What’s holding women back from starting a family?
April 24, 2025
Media influencer Brett Cooper did something last year that most people her age won’t: she got married. “It’s the most grounding experience I’ve ever had,” she told a crowd gathered at the University of Virginia for the National Marriage Project’s spring conference, cosponsored with the Wheatley Institute. Cooper is 23 and had celebrated her one-year anniversary the week before the event. The conference topic: “In Pursuit: What do marriage and motherhood have to do with the happiness of women?”
Data show the majority of Cooper’s peers don’t necessarily think there’s a connection. The median age at first marriage for American women is now 28.6. What’s more: a record share of young women, about one-third, are projected to never marry. Cooper told the crowd at UVA she thinks women are hesitant to marry young because of years of conventional “wisdom” cautioning them against sacrificing their education, career and personal freedom for what our culture suggests is essentially a losing proposition for women.
