Housing pressure and unequal expectations shape modern relationships. Dating apps and AI companions add commercial pressures that deserve closer scrutiny.
TheWokely | Analysis and opinion | 28 October 2026
Consider someone who enjoys the life they have built and would welcome a partner to share it. They want affection and companionship, but worry about becoming the person who organises the household and rearranges their work whenever care is needed. If children became part of that life, they would want their ambitions and financial independence to matter as much as their partner’s. Their hesitation reflects a concern about how much of themselves they might be expected to give up. Telling them to lower their expectations overlooks what those expectations are there to protect.
Louise Perry’s recent essay in The Australian links the relationship recession with political divisions between men and women. Her explanation, however, gives too little weight to the practical costs of commitment. She acknowledges women’s financial independence and the retreat into online life, yet housing pressure and unequal sacrifices within relationships remain underexamined. That emphasis risks treating reasonable expectations of fairness and independence as evidence of cultural division. Dating apps and AI companions also deserve closer scrutiny, including the commercial interests of companies mediating introductions or selling personalised simulations of intimacy.
A fuller account needs to examine how these pressures interact. Expectations about financial security can collide with the cost of housing, while demands for equality change what people are prepared to accept from a partner. Dating apps shape the search itself, while AI offers some users an interaction they experience as easier and less demanding. We should investigate those influences without assuming an entire generation has abandoned human relationships.
What the relationship recession actually measures
Marriage, dating and loneliness describe different experiences, even when public debate bundles them together. Australia registered 118,804 marriages in 2025, down 1.7 per cent on the previous year. That is a change in weddings, rather than a direct measure of affection, commitment or opportunities to meet someone. People can build lasting partnerships without marrying, while a person who remains single may have a satisfying social life.
The 2026 Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) report offers a useful complication: respondents with partners rated their relationship quality at an average of 4.3 out of five. Existing relationships can evidently be a source of considerable satisfaction. That finding cannot tell us what prevents other people from forming one, because people without partners are outside that particular measure. A serious account needs to distinguish the quality of relationships people have from the obstacles facing those who want one.
Housing shapes the possibilities of intimacy
The practical business of forming a relationship requires some room for independence. HILDA data show the proportion of Australians aged 18 to 29 living with their parents rose from 39 per cent in 2001 to 50 per cent in 2024. Living with family can be supportive and culturally valued, and it should never be treated as evidence of immaturity. For some young adults, however, it also means negotiating privacy and a developing relationship within someone else’s household.
The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council reported in 2026 that rent under a new lease required a record 33 per cent of median household income. That affordability measure does not describe every renter’s circumstances, but it shows the difficulty of establishing a home. Australian Institute of Family Studies research also found about 85 per cent of the young adults surveyed, aged 19–20 and 23–24, were concerned about affording a home purchase. Its researchers identified possible consequences for forming partnerships, moving in together and starting families, although the study did not calculate how many relationships housing costs prevent.
These pressures can constrain people in different directions. Someone may delay dating because they feel financially inadequate, while a couple may postpone living together because neither can find secure accommodation. Others may combine households earlier than they would otherwise choose because paying two rents is so difficult. Housing therefore deserves attention as part of the setting in which relationships develop, rather than appearing as a separate economic issue after the cultural argument is finished.
When financial expectations become a barrier
The claim that women will not date men without a house requires evidence. A 2020 study of 14,399 people across 45 countries found women, on average, placed more importance on a prospective partner’s financial prospects. Men placed more importance on attractiveness and youth. That establishes average differences in stated preferences. It does not establish a general rule that women reject men who rent, live with family or lack a deposit.
There is also a gap between describing an ideal partner and responding to someone in real life. A major 2014 review found no reliable gender difference in how attractiveness and earning prospects related to romantic evaluations of actual people. Neither finding means money or appearance is irrelevant. Together, they warn against turning broad preferences into confident claims about whom individuals will love.
