The human story begins with man and wife, Adam and Eve. Marriage, family and posterity continues onward with other patriarchs and matriarchs like Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Rachel.
Whether we adhere to faiths that teach these scriptural narratives or not, the fundamental model they present is universal: We all exist because of our parents, and the human story continues through men and women bearing and raising children.
In modern-day America, many seem to have lost the plot. What was once the common script of adult life — get married, raise a family and pass the torch to the next generation — is dwindling, amid shifting cultural norms and changing priorities. The American Founding Fathers proposed to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” But too frequently today we seem to forget about our responsibility to the next generation, which most fundamentally is to literally bring it into being through families.
U.S. marriage rates have been declining for years. In the last decade and a half, birth rates have been sinking to new lows nearly every year. In 1962, 92% of adults ages 31-35 were currently or had been married. Today, only 57% have ever tied the knot. The median age of a first marriage has increased rapidly and is now above 30 for men and about 29 for women. Researchers find that as marriage is delayed, the likelihood of ever marrying declines. Based on current trends, researchers project that one-third of Gen Z will not marry by age 45 and may never marry at all.
Declining marriage is the main driver of falling fertility rates. By 2024, the total fertility rate dropped to 1.6. (Preliminary data from 2025 indicates we are likely to see a further decline.) Married women have a much higher average number of children than unmarried women, and that number has remained roughly steady at around 1.8 for the past four decades, although it has declined to around 1.7 since about 2018. In contrast, the average number of children per unmarried woman has been around 0.4 for the past three decades. Declining birth rates are mostly about a growing share of adults failing to marry and not having any children at all. In 2008, the total fertility rate (the projected number of children a woman will bear in her life) was 2.1, right at replacement level (the number of children needed per woman to replace the current population).
Declining fertility brings several challenges. These include economic consequences, such as fewer workers and innovators. It also means fewer adult children available to care for aging parents, meaning more costs for programs like Medicare and Medicaid, not to mention increased isolation for the elderly. Smaller families also mean fewer siblings and thinner extended family networks, strong sources of support for people throughout life.
Marriage brings benefits too. Married adults experience higher life satisfaction, better health and greater financial well-being. Some of this is selection (those who fit these criteria are more likely to marry), but not all of it, as marriage is a good in itself.
Why affordability shouldn’t be the reason for falling birth rates
One of the most common explanations for why people aren’t marrying and having children is the financial cost.
On its face, this seems to make sense. Children require many years of financial investment before becoming self-sufficient adults. This contrasts with yesteryear when families lived on farms and economic production centered around the home. Children became economic contributors at a fairly young age, assisting through farming or homemaking, while urbanization made large families more difficult to have in dense population centers.
For this reason, it made sense economically that total fertility rates came down substantially as infant mortality fell and families moved away from farms, dropping from an average of more than seven children per woman in 1800 to around two by 1930 (although during the baby boom, the numbers jumped up for several years). But for the most part, the fertility rate had hovered around two children for decades.
Something has changed, though, as the lower birth rates in the last several years are unprecedented. Have there been major economic shifts, such that today’s young adults are worse off financially than their parents or grandparents were at their age?
In short, no. While there have been periods of economic downturn during the past decade or so, there have also been periods of growth. Previous generations experienced similar economic fluctuations without the sharp, steady declines in childbearing. Typically, childbearing decreases with economic downturns and improves with recovery. But the fertility decline that began just prior to the Great Recession continued, even in the years when the economy was historically strong.
Some groups of young adults are also doing much better financially today than their predecessors. Looking only at the incomes of young men (to control for the increasing contributions of female earners over time to household income), those in the highest income brackets are earning far more in inflation-adjusted dollars than their parents and certainly than their grandparents were at their age. Yet marriage rates have dropped. While those in lower income brackets have not seen the same growth as their higher earning peers, they are doing about the same or somewhat better financially than previous generations with higher marriage and birth rates.
What was once the common script of adult life — get married, raise a family and pass the torch to the next generation — is dwindling, amid shifting cultural norms and priorities.
While inflation-adjusted median earnings among young men (ages 25-29 and 30-35) have fluctuated over time, during roughly the past decade, their inflation-adjusted incomes have been higher than during nearly all of the 1980s and 1990s, and certainly better than during the Great Recession.
Similarly, Scott Winship of the American Enterprise Institute finds that the share of men who are financially ready for marriage has not been on a downward trajectory during the past several decades. He compares inflation-adjusted earnings of young men today (ages 25-29) with earnings of single-earner, married fathers ages 25-29 from the past. He uses the earnings of the earlier breadwinners as a baseline to measure whether today’s young men make enough to support a family.
Winship finds that while the share of young men who met the financial marriageability threshold dropped in the 1970s and 1980s, it has since rebounded and stayed relatively steady, rising and falling with the economy. He also finds that marriageability increased across education levels as well as race. Marriageability stayed relatively flat among non-Hispanic white men and Hispanic men, and it increased substantially among non-Hispanic Black men too. All the while, marriage rates steadily fell across the board.
An obstacle to creating a family that has grown is the opportunity cost of raising a family. Because of greater prosperity — particularly among women who have experienced more wage growth due to increased education and career opportunity — the financial trade-offs to marrying and having children are higher than ever before.
Children often require delaying or forgoing education, career and other personal pursuits. Marrying early precludes one from other potential relationships that could bring more benefits: a spouse with higher earnings or someone with more similar interests, for example. Because most Americans have adopted liberal views on sexual relationships, for many, delayed marriage no longer means delayed sexual activity either. And birth control and abortion reduce the potential consequences of sexual relationships, while bringing downsides of their own.
Another disincentive to raising a family are higher material expectations. Today’s parents often provide far more to their children than parents in previous generations, things like private lessons, electronic devices, one’s own room, and an excess of toys and clothes. Expectations for safety standards and adult supervision are also more demanding today.
