I was thinking the other day about how different it is to be 30 years old today then say 30 years ago.  I look at my son who is 33 and just got married earlier this year.

Quite a few of his friends are still single, some like him have gotten married recently and a couple are young fathers.  I think it’s fair to say that three decades ago more 30 year olds were married and many had children but times have changed for a variety of reasons.

I read a piece in Men’s Health this month about the 30 year old man, then and now and it was pretty interesting and revealing.  Then was 1988 and now is 2018.

Finances-    In 1988 the median weekly earnings for men ages 25-34 was $420…today it’s nearly double that at $821.  Of course when you take inflation into consideration the numbers are nearly identical.

Health-        Men ages 30-39 are nearly 16 pounds heavier today with 34% considered obese as compared to 14% thirty years ago.  That’s partly due to the fact that today’s males in that age group consume an average of 377 calories a day more than in 1988.  Ironically life expectancy has gone up from 71.4 years in 1988 to 76.1 years today which I guess is due to the number of medications we now take.

Family-       Backing up what I said at the top.  The average age of when a man first gets married in 1988 was 25.9 and today it’s 29.5.  As to when he becomes a father for the first time…it was 29.4 thirty years ago and is 31.1 today.  Those first-time fathers better start saving for college as tuition has increased 213% over the last 30 years.  One can only guess what it will cost about 18 years from now.

Entertainment- Who got us to go to the movies?  In 1988 it was Tom Cruise who was the highest-grossing star thanks to films like Rain Man and Cocktail.  Today it’s Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson whose 2018 movies were Skyscraper and Rampage, neither of which will earn him an Oscar nomination.

By the way today is my daughter Alex’s 27th birthday which has nothing to do with what I just talked about but she’s my baby girl and gets some on air love anyway.

 

 

 

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