The more useful question is whether expectations of financial readiness have kept pace with the cost of becoming established. Someone can work consistently, manage their money responsibly and offer a great deal to a relationship without owning property. Women can also face restrictive expectations concerning appearance, youth and responsibility for care. Such assumptions deserve examination because they can obscure qualities that matter in daily life, including kindness, reliability and a willingness to share responsibility.
Judging a young person’s suitability by property ownership risks turning access to wealth into a measure of character.
Provider expectations can also shape how men judge themselves. A 2017 US survey found men and women similarly likely to consider financial provision very important to being a good male partner. The finding cannot describe today’s Australian dating population, but it challenges the idea that women alone impose the provider ideal. Someone may internalise an expectation and withdraw from dating without ever being rejected.
Equality changes what commitment involves
Financial security nevertheless remains a legitimate consideration, especially for people contemplating children. Australian researchers using HILDA data from 2001–2019 examined earnings within heterosexual couples becoming parents. The proportion with roughly equal earnings fell from 45 per cent in the year before their first child to 19 per cent two years afterwards. Those results do not reveal anybody’s dating motives, but they show why a decision about family life can also be a decision about future financial dependence.
Someone anticipating reduced earnings and a larger caring role may reasonably consider whether a household would remain secure. A partner expecting to provide most of its income may feel anxious about the same prospect. Both would benefit from arrangements that share care and protect each partner’s ability to earn. Asking people to be less concerned about money leaves those underlying pressures untouched.
Women’s greater independence also gives them more freedom to consider what a relationship would add to their lives. Expecting respect and a fair division of work is a reasonable basis for commitment. There is room to challenge rigid demands for wealth, status or perfection while recognising that basic equality is a legitimate expectation. The question is whether a standard helps people build a life together or dismisses someone before their capacity to contribute can be understood.
Political compatibility has practical consequences
Political differences require a similar distinction between preferences and fundamental concerns. A disagreement about a budget measure may be manageable, while disagreement about religion, reproductive autonomy, consent or the treatment of gay and trans people can reach directly into someone’s freedom and dignity. Those positions may also indicate how a partner would respond to a child, a friend or a difficult personal decision. People are entitled to consider what another person’s politics would mean inside their household.
Relationships can broaden people’s understanding, but that possibility creates no obligation to date someone in the hope of improving their views. Nor does an association between lasting relationships and political moderation establish which causes which. People already willing to accommodate differences may be more likely to form durable partnerships. The useful test is how someone handles disagreement and respects another person’s boundaries; a party label alone cannot answer either question.
From the pub to the profile
Advice to meet someone at the pub can overlook how much the search for a partner has changed. Relationships Australia reported in 2023 that 37 per cent of people in relationships lasting less than ten years had met online, compared with six per cent of those together for more than twenty years. These figures cover online introductions generally, including more than dating apps, and compare relationships formed in different periods. Pubs and friends still bring people together, but the growing role of online introductions makes the design of those services a public concern. Relationships Australia
A friend’s introduction or repeated encounters at a local venue can give attraction time to develop. Someone’s humour or consideration may become apparent before a decision about their romantic suitability is made. Those settings were never equally welcoming to everyone, and online dating can widen opportunities for people restricted by geography, accessibility or caring responsibilities, as eSafety explains. The question is what happens when a service offering greater access also controls how potential partners are presented. eSafety Commissioner
When more choice means more rejection
A profile necessarily compresses a person into selected photographs and a short account of themselves. That can make it easier to compare visible attributes than to discover qualities revealed through conversation and familiarity. For someone seeking a lasting relationship, the risk is spending more time assessing the next possibility than developing a connection with the person already in front of them. This is a concern about the format, rather than evidence that app users are inherently superficial.
