Researchers Suggest Internet Porn Has Caused Drop in US Marriage Rates

Researchers from the Institute for the Study of Labor in Germany have discovered a correlation between the decline in marriage in America and the proliferation of free pornography online, and suggest that the former may be influencing the latter.

“The results in this paper suggest that such an association exists, and that it is potentially quite large,” the study reads.

Researchers looked at data from the General Social Study, analysing the internet use of 18-25-year-old men between 2000 and 2004, specifically time spent online, and what percentage of that time being spent looking at pornography.

One of the paper’s authors, Dr. Michael Malcolm, Professor at the University of West Chester, Pennsylvania, said, “We asked ourselves, what is helping determine whether people are married or not? One of those things, we thought, could be the use of pornography.”

Malcolm tested the hypothesis that a rise in pornography use may have impacted marriage rates, comparing other factors, such as age, income, education, and employment. Of all the factors, use of internet porn seemed to have the biggest relation to low marriage rates.

Although the correlation is far from definitive, it does suggest that men who use porn are less likely to get married, rather than the other way around.

Source: The Washington Post