Love Apocalypse
New Intimacies and the Decline of Marriage and Fertility

Alex J. Nelson (Edited by), Victor C. De Munck (Edited by), William Jankowiak (Edited by), Alex J. Nelson (Contributions by), Victor C. De Munck (Contributions by), William Jankowiak (Contributions by), Heidi Härkönen (Contributions by), Shelly Volsche (Contributions by), Anna Romanowicz (Contributions by), Inés Torras (Contributions by), Mary Elena Wilhoit (Contributions by), Meghana Joshi (Contributions by), Birgit Herrmann (Contributions by), Erika R. Alpert (Contributions by)

9781978847675

Paperback / softback, published 11 August 2026

240 pages, 3 color and 3 B-W images
23.5 x 15.6 x 1.5 cm, 0.368 kg

"Drawing on rich ethnographic research from diverse global contexts, Love Apocalypse reveals how transformations in intimacy are driving declines in marriage and fertility while giving rise to new forms of family life. This timely collection offers fresh insights into cultural and socioeconomic forces shaping fertility decline and shifting configurations of intimate relations." - Lihong Shi, author of Choosing Daughters: Family Change in Rural China

Marriage and fertility rates are falling around the world, upending social security planning and threatening economic growth. In Love Apocalypse, anthropologists present their insights into this society-altering demographic shift, drawing on their research into the ways love, romantic relationships, and family are being transformed by cultural, social, and economic forces. Each case study in this volume examines a unique cultural context from either Asia (China, South Korea, Japan, India), Europe (Germany, Lithuania), or Latin America (Cuba, Peru), grounded in years of ethnographic research into how communities' experiences and perceptions of love, marriage, and family are changing in response to economic precarity, shifting gender relations, status competition, and diversifying cultural norms. It is increasingly clear that marriage and two-parent nuclear families will not be the universal norm of the twenty-first century even if this arrangement was largely idealized a mere generation ago. However, this does not mean the end of love, intimacy, or family but rather its transformation and the emergence of new intimate relationships and adaptations to the challenges and opportunities of life in the twenty-first century.

Series Foreword by Péter Berta ix
Introduction: Global Concerns About Marriage and
Fertility Decline 1
ALEX J. NELSON, VICTOR C. DE MUNCK,
AND WILLIAM JANKOWIAK
PART ONE
Transformations of Intimacy:
Individualization and Declines
in Marriage and Fertility
1 Gendered Obstacles of Love and Fertility in
Contemporary
Cuba 23
HEIDI HÄRKÖNEN
2 Love's Fallout: Fertility Decline and the Individualization
of Intimacy in South Korea
43
ALEX J. NELSON
3 China's Independent
Women
and the Decline in Fertility 66
WILLIAM JANKOWIAK AND SHELLY VOLSCHE
4 Individual Choice? On the Rise of Love and the Decline
of Fertility in Urban Middle-Class
India 87
ANNA ROMANOWICZ
5 From Courtship to Contingent Intimacies in Lithuania:
Love Nomads and Porous Dyads 109
VICTOR C. DE MUNCK AND INES TORRAS