Perspective: Unmarried adults without children are not ‘kinless’
January 12, 2025
There is no question that America, and the world, is going through a tectonic shift in family formation. Marriage rates and birth rates are plummeting nearly everywhere. This has inevitably led to a discourse around what’s happening, why it is happening and what might be done. The vocabulary for this conversation, however, leaves much to be desired — and may actively be hampering an effective societal response.
Consider the recent opinion piece by Alysse ElHage and Brad Wilcox of the Institute for Family Studies. Commenting on these marriage and fertility trends, the pair write that “starting in the past decade, the share of ‘kinless’ prime-aged (18-55) adults — defined here as those who are never married and have no children in the home — exceeded the share of Americans who are married with children for the first time in our nation’s history.”
