Support for marriage and marriage rates themselves have sharply declined among young people in recent years, leading experts to offer various explanations for the troubling trends as well as potential solutions to reverse them.
Data has long pointed toward a sustained drop in marriage rates for every age cohort following the “Silent Generation,” the group of Americans born roughly between the two World Wars. A recent Pew survey found that just 30% of marriage-age Millennials live with a spouse and a child, compared with 70% of those from the Silent Generation.
A survey in June from the Thriving Center of Psychology, meanwhile, found that about 40% of Millennials and GenZers believe marriage is an “outdated tradition,” with 85% responding that marriage “is [not] necessary to have a fulfilled and committed relationship.”
Speaking on the statistics, W. Bradford Wilcox, the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, said bluntly: “It’s bad.”
Wilcox, who for years has been ringing alarm bells about the decline of marriage rates in the U.S, said collapsing marriage numbers are worrisome in no small part because of the economic fallout that can result.
“Marriage is a wealth-generating institution,” he told CNA. “Having kids outside of marriage puts you at risk of family instability and accumulating kids with more than one partner. That starts you up for men, for child support; for women, single parenthood. Both of which are financially exceedingly difficult to navigate.”
“But I’m more concerned about the social and emotional side to all of this,” he continued. “And what we see in the data are that Americans today who are not married are markedly more likely to report that they’re lonely, adrift in terms of meaning, and about half as likely to be very happy with their lives compared [with] their fellow [married] citizens.”
Wilcox said when he began his research into marriage and family stability, his largest concern was for children affected by the changing family demographics.
“As I see the marriage rate tick lower and lower and lower, I’ve become more concerned about adults,” he said. “A lot of adults, more than one-third of young adults today in their 20s, will never marry. This is record demographic territory we’re heading into.”
Mary-Rose Verret, who with her husband, Ryan, founded the marriage renewal and preparation initiative Witness to Love, told CNA that the problem is nearly as acute among Catholics as it is among non-Catholics.