'Something has gone terribly wrong': Marriage is in 'disastrous' decline — perhaps because of women



The marriage rate has been in decline for decades, dropping from 10.6 per 1,000 people in 1980 to 6.1 in 2023. Last year, American adults were less likely to be married than at nearly any other time since the Census Bureau began logging marital status in 1940, with married couples heading only 47.1% of U.S. households.

The apparent aversion to marriage is bad news for American children, who perform better in school and are far less likely to end up in prison or depressed when raised by married parents, as well as for American adults who tend to see better health outcomes, be happier, and live longer when espoused.

'Devaluing marriage and motherhood has consequences.'

Recent Pew Research Center analysis of survey data from the University of Michigan suggests that this decline may continue — especially if young women's growing resistance to marriage goes unremedied.

Whereas 20 years prior, 80% of 12th graders said that they were most likely to choose marriage in the long run, only 67% of 12th graders polled in 2023 indicated that they want to get married someday. Another 24% said they don't know if they'll get married, up from 16% in 1993.

This drop appears to have been largely driven by shifting views among girls.

In 1993, 83% of girls and 76% of boys said that they wanted to get married. In 2023, only 61% of girls said they wanted to get married — a drop of 22% — while 74% of boys indicated they wanted to ultimately tie the knot.

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Pew indicated that there was also a precipitous drop in the percentage of 12th graders who indicated they wanted to have kids if they marry.

Whereas in 1993, 82% said they wanted to have kids, in 2023, only 73% indicated they wanted to welcome new life into this world. Even more dramatically, the percentage of those who said they would "very likely" want to have kids if married dropped from 64% in 1993 to 48% in 2023.

"It's almost like decades of devaluing marriage and motherhood has consequences," wrote the Alabama Policy Institute.

Katy Faust, founder of the children's advocacy group Them Before Us, stated, "More than almost anything else trending, this terrifies me. Because of the nature of our bodies women have historically pursued marriage more. What kind of disastrous, antihuman messaging are young women being flooded with to return these kinds of results?"

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Dr. Brad Wilcox, professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and director of the National Marriage Project, said the anti-nuptial trend among young women and adolescent girls was "disastrous."

Wilcox underscored that this trend reflects a particularly raw deal for women, highlighting a recent YouGov survey of U.S. women, ages 25 to 55, fielded by the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute, which found that married women with children are:

  • more likely (19%) to report being "very happy" than both unmarried women with children (13%) and unmarried women without children (10%);
  • more likely (47%) to report that life has felt enjoyable most or all of the time in the past 30 days than both unmarried women with children (40%) and unmarried women without children (34%);
  • less likely (11%) to report being lonely most or all of the time in the past 30 days than both unmarried women with children (23%) and unmarried women without children (20%);
  • more likely (51%) to receive physical affection than both unmarried women with children (29%) and unmarried women without children (17%); and
  • more likely (28%) to report their lives have a clear sense of purpose than both unmarried women with children (25%) and unmarried women without children (16%).

Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet said of the Pew report, "Something has gone terribly wrong."

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Poll finds American opinions about gender are changing — but not in favor of far-left agenda



The number of Americans who believe that gender is "assigned at birth" — contra the pro-transgender narrative — has grown in recent years, according to a new survey.

What are the details?

While pro-trans rhetoric has reached a fever pitch over the last several years, fewer Americans are buying into the idea that gender is unrelated to biological sex.

A new Pew Research survey — based on interviews with 10,188 U.S. adults in May 2022 — found that 60% of Americans believe gender "is determined by their sex assigned at birth."

That is an increase from 56% in June 2021 and 54% in September 2017, which suggests that forcing Americans to accept the pro-trans narrative is backfiring.

\u201cReality is winning.\u201d
— David Marcus (@David Marcus) 1656431977

Still, the survey showed that nearly 8 in 10 American adults believe transgender people face discrimination, and a majority (64%) support laws that would protect transgender people from discrimination in jobs, housing, and public spaces.

Interestingly, the survey also showed that a majority of American adults (58%) support "proposals that would require transgender athletes to compete on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth." On the other hand, just 17% of Americans reject such proposals, while 24% told Pew Research they neither support nor oppose them.

More Americans also support laws prohibiting physicians from helping children undergo gender transition than oppose them (46% to 31%).

Did political affiliation make a difference?

Unsurprisingly, the results predictably fell down party lines.

