October 27, 2023
What liberals don’t understand about men and marriage
There’s no question the bond between fatherhood and marriage is weaker today than it was 60 years ago. Whereas almost 80% of children were raised in an intact, married home with their father in the early 1960s, today only about 51% have that privilege. In the face of what seems like a fraying father-marriage bond, some left-leaning men’s advocates…
October 2, 2023
Growing Up in Intact Families Matters More Than Ever
Stable, two-parent families have always mattered for kids. But today, we have new evidence that they may matter more than ever. A new study from the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) indicates that an intact family is increasingly tied to the educational, financial, and social welfare of children. Meanwhile, family instability appears to harm kids more than…
September 18, 2023
No Culture Wars, Please, We’re Academics
A few years ago, Melissa S. Kearney got into a taxi cab and asked the driver about a photo of a young girl on his dashboard. The driver confirmed it was his daughter and then proudly showed her more pictures. The girl lived with her mother, he explained. Kearney, a professor of economics at the…
September 14, 2023
The Privilege Hiding in Plain Sight
The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind, by Melissa S. Kearney (University of Chicago Press, 240 pp., $25) Imagine you are twelve years old and your public-school teacher asks you and your seventh-grade classmates to stand side by side in a line. The instructor lists a series of personal attributes and…
September 12, 2023
Who Is Happiest? Married Mothers and Fathers, Per the Latest General Social Survey
Social media and mainstream media are replete with stories suggesting marriage and parenthood are not fulfilling, especially for women. Not surprisingly, many Americans now believe the key to being happy is a good education, work, and freedom from the encumbrances of family life—not getting married and having a family. These cultural developments raise an important question answered by this Institute for Family…
August 12, 2023
Gen Z Shouldn’t Dismiss Marriage So Lightly
A viral TikTok video doesn’t pull any punches in depicting the so-called negatives of marriage and motherhood for young women. The video, that has been racking up millions of views, shows a Generation Z woman seeming to accept a marriage proposal before switching to a series of shorts showing the same woman toiling away in domestic drudgery…
August 2, 2023
The Best Predictor of Happiness in America? Marriage
Americans who are married with children are now leading happier and more prosperous lives, on average, than men and women who are single and childless. Is that statement surprising? In an age that prizes individualism, workism, and a host of other self-centric “isms” above marriage and family, it may well be. But the reality is that nothing currently predicts…
June 11, 2023
Now Political Polarization Comes for Marriage Prospects
Marriage rates in America are falling fast: Many men and women are marrying later, and more and more people are never marrying at all. Marriage is in retreat for a host of reasons, but one overlooked cause is the rising difficulty many young people have finding a partner who meets all of their requirements—emotional, physical, financial, and political. That last…
May 24, 2023
Don’t Be So Shocked That People Still Want Marriage and Children
Four writers at Curbed, the millennial-run, New York-centric real estate site, undertook an ambitious project. To put a price tag on living in New York, they asked young people to describe their ideal life and then tried to calculate how much it would cost. “We decided to put a price tag on the dream lives of a wide…
February 2, 2023
Prioritizing Money Over Marriage, Today’s Parents Are Making a Big Mistake
As parents of teens, we have kids who are beginning to think about their adult future—including college, career and family. One recent conversation Alysse had with her 17-year-old daughter is indicative of the pressure many young people feel to prioritize career and income. “Why do I have to choose a career path right now?” her daughter…