Is there really a need to be married anymore? Does marriage actually benefit your relationship, or is it an outdated institution that we’ll be better off without? In this speech, I’ll convince you that marriage is a thing of the past, and that society’s views on marriage have changed enough in the past decade that marriage really isn’t necessary anymore. One of the main purposes of marriage is to maintain a permanent relationship, but nowadays marriage doesn’t lead to a permanent relationship due to the increase of divorce rates. In the US, 41-50% of first marriages end in divorce, and the average marriage duration is 8 years.
Since the inception of the no-fault law, divorce rates in America have increased. Wardle found that twenty-five of the thirty-five states with no-fault divorce laws in effect before 1980 experienced increases in divorce rates. In eleven states, the rate of divorce was more than twice the previous rate of increase (Wardle). Michael S. Berger, a Columbia University graduate with a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion, believes the entire family suffers when the parents are unhappy or are in conflict. However, the parent’s respective happiness should not be the sole basis for the decision to dissolve the union (Berger).
After 15 years male lawyers earned 55% more than female lawyers. That 's outrageous the gender pay gap has to stop; women work the same hours and are paid less than men? Women work hard just as men to earn that money so why not give it to them. Women are less likely to negotiate their first job offer than men. Even when women do negotiate they are likely to receive less than men.
As of 2015 women are only making between $0.76 and $0.80 for every dollar men are making. The pay gap does vary by each job, CNBC says “Of course, the pay gap varies greatly by industry. The disparity was largest — nearly 30 percent — between men and women in finance and insurance, without controlling for job title, education and years of experience, among other factors,” click here for link. As you can see women are clearly paid less than men of the same career and 83% of women believe that along with 68% of men who feel they are being paid more as well. In addition to this women have come forward and explained how they are paid less than men who are their co-hosts, co-workers,
Figures suggest that the gender pay gap will have an impact on women later on in life. In 1968 women were paid 87% of men’s wages, so on the 7th of June 1968 women went on strike for 3 weeks. After 3 weeks of strike the pay gap decreased and women now earn 92% of men’s wages. In 2012, it was recorded that 64% of the lowest paid workers were women and that each man earnt $6412.89 more than women per year and currently the average woman working full time received 84.3% of men’s pay. Due to the gender pay gap men currently earn considerably more money than women each year, women effectively stop earning money by early November each year.
According to the 2012 census, white women working full time only earn 77 cents for every dollar that men earn, it seems this is where the data for the meme comes from. In 2015 women are still being paid less than men for doing the same work. This issue has recently been making a lot of headlines in relation to the Hollywood gender pay gap. According to 2013 earnings of the top-paid Hollywood stars, males made 2.5 times as much as females. There have been actresses such as Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, and Gwyneth Paltrow speaking out about the unfairness of them being paid so much less than their male counterparts.
Only twenty-one percent of millennials are married while forty-two percent of baby boomers were married at the same age, almost one out of every four millennials have a bachelor degree or higher making them the most educated generation ever seen. Millennials also take the cake in the most racially diverse generation ever seen as well, with nineteen percent of them being Hispanic heritage, fifteen percent being African American and four percent being Asian. It 's gets even more diverse for this new generation, majority of millennials are sick of their baby boomer parents style of suburbia living and are attracted to cities that can fit their quick attention spans. This is a generation that is growing at an alarming rate as well, and to think all this procreation occurred after no wars or depressions. The population is projected to peak in 2036 for this diverse millennial generation, with 81.1 million.
In order to make a profit off of a product a company must make more than they are spending. So when it comes to spending on wages companies cannot be paying them more than their income. If companies were forced to raise the minimum wage many of them would find themselves laying off workers, especially those of the lower skilled employees. As much as a 3% reduction of low skilled workers can be projected with an increase of 10% in the minimum wage (Negative Effects). An American Apparel store in Los Angeles had to lay off 500 workers because of the recent city increase to $15 an hour (Sherk).
Currently America is failing to help new immigrants seeking legal citizenship gain it and is not upholding its part of the deal. Although gaining citizenship seems like a simple thing on paper, it is truly more difficult. America gains the majority of its illegal immigrants from Mexico, totaling just under half, which is currently 5.4 million people ("5 facts about illegal immigration in the U.S."). If there were more attainable methods of gaining citizenship, this would allow these people to become bigger contributors to society. Even though illegal immigrants only make up about three and a half percent of America’s population, they are slightly over five percent of the workforce (Billups).
The millennial generation are people born from 1980 to 2000. The millennial generation is claimed to be lazy, narcissistic, and stunted in growth. A study showed that 58% more college students scored higher on a narcissism scale in 2009 than in 1982. It also talks about how the millennial generation have been patted on the back too much, because the millennials got so many participation awards growing up, they believe they should be promoted every two years. Not only that, most emerging adults 18 to 29 still live with their parents rather than a spouse.