From Pew Research:

Democrats and those who lean to the Democratic Party are more than four times as likely as Republicans and Republican leaners to say that a person’s gender can be different from the sex they were assigned at birth (61% vs. 13%). Democrats are also much more likely than Republicans to say our society hasn’t gone far enough in accepting people who are transgender (59% vs. 10%). For their part, 66% of Republicans say society has gone too far in accepting people who are transgender.
\u201cThere are stark partisan differences on many laws and policies related to transgender issues: https://t.co/CjvuqBjRSh\u201d
— Pew Research Center (@Pew Research Center) 1656439382

Pew survey finds that around 5% of US adults under the age of 30 identify as a gender other than the sex recorded at their birth



A Pew Research survey found that while just 1.6% of U.S. adults fit into the categories of transgender or nonbinary, a whopping 5.1% of adults under the age of 30 fall into those categories.

There is a significant disparity between the proportions of younger adults and older adults who identify as a gender other than their sex as recorded at birth: Just 1.6% of U.S. adults ages 30 to 49, and 0.3% of individuals over 50 fall into the categories of transgender or nonbinary, according to the survey.

\u201cSome 5.1% of adults younger than 30 are trans or nonbinary, including 2.0% who are a trans man or trans woman and 3.0% who are nonbinary. This compares with 1.6% of 30- to 49-year-olds and 0.3% of those 50 and older who are trans or nonbinary. https://t.co/fDKtj9hPM9\u201d
— Pew Research Center (@Pew Research Center) 1654621562

Pew carried out focus groups with transgender and nonbinary adults, and quoted many statements made by the participants.

"There’s so much fear around it, and misunderstanding, and people thinking that if you're talking to kids about gender and sexuality, that it's sexual," a non-binary person in their early 30s said, according to Pew. "And it's like, we really need to break down that our bodies are not inherently sexual. We need to be able to talk with students and children about their bodies so that they can then feel empowered to understand themselves, advocate for themselves."

Many parents vehemently oppose the idea of exposing innocent children to radical leftist gender ideology.

A non-binary individual in their mid 30s said that, "people think nonbinary is some made-up thing to feel cool. It’s not to feel cool. And if someone does do it to feel cool, maybe they're just doing that because they don't feel comfortable within themselves."

A non-binary person in their late 20s remarked, "What words would I use to describe me? Genderless, if gender wasn’t a thing. … I guess if pronouns didn't exist and you just called me [by my name]. That's what my gender is … And I do use nonbinary also, just because it feels easier, I guess."

An early 30s transgender man said, "I thought that by figuring out that I was interested in women, identifying as lesbian, I thought [my anxiety and sadness] would dissipate in time, and that was me cracking the code. But then, when I got older, I left home for the first time. I started to meet other trans people in the world. That's when I started to become equipped with the vocabulary. The understanding that this is a concept, and this makes sense. And that's when I started to understand that I wasn't cisgender." A transgender man is a biological woman who identifies as a man.

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Share of young adults living with their parents highest ever recorded



The share of young adults in the U.S. who live with their parents is the highest ever recorded, according to a recently released Pew Research analysis.

The topline

The report found that a majority — 52% — of adults ages 18-29 are residing at home with at least one parent. The percentage, measured in July, beat the previous record of 48% set at the end of the Great Depression in 1940.

Pew cites the coronavirus pandemic as the main driver of the increase, which brings the total number of young adults living at home to 26.6 million, up 2.6 million from February.

It should be noted, however, that the number was already near historic levels before the pandemic, as 47% of adults ages 18-29 reported living at home in February, just one percentage point off from the highest Great Depression numbers.

Pew reported that the increase affected all major demographics but was sharpest among young white adults and those ages 18-24.

"The number and share of young adults living with their parents grew across the board for all major racial and ethnic groups, men and women, and metropolitan and rural residents, as well as in all four main census regions," the report stated.

The share of U.S. young adults living with their parents is now higher than any previous measurement. Before 2020,… https://t.co/HfzckJCEeO
— Pew Research Center (@Pew Research Center)1599230582.0

The pandemic has hit the younger demographic particularly hard, as many college campuses have closed down due to health concerns and job prospects have been erased. One-quarter of those ages 16-24 have lost their jobs since the start of the pandemic.

The coronavirus-related shutdowns have also had an adverse effect on the mental welfare of this population group.

In August, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that a whopping 25.5% of adults ages 18-24 considered suicide in June, a figure eerily similar to the number of those who lost their jobs.

The survey also found that young adults were disproportionately dealing with a host of other mental health issues, such as "symptoms of anxiety disorder or depressive disorder, COVID-19-related [trauma- and stressor-related disorder] TSRD, initiation of or increase in substance use to cope with COVID-19-associated stress."

In a bit of good news for the economy, the unemployment rate dropped to 8.4% in August, marking the first time unemployment has been recorded in the single digits since March. The economy also continued its slow climb back by adding 1.4 million jobs.

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