Vested Interest - Trends - February 1999 Issue

Hip to Be Married

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, most adults over age 18 are married, although the share of married adults has been declining. From 68.4% married in 1970, the share has fallen to 56.0% in 1998. The Bureau ascribed the decline to increased education levels, making women economically more independent, and a declining stigma against cohabitating without being married. The married share declined most steeply during the 1970’s, and has held steady since. The median age at first marriage was 26.7 for men, down from 26.8 in 1997, and 25.0 for women, the same as in 1997. The report also found that 6% of all people under 18 are being raised by their grandparents. (Chicago Sun-Times, January 7, 1999)

Sex Defined

A survey of 599 college students across the country found that most, 59%, did not consider having oral sex the same as “having sex”. The study “make[s] clear that general agreement regarding what constitutes having ‘had sex’ and how sexual partners are counted cannot be taken for granted,” according to the report’s authors. The report, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, resulted in the firing of Dr. George D. Lindberg as editor of the Journal. (AP, January 15, 1999)

Like Rubber and Glue Polling throughout the presidential impeachment trial in the Senate confirms that Bill Clinton’s approval ratings remain near all-time highs. Polls conducted after the State of the Union address showed continuing support for Clinton and opposition to the Republican agenda. ABC News polled 584 adults nationwide and found 66% approval. NBC polled 620 adults nationwide and found 76% approval. Those polls, and ones by CNN/USA Today and CBS, all found increases in Clinton’s popularity of 3 to 5 percentage points. The CBS poll, of 930 adults nationwide, found that six in ten believe Clinton’s actions do not warrant removal from office. (AP, January 20, 1999)

Foresight is 2020

A Harris Poll of 1,010 adults nationwide asked about life in America in the year 2020. Respondents predicted improvements in race relations (66% said they thought race relations would be better, while 30% said worse) and the quality of medical care (54% better, 43% worse), but were less optimistic on their general quality of life (49% better, 47% worse), and pessimistic on the environment (42% better, 55% worse) and moral issues (34% better, 62% worse). And respondents offered a dim view of the future of the economy, predicting a harder time affording a new house (37% more able to afford a new house, 60% less able), medical care (34% more able to afford, 64% less able), and a college education (29% more able, 68% less able). (The Polling Report)

Millennial Bedside Material

A survey by Waterstone’s booksellers of 47 literary critics found the highest rated English-language novel of the second millennium is James Joyce’s Ulysses. Second place was a tie between F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, followed, in a tie for fourth, by Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and George Orwell’s 1984. A similar poll, conducted two years ago and surveying 25,000 readers, ranked J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series at the top. (Reuters, January 18, 1999)

Let’s Go Surfing Now, Everybody’s Learning How...

A survey by the Pew Center for the People and the Press finds that “the Internet audience is not only growing, it is getting decidedly mainstream.” The survey of 3,184 adults nationwide found that 46% of net users started going on-line in the past year. The share of female users is approaching the share of women in the population, and education levels are coming down, too, also reflecting more accurately the population as a whole. While the survey found that Internet use has not affected where and how people learn the news, it did find that surfers watch less TV each day than those without web connections. (Press Release)