issue of internet pornography, a phenomenon that has certainly increased over the years between the two surveys, less than half (40 per cent) said that they thought their friends commonly looked at it, compared with 58 per cent 20 years ago.
Only 16 per cent said their group of friends would have sex without a condom outside a long-term relationship. This represented a fall from the 52 per cent who said the same in 2004.
Harry Benson, director of research at the charity Marriage Foundation, said the research showed the first signs of a “backlash” among Gen Z against the “laissez-faire” attitudes of previous generations.
“For a long time there has been a belief that love, living together and having a baby is enough,” he said. “But Gen Z appears to be fighting back against this approach.”
Benson said there was a lot of evidence to show that the psychology of making the commitment to marriage was important in couples staying together, but he added that there was still a difference between “aspiration and reality”.
“People with lower incomes are much less likely to actually get married than those people who are better off,” he said. “That’s because the benefits system disincentivises this.”
Although young people are more socially conservative on sex and marriage than 20 years ago, they are noticeably more liberal on transgender rights.
The Times survey found they believed, by a significant majority, that someone who is biologically male but identifies as female should be allowed in women-only spaces such as toilets or a female-only hospital ward.
More than half (56 per cent) said transgender people should be allowed to use women’s toilets as opposed to 28 per cent who disagreed.
On the subject of female hospital wards, 47 per cent of 18 to 27-year-olds said they should be allowed, compared with 32 per cent who held the opposite view.
Interestingly, there was only a small divide in men and women’s answers to these questions.
The findings are in stark contrast to polling of the public more broadly, which suggests that only 31 per cent of people think that transgender women should be allowed in women’s toilets, and that 24 per cent think they should be allowed in female-only hospital wards.
Opposition is greatest among the over 65s, with less than a third supporting any changes to the present rules.
The only area where Gen Z does not want to see a change is in sport. Only 26 per cent said that transgender women should be allowed to take part in women’s sporting events, compared with 49 per cent who were opposed.
The Times asked people broadly whether they thought that giving increased recognition and rights to transgender people posed any genuine risk to women’s rights.
Again, Gen Z by a large margin said it did not. Over half (53 per cent) said it posed no risk to women’s rights, and female participants were more likely (58 per cent) to hold that view than men (48 per cent).
Only 31 per cent said increased transgender recognition did pose some risk to women’s rights.
Again the findings were significantly different to the views of the broader population, where 57 per cent said that the rights of transgender people posed a genuine risk to women’s rights, including 64 per cent of the over-50s.
Young people were also overwhelmingly in favour of allowing children to socially transition before they reach the age of 16.
More than 60 per cent said schools should allow children to adopt a name, pronouns and clothing of the gender they identify as, with only 24 per cent opposing the move. Among the over-65s, only 14 per cent said children should be allowed to self-identify at school.
