Modern Men Prefer Porn Over Marriage, Study Reports

Young men are choosing pornography over marriage, a new study is reporting. According to the researchers, the economy and society will benefit if the government decides to crack down on people's easy access to porn.

"Traditionally, one of the reasons to enter into a marriage was sexual gratification. But as options for sexual gratification outside of marriage have grown, the need for a marriage to serve this function is diminishing," the authors of the report wrote.

For this study, the researchers examined data collected from 1,512 surveys that were completed by American men from 2000 to 2004. The participants fell between the ages of 18 and 35.

The researcher found a correlation between porn use and marriage rates. They estimated, based off of the statistics compiled, that men in the age group of 25 to 34 were six times less likely to be married when compared to men of the same age group living in the 1970. Since 1950, the divorce rate has also increased by two times.

"Given the rapid decline in marital formation and stability in western countries, a natural question is how quickly this trend will proliferate in developing countries as their standards of living rise. Nowadays, widely available Internet access almost always accompanies rising living standards. Thus, the results in this paper suggest that technological proliferation and access to pornography specifically can be a causative factor that underlies these rapid demographic changes that occur concurrent to economic growth," the authors wrote.

The study, "Are Pornography and Marriage Substituted for Young Men?" was published by Germany's Institute for the Study of Labor.