What is the Solution to Decling Fertility Rates? Part 1
May 31, 2026
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Check out the series Is Cohabitation a Good Way to Prepare for Marriage?, below.
What is the Solution to Decling Fertility Rates? Part 1
I'm very happy to be joined by our lovely co-host, my wife Stacey Urban. This morning I'd like to talk about What is the Solution to Declining Fertility Rates? The basic idea is kind of like a no-brainer; duh, I mean people should get married and then have children.
But in our modern culture you don't hear about that being talked about as much as you would think you would. You have leading or figures or I don't know if you call them leading but well known figures like Elon Musk. He has like 14 children by four different women I guess he was married so maybe half of them are from his first marriage or about half but still that's not a very good example. Children need fathers and mothers and they need to be brought up in a safe stable environment. There really are a number of different issues going on here but the biggest one is that people aren't getting married and it's certainly not just in the United States.
People are marrying much later now. The average age of first marriage in the 38 most developed countries, so-called oecd countries is 32 for women and 34 for men. That's not the ideal age to bear children I mean it's okay but you're ready in a period of declining fertility. So what's going on what are some reasons for that kind of statistic? People are marrying later but why are they marrying later? A quiz on the United families International website is saying what are the most commonly cited reasons young adults choose to delay or avoid marriage and the biggest ones are concerns about financial stability and career goals and lack of pressure from family to marry.
In other words marriage has become even not expected necessarily in a lot of families. Shouldn't you as a parent or me as a grandparent be guiding our children about the importance of marriage and shouldn't we be guiding them not to have sex before marriage? When I talk to my neighbors and ask them, 'are you telling your children not to have sex before marriage?', the answer is not necessarily 'Yes". Even my own parents were delinquent in that area. You have to set that clear expectation and lay out all the benefits and of waiting to have sex until marriage and your religious faith could be the most important one, but even if you're not a person of faith there are many, many reasons to wait. When you subscribe to Urban Life Training.org you'll have access to all of our relationship intelligence materials, videos, discussions and much more. We can all then easily discuss these topics with our children. It doesn't have to be an awkward thing.
During the course of the so-called sexual Revolution the use of birth control became common. Before the sexual revolution, sex was equated with having children. Well, duh. But now there's been a decoupling well not now maybe that's been like 50 years now 60 years plus of sex decoupled from marriage and family. Actually this has been a disaster and is it mostly a disaster for women then for men, but none the less a disaster for both women and men. You see women getting hooked up with a bunch of psychopaths instead of waiting for marriage to have children and to create a family. And then there's a whole feminist movement, the movement to move women into the workplace. Oh, I've got to have a career. But all women, and men, too, should ask 'What's your most important thing I need to do in my life? I think it's sad for both women and men, since, of course, it takes two to have a family and to have children. Forming that family is best done, ideally, in your twenties not your thirties or even pushing 40.
Stacey: The whole like idea of marriage has gotten skewed crazy. Do you have any thoughts on that Stacey?
I think one thing is that having children and marriage can bring love into your life and that's something that I don't think should be missed.
Richard: We all desire love; we all need a partner of love. Many different factors too now becoming so common as I shared in my last episode, 70% of couples now say they're likely to cohabit at some point in their life. That's a bad idea, an idea that reduces your chance of marital success, increases your chance of sliding into a bad relationship and so many other things and from the man's point of view; of course you should have a godly man which is what you should look for as a woman, that's not going to be the case, but if you have someone else who's ungodly or as Godly as they should be, then if you're going to give yourself to a person, and it applies to men too but probably obviously affects women even more, then why would you do that if they're not giving you the commitment?
These things used to be common sense, like, duh, don't have sex until you're married, or like that if you don't want to have children don't have sex. But it's not just children of course there are STDs, emotional damage, spiritual damage, ruin of an otherwise good friendship, worry baby mama drama violent relationships and etc. etc. etc. etc., including dating violence, relationship violence, abusive relationships and relationships with psychopaths and all kinds of other things going on. Why would we expose yourself to all of that? Success through abstaining before marriage is what we emphasize in the Urban Life Training program. Urban Life Training is the non-profit Stacey and I cofounded, where you can form local chapters and also access materials for your own use is to teach your children abstinence.
Is Cohabitation a Good Way to Prepare for Marriage? Part 2
Chapter 2 of the Unification Principle is The Human Fall. Since God created this beautiful ideal of the family, what went wrong? We know there is this being called Satan, the perpetrator of evil, but where did Satan come from; what was the root of sin? What is the fall of man? Christians traditionally say it is some kind of vague fruit, but the Unification Principle says that it is clearly a symbolic fruit, not the fruit of an actual tree. What would be so tempting that Adam and Eve would be tempted to fall? Just an apple? They had plenty to eat.
We have a clue. After they ate this fruit they covered their lower parts, indicating that this was a sexual sin. You can learn the details by studying The Fall of Man here.
The Fall of Man had to do with perfected Adam, symbolized by the tree of life, and Eve, symbolized by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was not just a snake which tempted them. This snake was symbolic of a spiritual being, because this snake conversed with Adam and Eve. It knew the will of God. It caused the human fall. The angel fell as a result of an illicit sexual relationship. Jesus said in John 8:44 "You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires." How could the devil be our father? The only way that can be true is if there is some kind of blood relationship. Human beings are the descendants of Satan, the ancient serpent who tempted human beings.
