How Cool is Marriage, Having Kids and Saving Money?

The Coolness charts in the July edition of 18Street show the average of cool scores that male and female respondents have given in relation to marriage, having children and saving not spending between March and June 2006.

Overall marriage is viewed as a fairly attractive prospect. While a combined 48% of males and 47% of females gave it cool potential and becoming cooler scores, 17% of males and 25% of females rated marriage as being the pinnacle of cool. Even so, around a fifth of those who have been part of the YCI panel have indicated that marriage holds absolutely no appeal at this point in time. This potentially reinforces the claim that New Zealanders are choosing to wait until their thirties or older to commit to marriage.

Having kids was given similar cool ratings to marriage. The obvious point of difference between the perceived coolness of these lifestyle choices was evident in the losing cool and totally lost coolness scores. Where just over a fifth of females had given marriage the cold shoulder, 15% of female respondents rated having kids as being an uncool concept for them.

Saving money instead of spending was viewed as the most favourable or cool option. While saving rated highest in the cool potential / becoming cooler and pinnacle of cool stakes, it also had the lowest losing coolness scores of the three lifestyle options. This result possibly reflects how saving is the most accessible of these three options. Interestingly, a significantly higher proportion of female members rate saving as being the pinnacle of cool when compared to male members of the Youth Confidence Index panel (31% vs. 19%).

For further information, please contact Richard Griffiths, Research & Insights Manager, 18 Ltd.  Ph. 09 538 0500