Photo by Tina Franklin, Flickr CC

Though “hookup culture” is a term that gets thrown around a lot these days, an article in the Washington Post describes a recent report that finds Americans are having less sex. Published in Archives of Sexual Behaviorthe study authors find that Americans of all races, religions, and education levels are having less sex than in the past. While in the 1990’s people were having sex about 60 times a year on average, that number dropped by 53 times on average by 2014.

Apart from other factors, such as the rise in depression and declining rates of marriage and cohabitation, the tightening wallets of two-income-families may also be a factor driving this change. As explained by sociologist Pepper Schwartz of University of Washington, a product of the 2008 recession is that both people in partnered couples are more likely to be working. The resulting stress from these economic concerns could be behind the overall drop in sexual activity. Schwartz explains,

“You have many more women and men working to create a two-income family to stay middle class or above … People’s minds are occupied with things other than the physical connection, and that has increased in modern life, and especially from the ’80s and ’90s and forward.”