"The assumption has been that the younger generation wants to delay marriage and parents are hassling them about when they would get married," said Brian Willoughby, a professor at Brigham Young University and lead author of the study.
"We actually found the opposite, that the parental generation is showing the 'slow down' mindset more than the young adults," said Willoughby.
Willoughby and colleagues gathered information from 536 college students and their parents from five college campuses around the country.
The scholars found the hesitation is consistent across gender, as reported in The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
"Initially we thought that this might be dads wanting their daughters to delay marriage. Moms and dads trended together