Good Jobs, Strong Families. Stable Jobs with Good Salary and Benefits Boost Working Class Men’s Family Formation Rates.

(CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA)-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: CHRIS BULLIVANT

The Institute for Family Studies (IFS) releases a new report today that shows how working-class men are more likely to be married if their jobs are stable, higher paid, and come with health benefits.

IFS research has shown repeatedly how working-class men without a college education are far less likely to be married than their male counterparts with a college education, and this report affirms these findings:  

• In 1984 59% of high-school-only educated men were married living with children, compared to 55% among the college-educated. By 2021 only 34% of high-school-only educated men were married living which children, compared to 44% of college-educated men.
• Only 39% of non-college-educated Americans ages 18-55 are married, compared to 58% of college-educated Americans.

But in this new study by Grant Martsolf and Brad Wilcox, there is now a far greater understanding of what is happening in the relationship between work and family structure for those who are non-college educated:

• Almost 80% of the difference in married family formation between college-educated and working-class men can be attributed to differences in three job characteristics: a good wage, job stability, and job benefits.
• The top jobs for family formation for working-class men are in the public sector: armed services and first responders.
• Trucking and construction are the top jobs for family formation for working-class men in the private sector. These sectors could be hit especially hard by the current market turmoil.

IFS identified three good job characteristics:

• Higher wages,
• Job stability, and
• Employer sponsored health insurance.

Those jobs that had higher rates of these good job characteristics saw a higher share of men who were married with children in the home. Those jobs that did not have these good job characteristics had a higher share of men who were not married.

Context

Working-class job losses have been among men, with job and income uptick being among working-class women:

• Between 1984 and 2004 the U.S. economy lost between 6-7 million manufacturing jobs, a blow in particular for men in the labor market
• Between 1979 and 2019 wages of the median American with a high school diploma declined by 11%, while college graduates saw their increase by 15%
• Since 1990 the healthcare industry has added roughly 9 million jobs
• Nearly 80% of Americans who do not have a college degree and work in healthcare are women.
• Working-class women have seen their real wages rise since 1979.

Impact

This has had a big impact on the man as marriageable breadwinner, a decline in marriage rates steeper among working-class families, and a wider collapse of civil society:

• 78% of never-married women report that it was “very important” that a potential spouse have a “steady job”
• Women are more likely to marry men with higher income than themselves.

Report author Grant Martsolf said of the findings:

“Good jobs for men, it would seem, make for more marriage, even as bad or no jobs makes for less marriage.”

Report author Brad Wilcox said:

“A stable job with predictable hours, good benefits, and good pay put men in the marriage market. If we want Americans to raise their children in stable, solid families, with all the benefits that entails, we must understand the need for good, solid working-class jobs. Stability and status are important if we are to see working-class men end their detachment from full-time work.”

For the full report:

Grant Martsolf, Brad Wilcox, “Good Jobs, Strong Families: How the Character of Men’s Work is Linked to Their Family Status,” Institute for Family Studies, April 2025

ENDS

Notes.

The Institute for Family Studies is a 501(c)(3) based in Charlottesville, VA.

Grant Martsolf is a Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing. He writes on issues related to class and well-being at his Substack newsletter “The Savage Collective.” https://www.nursing.pitt.edu/person/grant-r-martsolf 

Brad Wilcox, Melville Foundation Jefferson Scholars Foundation University Professor of Sociology and Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, Future of Freedom Fellow and Director of the Get Married Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies, and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Brad Wilcox is the author of Get Married: Why Americans Should Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families and Save Civilization (Harper Collins, 2024). https://ifstudies.org/about-us/brad-wilcox

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