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Why did prenups get so popular with millennials?

Millennials are increasingly turning to prenuptial agreements as a key tool for safeguarding their financial future. Here, we explore three key factors driving this trend.

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Last updated: October 2024
Reviewed by Elizabeth Federowicz, Esq.

Why are prenups increasingly popular with Millennials? That’s something we’ve noticed at First and we wanted to take a look at the data to understand this important trend.

Interest in prenups is exploding – particularly among Millennials, digital natives, and women. According to a survey of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML), 51% of U.S. attorney respondents cited an increase in the number of Millennials requesting prenuptial agreements.

Millennials are often looking to prenups as their preferred way to protect premarital and separate property holdings, business interests, future inheritance, and to avoid potential spousal support disputes. Similarly, as women outpace men in attaining post-graduate degrees, purchasing single-family homes, and are poised to make significant progress in the upcoming $80T Great Wealth Transfer, AAML data indicates a growing trend in the number of women initiating prenuptial agreements.

In 2023, Harris Poll survey data uncovered that 47% of Millennial respondents and 41% of Gen Z respondents who were engaged or have been married said they entered into a prenuptial agreement. So, it’s no coincidence that Millennials are breaking generational records when it comes to adopting prenups. There are some clear social and economic factors that have led to this important moment.

#1: Millennials are getting married later
The average age of marriage for Millennials today is 27 for women and 29 for men versus 1965, when the average age to marry was 21 and 23, respectively. Because they’re marrying later than previous generations, Millennials have had the opportunity to accumulate more assets – which, of course, gives them more of a reason to consider a prenup. According to the AAML survey, the most common item covered in recent prenups was “protection of separate property” – which suggests that Millennials have property to protect in the first place.

#2: Millennials are better educated than their grandparents – & have more debt
Overall, Millennials have much more education than their grandparents did. But obtaining higher education means more than getting a diploma: increasingly, it can also mean taking on student debt to get there, sometimes a lot of it. Simply by waiting longer to marry, Millennials have had more time to accumulate student debt, along with other kinds of liabilities, like car loans, mortgages, medical debt, or personal loans. If one spouse has significantly more debt than the other, a prenup can protect their partner from being partially responsible for the other’s debt if the marriage ends in divorce.

#3: Millennials have had more exposure to divorce
Third, Millennials have had more exposure to divorce than any previous generation – and they know how painful it can be. According to a study by the Pew Research Center, 85% of Boomers were raised by both parents, compared to 62% of Millennials. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that of Baby Boomers who married, 45% had experienced divorce. This could be one of the reasons why Millennials aren’t quite as quick to say “I do” – and another driving factor in the AAML data citing an increase in the number of millennials requesting prenuptial agreements.

In her published study on prenuptial agreements, Louisiana State University professor Elizabeth R. Carter (an advisor to First) states: “everyone that’s getting married should have a prenup.” As attitudes about marriage and prenuptial agreements shift among Millennials – and platforms like First make it easier than ever to access a solid prenup – we expect to see continued increasing adoption of prenups among younger generations.

Interested in learning more about the simple and cost effective way to get a prenup, reviewed by real lawyers? Schedule a free, 15-minute consultation call with the First team today.

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