1. @katebachwsj opens up @UVA: Most Americans still aspire to marriage and have kids. But some are struggling to find partners and start families.

https://twitter.com/BradWilcoxIFS/status/1909649087538102520

2. @Louise_m_perry -- Yes, marriage is in retreat, at least compared to the mid-20th century. But things have leveled off of late. Imp to note that "Marriage is human universal. We need some way to manage heterosexuality" & "reproduction." "Marriage is the way societies" have organized this.

1. New Study: The happiest wives have husbands who are more protective -- as well as committed, religious & romantic. Wives' odds of being "very happy" increase by

☑️ 137% w/ more protective
☑️ 399% w/ more committed
☑️ 112% w/ more religious
☑️ 56% w/ more romantic

husbands.

https://twitter.com/BradWilcoxIFS/status/1887836929925718197

2. “One of the striking things I found in speaking to wives on both the left and the right is that they were generally markedly happier when they told me that their husbands made them feel physically safe or protected."

In 2024, the link between voting Republican & having more babies deepened. Here's what it looked like in the '24 presidential election:

https://twitter.com/BradWilcoxIFS/status/1869719231648219253

Here's the shift illustrated from 2012-2024 by @grantjbailey:

R Squared goes from...

.08 in 2012 to .26 in 2024:

1. "Is the long-standing tie between the Republican Party & marriage fraying in an era when the party’s standard bearer has flouted so many of the institution’s values and virtues?

No, the data suggest that the relationship between the Republican Party and marriage has largely persisted amidst the Trump era." @FamStudiesifstudies.org/blog/the-repub… 2. "Overall, the relative Republican advantage when it comes to [marriage] has grown a bit, even as fewer Americans—including Republicans—are currently married."

Re: Marriage:
✔️ In 2000, Rs > Ds by 10 percentage pts
✔️ In 2022, Rs > Ds 15 percentage pts

Never thought I'd see this.

Churchgoing ⬆️ in Gen Z.

Led by... young men.

@ryanburge: "Religious attendance is actually *increasing* among [young] men."
Source:

https://x.com/ryanburge/status/1839642860208967912

1. We know the "success sequence" is tied to better economic outcomes for young adults.

The sequence is also tied to better emotional outcomes & less distress. @FamStudies

2. "Even after controlling for income, the sequence remains a significant factor in predicting young adult mental health. Their odds of experiencing high emotional distress by their mid-30s are reduced by about 50% for young adults who have completed the 3 steps of the Success Sequence, after controlling for a range of background factors."

1. Parenthood gets a bad rap in MSM (see NYT below).

Given @JonHaidt @jean_twenge research on ideology & mental health, I wondered if negativity driven by progressive commitments of journalists. Turns out:

Striking differences in parental happiness by ideology, per 2022 GSS.

2. Today, "conservative parents are more likely to report they are very happy w their lives" than liberals

✔️33% of conservative parents "very happy" VS
✔️ 22% of liberal parents "very happy"

Source: @WendyRWang @AlysseElHage @BradWilcoxIFS @Deseret deseret.com/family/2024/09…

If "conservative forms of fatherhood were obviously toxic relative to the Walzian glories of liberal dadhood, you would presumably expect to see those effects made manifest among children," @DouthatNYT. But the data pt in a different direction:



As @JonHaidt has noted, it's progressive young women whose mental health has tanked the most in recent years: afterbabel.com/p/mental-healt…

1. Big family policy news w/ this selection.

@JDVance1 interested in advancing policies re:

✓ Marriage penalties facing w-c families

✓ Minimizing costs of having a baby

✓ Maximizing childcare choices

✓ Expanding child tax credit

@politicopoliti.co/3zI3Ubr 2. @JDVance1 proposed amendment re: the marriage penalty congress.gov/amendment/118t…

I survey the "closing of the American heart" (cf @lymanstoneky on trends in marriage below) in this NYT interview, both re: what's driving the marriage rate down & what we can do about it.

4 key points from the interview🧵 nytimes.com/2024/02/26/opi… x.com/BradWilcoxIFS/… 1. Too many young men are floundering in school, work & life, undercutting their marriageability.

Esp. true for less-educated men ➡️ Staggering 1-in-4 less-educated men in prime not working full-time.

Why the concern re: polyamory, asks @justin_mogilski of the University of South Carolina?

It's not about some antiquated hangup.

It's that monogamy is a major social achievement, as Harvard's @JoHenrich's work has shown.

Why does monogamy matter?

