As individuals and couples decide to delay family transitions due to the pandemic, will this have a significant long-term impact?
The pandemic may lead partners to postpone moving in together, marriage or fertility, and increase separations and divorces. Research must examine how COVID-19 is changing family formation and dissolution, and whether such changes are temporary shocks or longer-term trends that will more permanently alter the schedule of family transitions.
These shifts can affect population structure and dynamics, with larger societal consequences related to greater delays in the transition to adulthood and growing rates of singlehood, childlessness and population ageing.
