Marriage is not just for the wealthy
September 23, 2025
You could be forgiven for thinking that marriage is a thing of the past in modern America. Rising divorce rates, plummeting fertility rates, and the slow disintegration of the nuclear family all point in that direction. Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal even declared that marriage is becoming the preserve of the wealthy, with poorer and working-class Americans increasingly turning away from it. But is the picture really that bleak?
It’s true that marriage rates are down. Analysis from the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) indicates that the share of men and women aged 22-45 who are married has fallen over the past 15 years. Notably, working-class Americans have seen the steepest decline. Between 2008 and 2023, the share of college-educated adults aged 22-45 who were married fell six percentage points, from 59% to 53%. Over the same period, the share of adults in the same age group without a bachelor’s degree who were married fell by 8 percentage points, from 48% to 40%. This drop is especially troubling given that working-class Americans are already less likely to put a ring on it.