Let me count the ways🧵 Men and women are pulled in a variety of sometimes conflicting directions when it comes to mating. Monogamous societies, @JoHenrich's work suggests, channel mating towards pair bonding. What are the collective benefits?

1) Monogamy reduces rape, murder, and social disorder.

1. Fascinating new study from @rlhopcro @unccharlotte:

The relationship between 💵 & key family outcomes (being married, having kids, getting divorced) varies a lot by sex, even today.

@FamStudiesifstudies.org/blog/whose-mon… 2. For

✔️ men, more 💵 = more marriage

✔️ women, more 💵 = less marriage

Source: @rlhopcro @unccharlotte
ifstudies.org/blog/whose-mon…

1. We know smartphones have created big problems for teens, thanks to @jean_twenge @JonHaidt.

But what about adults?

What’s the impact of smartphones on adults?

@WendyRWang investigates smartphones & marriage in this new @FamStudies research:

ifstudies.org/blog/more-scro… 2. One therapist:📱“have caused more upheaval than anything I’ve seen in my career. We’ve normalized them being intrusive & taking precedence when people are lying in bed, playing Wordle or scrolling through TikTok rather than talking to each other.”

Are his concerns merited?

New study:

Happiest men and women in Europe are:

✔️ In *neotraditional relationships* where he works full-time, she works part-time

✔️ Married

✔️ Parents of young children

Unhappiest are:

✔️ She works, he doesn’t

✔️ Neither work

academic.oup.com/esr/advance-ar… Descriptive statistics for satisfaction for European men & women + details

1. NEW: Growing ideological polarization between men/women spells bad news for marriage as

✔️ Y men moving slightly Right

✔️ Y women moving strongly Left

& “fewer Americans willing to date/marry across aisle.”

My latest w/ @lymanstoneky @TheAtlantic
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… 2. @TheAtlantic: In last decade, “Young single men have been moving to the right, even as their female peers have been moving even further left.” theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

"Men need a mission. 'For the average guy, there’s no more important mission than being a husband and a father,'" I told @HadleyHeath. @NRO nationalreview.com/magazine/2023/… A big reason young men are floundering is that the meaning and responsibilities afforded by marriage & fatherhood are not theirs and not even on their horizon. So, there's nothing really to strive *for*. They have no mission in life.

Striking, new evidence young men in America are moving Right:

✔️ Fewer than half of Gen Z men think “feminism has made America a better place”

https://twitter.com/richardvreeves/status/1661466497204596736

This comes on heels of evidence fr @jean_twenge’s new book, *Generations*, which shows HS boys turning right (even as female peers turn left). Stunning ideological divide among HS seniors today:

✔️ @ 65% of HS senior boys conservative

✔️ @ 31% of HS senior girls conservative

1. “The US Government can do nothing to promote marriage”

I hear this a lot from scholars & journalists who point to Bush marriage initiative to advance the claim.

But they’re wrong.

Our biggest federal agency has a long record of promoting marriage.
ifstudies.org/blog/how-the-m… 2. Consider this:

In the U.S. military, officers & enlisted

✔️ Marry at relatively younger ages

✔️ Marry at higher rates

✔️ Witness virtually no racial divide in marriage

ifstudies.org/blog/how-the-m… @FamStudies

1. New from @dcoxpolls: “Close to half (45%) of college-educated single women say their relationship status is largely due to an inability to find someone who meets their expectations.” @FamStudies @AEI ifstudies.org/blog/the-colle… 2. For a majority of single, college-educated women these are dating liabilities:

Being

✔️ Republican
✔️ Not college-educated
✔️ Very religious

Narrows the pool a good bit. Source: @dcoxpolls

1. Been spotlighting👇🏼 *bad news* about Teens & Tech.

But now looks like *good news* coming from Utah.

UT is poised to take lead in treating “Big Tech like Big Tobacco” w/ raft of reform laws designed to help families navigate social media: deseret.com/2023/1/18/2355… @SpencerJCox 2. Utah legislature & @GovCox are responding to research like this report from @jean_twenge et al indicating that Big Tech & social media, in particular, are fueling depression, loneliness, and suicide among teens, esp teen girls: ifstudies.org/ifs-admin/reso…

1. A new analysis by the @AEI Housing Center reveals that one group outperforms all others when it comes to achieving homeownership: married couples. Moreover, this is true for both black and white Americans. ifstudies.org/blog/the-benef… 2. Across entire income spectrum, there is, on average, an approx 20-percentage-points boost in homeownership rates for black & white married households (compared to non-married households) when comparing those of similar income level: @AEI @FamStudies ifstudies.org/blog/the-benef…