Research gives that concern some substance. In three studies published in 2020, Tila Pronk and Jaap Denissen found participants increasingly rejected potential partners as they progressed through online dating options. Their findings suggest that abundant choice can encourage a more rejecting approach, although they do not establish how every app user behaves. More profiles can therefore create additional work and disappointment without necessarily making it easier to recognise a suitable partner. Tilburg University Research Portal
The burden also extends beyond making choices. eSafety warns about unwanted sexual messages and persistent contact after rejection, experiences that can make dating feel like repeated risk assessment. Someone taking a break after being harassed has a sound reason to step back. An explanation centred on political estrangement should leave room for those experiences. eSafety Commissioner
Paying to be noticed
The commercial incentives deserve scrutiny too. Match Group’s 2025 annual report, covering brands including Tinder and Hinge, explains that direct revenue comes mainly from recurring subscriptions, supplemented by individually purchased features. It tracks paying users and revenue per payer as business measures. Those figures tell investors about commercial performance; they cannot by themselves establish whether people are forming satisfying relationships. sec.gov
The products make that distinction concrete. Tinder sells Boosts that place a profile among the most prominent nearby for thirty minutes. Customers are buying greater visibility, without any assurance of compatibility. The opportunity to be noticed can consequently depend partly on what someone pays, adding another financial pressure to a search already shaped by judgments about status and security. Tinder
That creates a tension between someone hoping to find a partner and leave the service, and a business earning money from continued purchases. It does not prove companies deliberately sabotage matches: successful introductions can strengthen a service’s reputation and attract new customers. There are also substantial benefits for people who would otherwise struggle to meet, and app use should never be treated as evidence of personal failure. The criticism concerns whether commercial design consistently serves the relationship goals users bring to it.
Perry’s discussion of retreat into online life leaves this part of the experience underexamined. People using dating apps may be actively trying to meet someone in person, while finding the process exhausting or discouraging. Their frustration cannot simply be explained as an unwillingness to engage with the world. Any account of the relationship recession should examine the businesses organising those introductions, as well as the expectations of the people seeking them.
Gen Z and the appeal of virtual partners
AI companions add a further dimension that Perry’s essay does not examine, although we should be precise about what kind of interaction we mean. An online friendship or long-distance romance involves another person with independent needs and a life outside the conversation. An AI companion generates responses through a system, even when the user experiences a powerful emotional connection. Treating these experiences as interchangeable would overlook both the value of human relationships conducted online and the distinctive questions raised by simulated companionship.
Australian research suggests those questions are becoming relevant to everyday life. In a nationally representative, weighted survey of 1,013 adults conducted in May 2026, YouGov found 23 per cent of Gen Z respondents said they would sometimes prefer staying home with a chatbot to going out with friends. Forty-one per cent of Gen Z respondents considered chatbots easier to engage with because they did not judge, argue or place demands on them. Across all adults surveyed, four per cent said they had felt they were in a romantic relationship with a chatbot; that figure was not a Gen Z estimate.
Those findings deserve attention, but they measure different things. Preferring an occasional conversation with a chatbot does not establish that someone has stopped seeing friends, and a reported attachment does not prove they have rejected human partners. What the results suggest is that some people find appeal in companionship that feels less demanding. That belongs in a discussion of relationship expectations, particularly when the capacity to accommodate another person is central to sustaining a partnership.
A companion who asks less of you
Human intimacy involves making room for another person’s wishes. A partner may disagree, need space or expect care when providing it is inconvenient. AI services offer a different experience, although systems vary and can refuse requests or respond unpredictably. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner describes companions that adapt to users’ preferences. It warns of overuse and risks to young people’s understanding of healthy relationships.
One concern worth investigating is whether frequent interaction with a highly accommodating system makes ordinary human disagreement harder to tolerate. Someone who comes to expect constant availability and reassurance may struggle with a partner who has competing needs. That is a plausible concern, rather than an established explanation for declining dating. People may turn to AI because they are lonely, and the longer decline in marriage rates predates the current generation of conversational AI.