Material prerequisites for marriage have increased, too. Adults in the past were more willing to enter marriage with fewer material goods than today’s adults. U.S. Census Bureau data shows that adults who married in the 1960s and 1970s did so with far fewer material goods than today. Very few married men at the median age of first marriage in the 1960s were homeowners, for example. Their homes were also smaller and with fewer amenities than today, yet they had more children in those homes.
In contrast, most married men at the median age of first marriage today own a home, and they have larger, more luxurious homes than their predecessors, despite having fewer children.
This doesn’t mean that families don’t face unique financial challenges today. Housing prices in the last few years have reached their highest levels ever, far exceeding income growth and inflation. But birth rates were dropping before the recent spike in home prices and past generations experienced plenty of their own financial struggles without such a drastic decline in family formation.
What policymakers can do to reverse the trend
Reversing the nation’s declining birth and marriage rates requires creative solutions, including policy reforms. At its core, this is a cultural problem that requires changing hearts and minds. Government policies can help (or harm) that goal, but building a culture of marriage will require efforts from all levels: homes, churches, schools, businesses.
Foremost, government should stop harming marriage. This begins with removing marriage penalties from the social safety net. The welfare system is massive: 90 programs at a cost of $1.7 trillion annually. These programs do not even include Medicare, Social Security or unemployment benefits. Roughly one-third of Americans receive some type of means-tested benefit from at least one of these 90 programs.
Couples who remain unmarried can receive higher welfare benefits because one of the partner’s incomes (typically the unmarried father) can remain off the books. If a couple marries, both incomes are officially included for purposes of determining welfare eligibility and benefits are reduced, often drastically. This anti-family posture of the welfare system harms marriage and thereby undermines childbearing, not to mention deprives children of the numerous benefits of marriage.
One way to address disincentives to marriage is reducing erroneous welfare benefits (about one-third of payments from the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit program are erroneous, for example). The savings can be used to provide married couples with pro-family tax credits that would offset other marriage penalties in the welfare system.
To avoid creating marriage penalties, policymakers should view their decisions through the lens of how policies could affect marriage and childbearing. Governments can add a “Family Impact Analysis” to proposed administrative rules to analyze how the rule would affect marriage and childbearing.
Policymakers should also seek to reduce regulations that drive up the costs of raising a family. These include zoning laws that impede housing construction, childcare regulations that unnecessarily limit providers’ ability to participate in the market, and some child safety car seat laws that marginally increase children’s safety but reduce birth rates because people can’t afford to purchase a larger car to fit all the necessary car seats.
States can also participate in encouraging family formation and helping couples maintain healthy marriages. All states receive funding from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, program. Three of the four stated goals of that program focus on strengthening marriage and increasing intact homes, but few states use any of their TANF dollars to strengthen marriage. States can use their share of funds to offset marriage penalties for low-income couples who wed. They can spend the money to provide, for example, healthy marriage and relationship education to help people gain the knowledge and skills to create strong marriages. Utah has used a small portion of its TANF dollars to fund a healthy marriage initiative. The initiative focuses on providing a variety of healthy marriage and relationship educational resources: online courses, in-person classes, high school curricula and podcasts. Oklahoma is another state that has operated a healthy marriage initiative. More states should follow suit.
The lower birth rates in the last several years are unprecedented. Have there been major economic shifts, such that today’s young adults are worse off financially than their parents were at their age?
The Heritage Foundation has recently proposed a list of marriage-related policies to support family formation. Tax-free “nest egg” accounts for young newlyweds — NEST accounts (Newlywed Early Starters Trusts) — would provide $2,500 to each child at birth. The money would be invested and then made available to adults tax-free upon marriage if they marry by age 30. Or the money would be available at age 30 but subject to taxes. Unclaimed amounts are rolled into a traditional individual retirement account (IRA).
Two proposals would modify existing tax credits. One would extend the $17,000 adoption tax credit to married parents the year they have a biological child. The other would extend the childcare tax credit to single-earner married-parent households where one parent works and one stays home with the child(ren). Currently, this credit is only available to parents where both work full time and pay for childcare.
What communities can do to support family formation
Civil society has the most important role to play in restoring a culture of marriage, though.
This begins at home. Data from Pew Research Center shows that while the vast majority of parents (around 90%) highly value their children having a job they enjoy and doing well financially, they are far less likely to agree that it’s important for their children to marry or have children of their own (around 20%).
Parents can teach their children why marriage and having children matter, even in cases where parents’ own marital circumstances may not be ideal. Parents should encourage young adult children to prioritize preparing for marriage, rather than relegating family goals to a lower position. The idea that waiting into the late 20s or 30s to marry boosts chances for marital success isn’t supported by research either. And young adults in college who have an earlier “marital horizon” are also less likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors, like sexual promiscuity and binge drinking.
Churches should also help young adults prepare for marriage and help couples of all ages maintain strong marriages. Programs like Communio support churches in establishing marriage education programs. Churches can also provide activities and conventions where young adults can meet and socialize in uplifting settings.
High schools and colleges can provide education on healthy relationships to help young adults build the skills and knowledge to create healthy dating relationships and prepare for healthy marriages down the road.
And businesses can make it easier for parents to be home with children, providing flexible options for where and when parents work.
Reversing the decline in family formation is no easy task. Ultimately, people will need to value marriage and children above other choices. But young adults today also need the confidence and cultural support to carry out these commitments and responsibilities, and government policy can make it easier.
We must remember that strong marriages and the children who come from them are not merely lifestyle choices; they are the foundation of thriving societies.
We must continue the story our fathers and mothers of millennia ago began.
This story appears in the June 2026 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.