Nearly one-third of women are “no longer focused” on adhering to traditional milestones and timelines in their relationships, according to a dating app’s 2024 annual dating report.
According to dating app Bumble’s APAC communications director Lucille McCart, women are “increasingly looking around and wondering why they feel the need to follow an outdated rule book when it comes to their dating journeys and relationship milestones.”
Rather, instead of following the traditional timeline of dating, marriage, and family, 31 percent of women “no longer focused on adhering to traditional relationship timelines and milestones.”
“So timelines are out, and choosing your own path is in,” according to the report detailed by the New York Post, as McCart clarified that most women on the dating app, 72 percent, are looking for a long-term relationship. Despite that, just one in five, 23 percent, are “actively seeking out marriage as a goal.”
McCart describes this development as a “really exciting revolution,” as too many singles purportedly find themselves on what she described as a “hamster wheel, unable to deviate from the traditional expectations around how a relationship should develop – move in together, get engaged, buy a home, get married, have a baby.”
She also finds this exciting because she said it serves to show that traditional gender roles are “outdated and no longer serve us in modern society” — a concept Bumble embraces — “so we couldn’t be happier to see this revolution taking place.”
The data coincides with data from the Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, which found that one-quarter of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married as of 2021.
Census Bureau data showed that while many unmarried 40-year-olds cohabitated with a romantic partner, most were on their own. In 2022, 22 percent of adults between the ages of 40 and 44 who had never been married were cohabiting.
The percentage of 40-year-olds in 2021 who had never tied the knot differed by demographic, Fry found. Men were more likely than women to have never married, as were black 40-year-olds, compared to Hispanics, whites, and Asians of the same age.
The data also comes as surveys show young people’s attitudes about the sanctity of marriage changing, as more than 51 percent of young adults ages 18-29 say open marriages are “acceptable,” per Pew Research Center.
