2026
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.
States with expensive housing have lower fertility
The US fertility rate hit a record low in 2025. But fertility rates vary significantly across states, ranging from under 1.4 children per woman in states like Vermont and Oregon to over 1.9 in Nebraska and South Dakota. IFS’s Family Structure Index found that housing affordability explains 25% of this variation in total fertility rates, rising to 31% when outliers California and Hawaii are excluded. Expensive housing suppresses fertility by creating budget constraints, shifting young families into smaller housing, and driving the migration of families to more affordable areas. IFS senior fellow Lyman Stone offers one solution to the fertility decline: build family-friendly housing.
Fewer high school boys expect to attend college
Girls began outpacing boys in college degree attainment in the 1980s. This disparity is reflected in the Monitoring the Future survey of high school seniors, which asked whether 12th grade boys and girls expected to attend college. By 2010, 12th grade girls reported that they expected to go to college at a 7-percentage-point higher rate than their male peers. The gap has substantially widened since then. Expectations for attending college have fallen dramatically among graduating senior boys since 2016. In 2024, 66% of 12th grade boys expected to attend college, compared to 82% of 12th grade girls.
Declining homeownership among Americans
Homeownership has fallen dramatically across all ages over the past four decades. In 1980, 58% of 30-year-old Americans owned their home, and by age 50, nearly 80% of Americans would own their home. Homeownership has considerably declined since then. In 2000, 43% of 30-year-olds owned their home, and by 2025, just 30% owned their home. These declines persist into middle-age, with only 63% of 50-year-olds owning their home in 2025. While much of this decline is explained by falling marriage rates, even married adults are less likely to own their home: in 1980, 89% of married adults aged 50 owned their home, compared to 79% in 2025.
Falling happiness among unmarried young adults
For over a decade, happiness has been in free fall among young adults. The share of young adults ages 22 to 35 who reported being "pretty" to "very" happy has fallen by 12-percentage points since 2010. Notably, these declines in happiness have been concentrated among the unmarried. From 2010 to 2024, happiness among married young adults fell from 94% to 90%, compared to a decline from 82% to 68% among unmarried young adults, resulting in a 22-percentage point gap between the groups. This growing marriage-advantage may be driven by both selection effects into marriage and marriage's protective effects against isolation in a digital age.
More marriage and parenthood among religious Americans
If you stepped into a church this past Easter and found an abundance of families, it was likely no coincidence. Data from the General Social Survey show that adults who frequently attend religious services are more likely to be married (58% vs. 41%) and have children (69% vs 55%). Notably, religious adults are also more likely to report being very happy (28% to 19%). This squares with research from a recent IFS study showing that religious young men are roughly three times more likely to be married and twice as likely to be parents than their secular peers, possibly explaining why religious young men report feeling they’ve reached adulthood at higher rates. Taken together, the data suggests a connection between faith, family, and well-being.
Ever married adults are happiest, regardless of age married
Influencers on both the Left and the Right tell young Americans that marriage is simply not worth the trouble. In their opinion, it is better to stay single than risk divorce down the line. But the data suggests the opposite. Adults between 45 and 65 who had ever married were substantially more likely to report being “very happy” than those who had never married, according to the General Social Survey. Notably, this held true regardless of age first married. In this sample, 37% of adults married between 18 and 21 reported being very happy in middle age, compared to just 19% of middle-aged adults who had never married.
Young men doubt the worth of attending college
Young women now outpace young men in educational attainment. As of 2023, 45% of women ages 25 to 29 had a bachelor's degree or higher, compared to only 35% of men the same age. In our America's Demoralized Men report, we found that young men largely do not see the point of going to college. Approximately 77% of non-college educated men ages 18 to 29 say that that they can find interesting work without a degree and another 56% agree that colleges have become too woke or progressive, views even college-educated men largely share. These findings may explain why two thirds of young, non-college-educated men assert that college is “not worth the cost of money and time these days.”
Moms and dads find parenting most difficult at different child ages
People often wonder at what age children are most difficult. Using data from our recent survey of 24,000 parents, we get a clear answer: for moms, parenting feels very hard with a newborn in the house, and peaks when young children are entering school. For dads, 1-year-olds are especially difficult, but teenagers pose the greatest challenge. While there are some spikes in parenting difficulty at young ages, the hardest parts of parenting appear to be when children are making major transitions in their relationships with their parents—moms have a hard time as their children start to develop wider social worlds beyond the home, and dads have a hard time as children start to leave the protective space of the household.