There are possible benefits as well. Experimental research has found that AI companions can provide immediate relief from loneliness, which should not be dismissed simply because the interaction is artificial. Short-term comfort, however, does not establish lasting improvements in a person’s relationships. The important question is how that use fits into their life: whether it supports connection, provides occasional reassurance or begins to displace relationships they would otherwise want.
When companionship becomes a product
The commercial setting makes that question more pressing. eSafety identifies risks from subscription models and manipulative designs that encourage spending on additional features. A company selling companionship has a financial interest in continued use, creating a potential conflict when the user would benefit from spending more time elsewhere. Emotional attachment can become part of the mechanism that keeps a customer paying.
This deserves scrutiny without treating users as foolish or incapable of understanding the technology. Someone can know a companion is artificial and still find reassurance in it. Their feelings can be real while the service remains subject to commercial decisions beyond their control. Businesses selling these experiences should be accountable for designs that exploit attachment, including whether users understand the limits of the product and can disengage without emotional pressure.
Making a shared life more possible
The response to loneliness needs to offer something people can use. Mocking AI users will not help them build confidence, and treating male loneliness as a character defect is equally unhelpful. Women cannot be made responsible for resolving it through romantic availability. People need opportunities to become known through friendship, shared activities and repeated contact, without every interaction carrying the pressure of a date.
That also means respecting people who are content without a romantic partner. Online communities can provide valuable support, and coupledom does not guarantee freedom from loneliness. The aim should be to help people develop the connections they want, rather than impose one acceptable version of adulthood. Affordable places to meet, accessible community activities and enough time outside work are practical parts of that effort.
For those seeking a shared household or family, secure housing, predictable work and accessible childcare would address pressures that exhortations about commitment cannot remove. A fairer division of care would also reduce the risks attached to depending financially on a partner. Individuals still have responsibilities: to question status-based assumptions, make time for others and accept ordinary imperfection. Expecting respect is compatible with recognising that another person will sometimes disappoint us.
Perry’s concern about people struggling to connect warrants a response broad enough to include the circumstances in which intimacy has to survive. We should challenge unrealistic expectations while examining the insecurity that makes some expectations understandable, and the businesses offering to bypass the difficulties altogether. Leaving young people to negotiate expensive housing and unequal responsibilities while companies charge for greater visibility or simulated companionship is a poor substitute for making shared lives more possible. A society concerned about the future of relationships should be willing to invest in the conditions that sustain them.
References
- Perry, L. (2026). Relationship recession and political division. The Australian.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (2026). Marriages and Divorces, Australia, 2025.
- Melbourne Institute (2026). Findings from the 2026 HILDA Annual Statistical Report.
- National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (2026). State of the Housing System 2026.
- Australian Institute of Family Studies (2026). Young Australians’ living arrangements and housing affordability.
- Walter, K. V., et al. (2020). Sex Differences in Mate Preferences Across 45 Countries: A Large-Scale Replication.
- Eastwick, P. W., et al. (2014). The Predictive Validity of Ideal Partner Preferences: A Review and Meta-Analysis.
- Pew Research Center (2017). Americans’ expectations of men as financial providers.
- Perales, F., Baxter, J., and Steinbring, R. (2025). Parenthood and Australian couples’ earnings. University of Queensland.
- YouGov (2026). Australian survey of chatbot use and emotional attachment.
- eSafety Commissioner. AI companions: information sheet.
- De Freitas, J., et al. AI Companions Reduce Loneliness. Harvard Business School working paper.
- Relationships Australia (2023). The rise of online dating and open relationships.
- eSafety Commissioner. Online dating: benefits and risks.
- Pronk, T. M., and Denissen, J. J. A. (2020). A Rejection Mind-Set: Choice Overload in Online Dating.
- Match Group (2026). 2025 Annual Report, including revenue sources and operating metrics.
- Tinder Help Center. Boost.