Two excellent resources are UrbanLifeTraining.org and UnionStation.love. Urban Life Training raises youth leaders to model and teach about the benefits of sexual abstinence, in preparation for marriage and successful family formation. This mission is carried out by local chapters. You can form a chapter in your own area. You can also become a member of Urban Life Training as a school, a parent, or an individual and gain access to all of the great materials at urbanlifetraining.org.
These materials include Relationship Intelligence slides, videos, activities, video clips for discussion, peer counseling video clips and scripts, presenter training recordings, the STAR Interfaith Leadership Training 10 week program and much more. These are all include in your membership for just $49 per year.
Check out the many article and newsletters at Urban Life Training, too, such as Eight Facts about Forced Vaccination in West Virginia. Find out how you can form a Chapter in your local community, or if you are a college student, on your college campus. Check out back issues of this newsletter, too.
Our sister site is UnionStation.love, the site for finding your eternal match. Be the One. Find the One. Those who are abstinent before marriage can find their eternal match. You will be able to learn from the Blessing Preparation Course and prepare to become a Blessed family. This is for those who are either sexually abstinent or who have returned to sexual abstinence. This is a purpose driven and purposeful way to find your eternal match. All candidates are verified, they are real people; there are no fake profiles. You will have a meaningful process geared toward finding your eternal match.
In conclusion, is cohabitation a good way to prepare for marriage? The answer is a resounding "No". Don't do it. If you are cohabiting and you are serious about getting married, then move out. The only exception that I would suggest is that if you already have children, you effectively are a married couple. In that case, you can apply for our Blessing Preparation Course. You will at some point go through a period of 40 days of sexual abstinence with your mate. Then you can become a Blessed couple. And, of course, you should get legally married as part of that whole process. In general, though, if you don't have children, I would highly urge you to move out. If that breaks your relationship, so be it. It wasn't a very good one anyway.
It is the most mind bending thing when so many people think it is good to live together when it is absolutely not a good thing to live together without marriage.
Urban Life Training emphasizes the success formula for youth of graduating from high school, not having children until you are married and at least 21 years old, and getting a full time job. If you follow all of these rules, there is a two percent chance that your family will live in poverty. If you don't follow any of these rules, there is an 74 percent chance that your family will live in poverty. It's really simple, but our whole society is emphasizing the wrong thing. Finding your eternal match is really about you preparing yourself. It will help a lot if you take some practical steps, like joining UnionStation.love and practicing abstinence yourself, or returning to abstinence.
Is Cohabitation a Good Way to Prepare for Marriage? Part 1
An estimated 70% of couples today will cohabit before marrying. Is this a good idea? As pointed out in an article by Brad Wilcox and Alysse ElHage, Taylor Swift and her boyfriend Joe Alwyn broke up after six years of living together. Living together before marriage does not help you odds of having a successful marriage. In fact, it hurts your odds of having a successful marriage.
Fifty percent of white evangelicals believe that cohabitation is morally acceptable if a couple plans to marry, according to Pew research! A lot of people think that you should 'try before you buy'. People who would consider themselves 'well educated' still think that they should cohabit before marriage. In fact, jointly committed love is the foundation for a good marriage, and for many cohabiting couples, this is lacking. Cohabiting increases your chance of divorce from 20% to 25%. There is very little taboo now about living with someone before marriage and practicing sex outside of marriage. And that really is a shame.
Pastors, parents and schools should emphasize that cohabiting is a bad idea, and that it does not work toward building a stable marriage. Steve Harvey, the radio and television personality has had three marriages. But what is he telling his own daughters? He is telling them to get married first, based on his own experiences in cohabiting. Maybe Taylor Swift will give her own daughters and sons the same advice in the future; get married first before having sex, we hope.
Let's now look at a more internal perspective on why not to have sex before marriage. In this show (The Richard Urban Show) we emphasize the Unification Principle point of view. Paramount is that we follow God's plan for marriage. Anyone who created themselves, please raise your hand! You were 'created' by your parents, but really, you are created by God, working through the sexual union of your parents. In Genesis 1:28, we are told to 'be fruitful, multiply and have dominion over creation'. To be fruitful means to unite your mind and body, centered on God to become a perfected individual. In light of this direction from God, at the sister site to Urban Life Training, UnionStation.love the motto is "Be the one to find the one".
The current environment of dating sites has allowed psychopathic men to take advantage of women, who are the biggest losers in this culture of hook-up. God's first blessing is individual perfection, and sexual abstinence before marriage is a big part of that. The second blessing is family perfection; a God-centered family consisting of a God-centered husband, wife and children. In the Unification Principle this is called the four-position foundation. A family or society that has formed the four-position foundation in line with God's ideal is patterned after the image of a perfect individual. It this becomes the substantial object partner to the individual who lives in oneness with God, and consequently, it also becomes the substantial object partner to God.
The third blessing is the perfection of a human being's dominion over the natural world; to fulfill this blessing, human beings and the natural world should become completely one, thereby establishing a God-centered four-position foundation of dominion. By fulfilling the three great blessings, we return joy to God.
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