Factors Affecting the Desire to Continue Living Single among the Youth of Qom

This study aims to investigate the factors affecting the desire to continue living single among the youth of Qom. In this article, the theories of "Parsons's structural functionalism", "William Goode's modernization", "Giddens' modernity" and especially "Tocqueville individualism" were used. The research method is descriptive-analytical and the data collection tool is a researcher-made questionnaire. The study population consisted of young people who had never been married, aged 20 to 39, in Qom, of which the sample size was 269. The results indicate that male respondents showed a willingness to remain single until the age of 33.8 years.  This was 31/7 among female respondents. The results of the hypothesis test also indicate that among the independent variables, positive attitude to women's employment, individualism, social trust, traditional family attitude in choosing a spouse and youth religious endorsement had a positive relationship with the tendency to continue living single, while the relationship between increasing education and tendency to remain in single life was not confirmed. In general, the results of this study indicate that in addition to economic factors, cultural and social factors should also be considered in the encouragement of youth to marriage.