2026
Happiness Crash hits Young Americans
America is in the midst of a “happiness crash.” Reports of unhappiness have more than doubled since 2000, according to the General Social Survey. Young adults—ages 18 to 35—have been hit hardest. In the early 2000s, 11% of young adults reported being “not too happy,” compared with 26% today. This crash follows the Digital Revolution, which has eroded opportunities to socialize, date, and marry. Economist Sam Peltzman finds that one of the biggest drivers of declining happiness is the recent retreat from marriage. As virtual life rises and real relationships fall, “the pursuit of happiness” is growing more unattainable for a large minority of Americans—especially the young.
Married parents have a clearer sense of the future
It is often claimed in public discourse that parents lose themselves in parenthood. However, recent survey data tells a different story. According to polling from the Institute for Family Studies for the 2026 State of Fertility Report, married parents report a clearer sense of their future than their unmarried or childless peers. Fewer than half of unmarried or childless adults feel they have a clear sense of the future, compared with nearly two-thirds of married parents. This gap provides further evidence that family can be a cornerstone of purpose and direction in life.
Japanese culture change coincides with fertility decline
Japan’s total fertility rate is well below America’s. Yet in the 1970s and early 1980s, Japanese and American fertility rates were comparable. In 1985, the year after the expansion of satellite TV and the growth of Japanese celebrity “idol culture,” the two countries began to diverge. Japanese idol culture includes secrecy around romantic and family life and cultivates parasocial relationships with fans, establishing cultural leaders who do not showcase family life. This might explain why Japanese fertility diverged from the West and fell so early.
Sex frequency highest among married women
Some people believe that married adults have less sex than their unmarried peers. However, data from the General Social Survey suggests the opposite, especially among women. Married women are significantly more likely to have frequent sex than their unmarried counterparts, with 53% of married mothers and 56% of married childless women reporting having sex at least once a week. On the other hand, only 36% of unmarried mothers and 31% of unmarried childless women reported the same. It turns out marriage does not mean dead bedrooms.
Americans are speaking 28% fewer words
People are talking less. A recent study found that the average number of words spoken in person has fallen from around 17,500 per day in 2005 to 12,700 in 2019—a 28% decline. The authors note that this decrease coincided with a massive uptake in digital communication, but the gains there were not enough to offset the losses in face-to-face communication. The decline likewise corresponds with a “loneliness epidemic,” suggesting that digital communication is an inadequate substitute for in-person connection.
Class differences in happiness among men
Unhappiness is on the rise for American men, and the working class is getting hardest hit. Recent data show that 27% of men between 25 and 44 without a college degree report being unhappy, a 12-percentage-point increase from the 2010s. By comparison, 17% of men with a college degree in this age range report being unhappy. IFS research shows that some of this class disparity is explained by differing childhood experiences. Working-class men between 25 and 44 were 11 percentage points less likely than their college-educated peers to have had a good relationship with their father, and 8 percentage points less likely to have had a good relationship with their mother growing up.
Married women feel safer than single women
Single young women feel much less safe than married women. In a new survey by the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute, 18% of single women ages 25–34 say they feel physically unsafe most days, compared with just 4% of married women of the same age, more than a fourfold difference. This gap holds even after accounting for financial status and demographics, such as age and race. And it’s not simply about having a man in the house. Men’s commitment matters. Cohabiting women are more than twice as likely as married women to feel unsafe, and 9% say their partner doesn’t help much with safety, compared with 2% of married women.
Left-leaning teens less interested in parenthood
Something is going on with American teenagers. A decades-long survey of 12th graders asked teens about their ideal number of children. For most of the survey’s history, left-leaning and right-leaning teens reported wanting kids at similar rates. But in recent years, teens who identify as “liberal” or “very liberal” have become less certain, increasingly responding that “zero” is their ideal. Data from this decade show that just 67% of liberal-identifying teens say they want at least one child, compared to 90% of their conservative peers.
Data Show Happy Wives on Both Sides
The latest dispatches from today’s internet-driven “Gender War” often suggest that one ideological side has happier marriages than the other. The data tell a more interesting story. In research published in 2019 in the New York Times we found that wives at both ends of the ideological spectrum —liberal and conservative—reported higher relationship quality than those in the middle. A new analysis of 2016–2024 General Social Survey finds a similar story for today’s wives: both conservative and liberal wives are significantly happier than wives in the middle. The common thread isn't ideology—it’s expectation. Both feminism and faith hold husbands and fathers to a high standard of engagement. Where men meet that standard, marriages flourish and wives are happier. The worldview matters less than the devotion it demands.
Teens increasingly say having lots of money is important
In 1976, just 36% of 12th-grade girls said having lots of money was “quite” or “extremely” important in their lives, compared to 55% of teen boys, according to data from the Monitoring the Future study. Over the next 15 years, both boys and girls increasingly reported that being wealthy was important to them. After a plateau through the 2000s, the reported importance of money is again on the rise. In 2024, three-quarters of 12th-grade boys and girls said having lots of money was important to them. Concern for cash tracks broader life priority shifts among teen girls, who also marked “correcting inequalities” and having time for hobbies as important in their lives at higher rates than past generations of teen girls did.
